Every once in a while comes a movie that makes you question the legitimacy and talent that is involved in creating a motion picture. Then a movie like this comes along that makes you wonder how hard is it really to produce a motion picture when garbage like this falls through the cracks. Kickboxing Academy is one of those movies that is so bad you almost have to watch it to realize what a bad movie is, and I was so tempted to recommend it based on that fact, but I will spare you all the agony with my take on Kickboxing Academy:

The Players:

Chyler Leigh - Cindy
Christopher Lee - Danny
David Everett - Brian
Donna Barnes - June
Steven Bauer - Carl
Tony Pacheco - Tarbeck

The Play:

Kickboxing Academy is a Karate dojo for all the good kids and weakling kids to join, headed by Master June (eye candy model looks of course), across the street there is the evil dojo Fatal Combat headed by the ex-military man, insane Tarbeck (Sounds like Karate Kid anyone?). The man that owns the Kickboxing Academy is the father of a boy who was killed in competition long ago by June, later determined to be a heart condition and not her fault, and he wants to sell it to an investor, June’s conniving boyfriend Carl who eventually wants to build office stores and share the glory with Tarbeck.

Instead of just selling the place outright, the owner decided to have a tournament between the two dojos, winner takes all (that’s a great owner, don’t you think?). Fatal combat supposedly has the mean, experienced kickboxing kids and KA has the dorks and dweebs with 2 left feet. The training commences.

Meanwhile there is a love triangle between Cindy and Brian who are both on the KA team, Danny is the outcast who left the team, yet he is the cutest and best fighter they had, Brian and Danny get into it when Danny hits on his girl, the laughter ensues.

Everything leads to the grand finale of so called kickboxing action with the KA kids vs the FC kids, needless to say who wins and who is happy at the end...

The Good:

Boy, that’s a tough one, I am trying to decipher what was good about it, it is so difficult, much like watching the film with a straight face. The movie is relatively short, 85 minutes, yet is seems to drag in that span. The end fight between Danny and the evil Predator looking black guy has glimpses of kickboxing, yet the cinematography and dubbing ruin that as well. If there is a shred of acting in the vicinity of decent I would say it’s David Everett (Brian) who has some issues with his girl and the guy she chooses over him, one scene when he is drunk is almost believable.

The Bad:

Boy, that’s an easy one, EVERYTHING. I would say this is the worst modern movie (non MST3000 movie) I have ever seen. Sure, kickboxing movies in general are bad, but at least they have some decent fight sequences worth watching. For a movie with the word “Kickboxing” in the title there sure was not much of that taking place, at least not good one. The choreography and stunt sequences were horrendous, shot poorly and acted even worse. Aside from Christopher Lee, nobody in the film knew how to kickbox, he had glimpses of talent.

Kickboxing aside, the acting is totally absurd, thanks in big part to the script that could have been written by a 10 year old film student, with phrases like “OWW, my assssss!” repeated twice in the same sentence, or my favorite, when Brian talks to Cindy and says something like “you called me, crying, and your exact words were ‘keppertully plank, keppur, kerplank’.” (not kidding). I can’t believe Steven Bauer, well known from Scarface and Primal Fear would take on a role like this in a film like this, it totally shot his credibility with this reviewer. The kicker is Tarbeck, the militant leader of Fatal Combat, he was the absolute worst because is an adult who acted like a baby throughout, he is almost a carbon copy of Joe Piscopo’s role in Sidekicks another cheesy movie but not as bad as this one. He goes insane and wants to shoot everyone with a machine gun in the arena after his team loses, a little kid kicks his butt to save the day.

The premise of the movie is one we’ve seen before and the storyline is absurd. You know you are in for a bad flick when it was released in 1997 and the title song sounds like a bad 80s pop medley and a song played in a scene at the beach sounds like 50s Beach Blanket Bingo.

Overall grade:

0.6 of 5

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12