The original American Ninja movie had moments of WTF nuttiness sprinkled throughout your standard-issue Ninja flick. Despite having flashes of cinematic craziness, it still desperately tried to pass itself off as a “real” movie and not a ridiculous Cannon action cheesefest. American Ninja 2: The Confrontation thankfully does away with any pretension and just gives us a balls-to-the-wall bat shit insane Ninja movie.
This time out, American Ninja Joe (Michael Dudikoff) and his buddy Jackson (Steve James) get a job guarding an Embassy on a remote tropical island. It seems that a lot of guards have been mysteriously disappearing, so the duo investigates. They learn that a drug dealer has blackmailed a scientist searching for a cure for cancer into using his genetic research to turn the missing soldiers into an army of biologically engineering super ninjas.
I’m all for utter zaniness and reckless abandon whenever you’re writing a Ninja movie but someone should’ve stopped screenwriter Gary Conway when he got to the “biologically engineered super ninjas” part. Once they are introduced, the movie breaks the Goofy Meter and becomes so fucking mind-numbingly idiotic that I honestly think I lost some IQ points just from watching it. I mean the doctor’s lab features cryogenically frozen Ninjas stuffed in oversized test tubes for Pete’s sakes! You don’t even see that kind of wacky shit in Ninja Turtles cartoons!
Even though the movie gets increasingly sillier as it goes along, I still thoroughly enjoyed myself. The opening scenes were particularly great with Dudikoff hanging around the oceanfront base with a bunch of highly effeminate beach bums/Marines. The first fifteen minutes are mostly spent on Dudikoff fighting Ninjas on the beach; which made me think the movie should’ve been called American Ninja 2: Ninjas in Paradise. The plot eventually dropped the travelogue aspect of the story and concentrated on the more Sci-Fi-ish type stuff.
The flick starts getting pretty stupid pretty fast near the end. I mean there is one completely moronic scene where the bad guy shows some potential investors how great his new biologically engineered super-ninjas (BESN’s) are by giving them a demonstration of their skills. Afterwards, he sends his right-hand man into the arena and he promptly kills like a dozen of the BESN’s. Wouldn’t the fact that your personal bodyguard can easily kill your multi-million dollar BESN’s make your investors a bit worried?
There are also way too many comic relief moments involving James. I know he’s the sidekick and everything but he really shouldn’t have to have so many stupid one-liners while kicking somebody’s ass. The part where he knocks down a bunch of people at the same time and you hear the sound of bowling pins on the soundtrack is the comedic low point of the film.
As many flaws as American Ninja 2 has; I can’t help but like it. As in the first movie, this one features some head-scratching logic that made me laugh out loud on numerous occasions. Like how all of Dudikoff’s Marine cronies dressed “undercover” as Hawaiian shirt-wearing surfer dudes. They looked especially idiotic because they still sported their military buzz cuts and never bothered to cover up their blatantly obvious Special Forces tattoos. And how about the opening scene in which a bunch of drunks roll some unsuspecting soldiers in a bar. It’s kinda odd when you think about it because it’s usually the other way around. There were lots of little moments of cinematic hilarity like this that made the flick so much fun.
Most of these goofy scenes revolve around the villains. For example, the main bad guy was called “The Lion” but his real name was “Leo”. That was so dumb that I had to laugh. I also liked the Bond movie scene where the hero disguised himself and took a tour of the villain’s secret multi-million dollar facility where he told him all about his operation too. Then where was the bad guys’ great dialogue that conveniently allows them to say the title of the movie; like when the right-hand man says, “That damn American Ninja, he fights like a tiger!” The funniest moment though is when The Lion meets Joe for the first time and says, “American Ninja… I presume.”
Director Sam Firstenberg does a much better job on the action side of things than in the previous film. This was his fourth Ninja Movie (after Revenge of the Ninja, Ninja 3: The Domination, and American Ninja), so he pretty much knew how to film all the spears shoved through the ribcages, face slashing, ninja stars to the forehead, blow-darts to the face, ninjas being set on fire, and knives to the neck this sort of thing requires. The action sequences are a lot more competently staged this time around and are filmed with a lot more energy. Really, it’s just one big Ninja free for all as it’s basically Michael Dudikoff beating the bejabbers out of dudes in black pajamas for 90 minutes.
Speaking of Dudikoff; he’s a lot more credible in his action scenes too, although he still relies on an obvious stunt double occasionally. He seems to have gotten used to the whole “acting” thing as well and carries himself much better in this outing. For whatever reason, he declined to return for 89’s American Ninja 3 but came back to the series for Part 4.
Thirty years earlier, screenwriter Gary Conway made his acting debut as the monster in the immortal I Was a Teenage Frankenstein. Luckily, he writes as good as he acts. I think my favorite line of dialogue had to be when Dudikoff’s superior got mad and yelled, “This is really beginning to get on my tits!”
