“There’s no law against being a ninja!”
I’ve officially had this cold for over a week now and it still hasn’t fully cleared up. I hate the world!
Also, just a head’s up, I’ll be away for a week starting from tomorrow. I’ve, uh, no idea where it is I’m going! It’s somewhere in the countryside, I guess, but that’s about as specific as my knowledge goes. It’d be pretty rad if I could say I was taking a holiday to hell, but well, no, that’d be a little unpleasant. The damned do not accept tourists well.
While waiting for my files to be backed up yesterday I decided to throw on Brain Smasher… A Love Story, something I picked up based purely on the title. It’s some nonsense story about a supermodel (played by somebody who would later star in Desperate Housewives, apparently, if that means anything to any of the five people that read these things) being chased by Chinese monks (easily mistaken for ninjas!) because her sister has possession of a sacred flower that apparently holds the key to “the ultimate power.” A muscle-bound bouncer known as the Brain Smasher gets involved in protecting the girl, and, basically, stuff happens. After the initial premise is set up it’s hard to really describe anything, as it all just boils down to ridiculous scenarios that exist to pad things out until the final showdown.
Apparently it was only released direct to video, but in its own way, it seems to work well in that aspect – the movie just exudes vibes that imply it was just the director’s vision and nothing else. The characters are cast perfectly, the visual style is just right, and the story is very, very entertaining – from the flimsy comic book plot the snappy dialogue, it carries itself very nicely. The story does peter out towards the end, though – maybe it’s the fact that nothing can stop a swarm of Chinese monks beating up an entire police station’s worth of cops, but after they escape it just kinda drops into a slump. The two characters split up, the bouncer gets kidnapped, lots of fluffing around until they get to the cathedral, and then there’s a rather anti-climatic end fight. I won’t deny that I can barely remember anything from the last half hour. It’s a pity, as it holds it own quite nicely for the first hour, but then seems to let the momentum slow too much and can’t quite get it rolling to the same calibre again.
Still, it’s an entertaining flick and a decent hour and a half of fluff. It ain’t no masterpiece, and one could happily live without ever watching it, but for what it is it isn’t bad.
In unrelated news AAAARRRRGGGHHHH
Pet peeve.
