American Ninja 4

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Dudikoff returns as Joe Armstrong but does any of the magic of the first 2 films come with him? And can David Bradley match up to his Alpha Ninja? And can Karl stand in for Steve James? Nope, uh uh and wowie no way man.

So basically, our boy from AN3 Sean (David Bradley) pairs up with his buddy to save some POWs held captive by a snobby Colonel Neil Diamond and his terrorist pal Shah-Blah-Blah who want $50 million and blow up a nuke in NYC. Well Sean and Carl get nabbed and tortured so the USA calls in ol' Joe Armstrong to ninja up and kick his way through a ninja training camp to free them all. The usual stuff here. Along the way he travels to Barter Town, fights in Thunderdome and recruits a horde of barbarians to invade the baddies fortress. Joe then finds the captives, proves his superiority to Sean, kills Sean, finds out dead Sean is an imposter (because?) and then wanders off.

So its the worst of the AN series and by quite a ways. There's very little remarkable in it outside of the lunacy that I mentioned last paragraph. The ninjas are dumb. The stunts are boring. The fight choreography is mushy. And the villains suck. There's also a ton of filler with the middle section mostly consisting of Sean, Karl and Sarah (Robin Stille) getting smacked around, Joe sharpening his sword (which he never uses) and the baddies cackling ala Dr. Evil.....for 40 minutes.

It's still a do, but just barely and not for anyone that isn't a baloney ninja action movie fan.

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