Margarita Movies

Let me start off by pointing out that Nick lived up to his pseudonym, Enter the Dragon’s Roper, and was lured away from the Margarita movie by a woman of sketchy nature.  This left the black guy and the asian d00d to handle the growing army of martial artists lurking in the shadows of…Berlin

Before I go further let me relieve your worries:  Ninja Assassin is not in fact a redundant title.  The titular character is, in fact, an assassin of ninja!

We start off with your boilerplate moment of young punks up to no good scene.  In this case, young rejects from the Fast and the Furious are sitting in a large warehouse full of ill gotten booty, the more common prostitutional booty and enough guns at hand to let you know that this scene will not be remembered for its Mamet style dialogue.

A package is delivered.  A PACKAGE OF BLACK SAND!!!

The party screeches to a halt as the Expositional Old Man talks about the legend of the NINJA and how he is the only person to ever see a NINJA and live to tell others about NINJA!  Except he refuses to ever say the word ninja.  It is like watching Cinemax and after a while you start screaming at the movie to just show the penis.  Perhaps I reveal too much.

Anyway Expositional Guy Shows the punks his tattoo.  It is of a NINJA stabbing him in his stab wound.  He reveals his secret:  He only lived because his heart is on the wrong side!  This is important.

Ninja are attention whores.  That is why they only attack at the most dramatic moment.  Case in point, they slaughter everyone in the room right after the old guy tells the story.  At this point, the cutscene starts and CGI everything covers the screen.  Blood, Blades, bullets i am not sure anything in the fight was practical.  That said it was really shiny and easy to see.  Suck on that Michael Bay!

We are introduced to Europol.  It is actually a good thing Nick missed the movie because if Chun Li is any indication I would have had to listen to him go on about the ridiculousness of Interpol and why would this American Black woman would be in it.  Europol are investigating this horrific murder and it reminds them of their old co-worker who went insane trying to prove that ninja exist.

I have to say something.  It always bothers me that in ninja movies and zombie movie that people are forced to act like they have never seen a ninja or zombie movie.  It always throws me out of the movie.  Why is this a necessary trope?  Knowing of zombies and ninja will not stop you from getting killed in the mall!

Anyway, we have to suffer thru a good 20 minutes of Eurborepol trying to convince us there is no such thing as ninja before we find ourselves in a laundrymat.  Cute chick ninja fights hipster d00d ninja.  That is all that happens.

More investigation.  Look filmmakers, if you call a movie NINJA F**KING ASSASSIN it is safe to say the audience will know what a ninja is.  We don’t need all the build up.  just get to the beheadings and shuriken please!  No one cares about the tenuous love interest.  just make her hot and let her walk in front of ninja battles that the hero would have ignored otherwise.

So for those still reading, there is a woman.  She believes in ninja.  No one else does.  She finds one.  He buys her jeans.  They fall in love.  Her boss uses her for ninja bait.  She gets stabbed.

On the more interesting side:  We have a hero ninja.  He was kidnapped as a child and tortured into become one of the greatest ninja ever.  One of his co-ninjettes realized there was more to life than stabbing fat russian diplomats.  She tries to get Hero ninja to run away with her but he is a coward.  She goes over the wall but the Ignored son of Sho Kosugi, master of All Ninja catches her.  She is given a show trial then stabbed.

Did I mention  there are 3 female roles in this move and 2 of them get stabbed?  the other one is the wife of someone who gets stabbed.  I guess she was home sick that day and lucked out.

Hero ninja decides that he cannot be a ninja in this clan anymore.  So he heads out into the world to be a solo ninja. When he sees another ninja, he kills them.  Eventually the clan finds him, there is a reckoning with a background of fire.  Many shuriken are thrown.  there is so much blood in the movie that the only way they could have done it was in CG otherwise the world’s corn syrup supply would have been crippled.

If you like ninja, go see this movie.  They are well represented here.   you get to see the mysterious training, the classic outfit, hiding in shadows and decapitations OH THE DECAPITATIONS!  Apparently at some point in the 90s ( guessing around Resident Evil, maybe?) all action guys got together and decided chopping d00ds heads at the neck was weaksauce.  So now we are in the age of the asymmetrical mid skull cut. Top of skull sliding to the right as the body falls left,  blood spray everywhere seems to be the favorite.

Anyway to wrap this up, the hero fights his jealous rival.  the hero fights his master.  At some point Europol hands the whole case to the Japanese SDF and they storm Castle Ninja.  As I mentioned earlier the girl is stabbed thru the just and our weeping hero cradles her weeping about the wonderful times they had when he kidnapped her and bought her a pair of Jeans.  Suddenly she coughs and wakes up, “My heart is on the other side…”

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WHAT THE EFF?!??

So is there a lost scene where we find out that she is the illegit daughter of Ol Man Expository from the beginning???  I have rarely seen more preposterous twist endings but I have never seen one that was actually set up from the beginning!

My S.C.A.L.E. scale”

STORY: 5 - Nothing really stupid, but nothing particularly clever.  i would have said 3 but just for the ridiculous ending and having the balls to set it up is worth the +2

COMEDY: 3 - Not many laughs, intentional or unintentional.  it somehow takes itself just serious enough.  The scene about buying jeans is somehow  amusing.

AWESOMENESS: 8 - The set pieces in this bad boy are bonkers.  the Opening is a nice set up for the randoms that have somehow never heard of ninja while showcasing what we are gonna see in the rest of the movie.  Everytime a ninja music cue starts you sit up in your chair.  There are a couple of places where they should have not used CGI but what are you gonna do

LADIES: 2 - That is how many there are in the movie you want to look at.  If you multiply that by 10 that is how many lines all 3 women have.  Oh wait there was a ninja girl.  She got stuffed in a dryer.

ETC: 5 - it was nice to see that a competent director can blend the CG and live action into something better than that scene in Blade 2 or most of GI Joe.  I give it props.

- DE3