Sunday, December 1, 2013

Review: BLACK EAGLE

Black Eagle
Director: Eric "I Hate This Guy" Karson
Rated R
107 Minutes, 1988

The Coverart is the best part about this movie.
Action. The name of the genre itself would make one think that there will never a boring film that belongs in the category. That's obviously not true. One shining example of this is the 1988 "Action" film Black Eagle.

Black Eagle is a piece of shit. It is not the most boring action movie I have ever seen. It's the most boring movie I have ever seen. Period. It's a damn shame too.

The movie is about a plane with some super secret weapons technology. The plane goes down in the sea. The Russians want to recover the American technology from the depths. The Americans, obviously want to prevent that from happening.

Ken Tani (Sho Kosugi) is a special operative assigned to protecting and recovering the weapon technology. However, much of his time on screen is spent diving or trying his best to be a Ninja Dad to his kids. His kids (played by his real life children) are essentially held hostage by the CIA on a nearby island to ensure Tani completes the mission and remains loyal.

Fo Sho'
The Russians suck. They are non-descript and completely uninspired. They aren't evil. They aren't crazy stereotypes. They aren't fun. In one of his earliest roles, Jean-Claude VanDamme plays the main Russian Henchman by the name of Andrei. It's amazing to see how uninspiring and how little charisma VanDamme shows in this picture. This film was released the same year as Bloodsport. In Bloodsport, VanDamme is charming and totally kickass. In this, he's looks like he'd rather be working at White Castle.

The same thing goes for Sho Kosugi. I haven't seen all of his movies or anything, but he typically comes off as a totally badass ninja dude. In Black Eagle, there are so few action scenes of note, he looks like a wimpy TV Movie Dad that occasionally stabs people in the belly.

Sho betta rekognize.
The cover art for this movie made it seem totally awesome. Sho Kosugi Vs. VanDamme should be an extravaganza or awesome martial arts. Instead, its very TV Movie-ish. The music reminds me of a Universal Monster movie (which is great for those movies, not this one). The film is mostly scenes of Babysitting kids, diving, and running around grey Maltese ruins. . . but VanDamme still does the splits about 14 times. So it may be worth watching if you're into that.

- M. McSlam

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