Episode 4 - Jiu Jitsu

This is the greatest movie ever made and I will not hear otherwise

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello, welcome back to Disaster Peace Theater.
I'm Tom Truffolo, your jittery jester on this journey into madness.
.999And let me tell you, we found an excellent film for everyone today.
.999So the last few movies we've reviewed, we've talked about a lot of weird fuck stuff.
And after consulting with my therapist, uh, their advice was, change it up a little bit.

(00:24):
So, we're going to go do a complete 180, and I think I have found the absolute antithesis of the movies we've been reviewing. 7 00:00:34,669.999 --> 00:00:40,760 And today, we're going to be doing a screening of Jiu Jitsu, starring Nicolas Cage.
This 2020 action film had a budget of 25 million dollars, and somehow managed to gross just under a hundred thousand dollars.

(00:50):
.999Now, you might be thinking to yourself, there was a little bit of a global catastrophe during this, uh, 2020 time period.
.999I can assure you that is not the reason for this.
.9This movie is dead.
Deliciously terrible.
But before we dive into it, we'll give it its fair shake.
.999So what does this movie present itself as? Well, the description for Jujitsu is, every six years, an ancient order of Jujitsu fighters joins forces to battle a vicious race of alien invaders.

(01:21):
But when a celebrated war hero goes down in defeat, the fate of the planet and mankind hangs in the balance.
What is it really? Not that fucking description.
This movie wildly misses the mark on every single point there, except every six years.
.999So there is no race of alien invaders.

(01:44):
It's one alien.
There's no fucking jiu jitsu. 21 00:01:47,844.999 --> 00:02:04,060 There's a whole bunch of random martial arts sword fighting, but for those of you who aren't familiar, Jiu Jitsu is like grappling, mat wrestling, think, uh, the, the arm bar, knee bar, choke hold type work. 22 00:02:04,509.999 --> 00:02:09,279.999 Not kicking, punching, jumpy, flippy, spinny shit, but that's what we get a lot of.

(02:09):
.999Oh, and there is no celebrated war hero that goes down in defeat.
Uh, I don't know where they got that up, that sentence is just pulled from thin fuckin air.
.999So what this movie actually is, is a complete misunderstanding of the English language.
.999Because, who gives a shit about it when we got HOO YAH! KIAI! Kick punching action! It is wonderful from start to finish.

(02:34):
In that it is just so deliciously terrible.
And as tends to be the case with most Nicolas Cage movies, the movie seems to happen around him.
.999And he's just there, sort of in proximity, shit talking everybody the whole way through, trying to do his own thing.
It's, it's great.
It's just great.
But anyway, I've got more coffee running through me than I do blood.

(02:56):
So I'm gonna go take a break real quick, and then when we come back, we're gonna dive into all of the misunderstanding of jujitsu that is jujitsu.
.999Okay, we're back. 35 00:03:06,369.999 --> 00:03:12,275 And I gotta tell you right off the bat, this movie confounded me on every single level.
.999It starts off with this weird comic book theme where they open with a comic, what's intended to represent a comic book panel, and it's subtitled The Comic. 37 00:03:27,774.999 --> 00:03:40,095 And this starts happening over and over again, where between what we'll generously call scenes, the movie has these comic book pages that are subtitled with, here's the next section of the movie.

(03:40):
So, I got curious.
Why? Is this based on a comic book? And sure enough, it is.
But, not in the way you would conventionally think.
The director of this movie is famous for revitalizing the Jean Claude Van Damme films.
Kickboxer.
He started off with Kickboxer Retaliation, and is working on a, I guess, trilogy of Kickboxer movies, because we haven't sufficiently mined the well that is an aging Jean Claude Van Damme. 44 00:04:13,809.999 --> 00:04:25,075 But as part of his successful, in quotes, revitalization of the kickboxer franchise, someone decided that it was okay to let him just kind of do whatever he wanted. 45 00:04:26,64.999 --> 00:04:36,724.999 And as a natural progression of the kickboxer franchise, this guy thought, you know what we really need? Fucking alien martial arts combat.

(04:37):
In his own words, to, quote, see if it would work, he created a comic book out of this insane story that was if you have a martial arts kumite with an alien invader.
And apparently he thought, yeah, this shit totally works.

(04:57):
We're going to make this into a movie. 49 00:04:59,794.999 --> 00:05:05,855 So comic book motif, understanding that it's made by a guy who is not a comic book artist. 50 00:05:05,954.999 --> 00:05:10,485 I wouldn't say he's not really a film guy either, but that's neither here nor there.
Somehow it's This guy swindled Nicolas Cage into this movie because I'm convinced Nic Cage has never turned down a role.

(05:18):
Ever.
So he gets Nic Cage to sign on to this, then he suddenly gets a couple other name people that you might recognize.
.999Uh, Frank Grillo, if you're familiar with Captain America and the Winter Soldier. 55 00:05:29,815.001 --> 00:05:37,065 Marie Avgaropoulos, if you're familiar with The 100 or any other shitty B movies that we're probably gonna talk about at some point.
.9Um, Tony Jaa.

(05:39):
who you may recognize from the Ongbok series.
So some pretty recognizable names in certain circles and some pretty famous or some pretty notable martial arts talent. 59 00:05:50,789.999 --> 00:05:52,480 So he's got his pieces in the play.
.999And with that in mind, we've got our cast of over the top B movie actors, and we've got ourselves a smattering of martial artists.

(06:06):
You know we're in for a great ride.
So back to the A random guy being hunted by Batman, I guess? It's not quite clear.
He's running through a jungle and there's a whole bunch of like Batman, Batman style batarangs that are flying all around him, but thank god that whatever is hunting him has Stormtrooper aim because it could not hit our, our intrepid hero here if it tried.

(06:34):
So he's running for a good, you know, few minutes through the jungle because fuck setup.
We're just gonna jump right into the action, not explain what this is, what's going on, or who cares.
.999Now, as our intrepid hero runs through the jungle, uh, he finally gets tagged by, by Batman, by space Batman that's following him, and takes a Batarang clean in the back.

(06:59):
But it doesn't actually hurt him.
It apparently, like, it makes this very, very dramatic thunk sound, and you see it bounce off.
.999He's got a tiny little scratch, but this is somehow enough to push him off of a cliff, drop him in water, and leave him, you know, on the edge. 70 00:07:16,689.999 --> 00:07:18,129.999 So that's what happens. 71 00:07:18,129.999 --> 00:07:28,385 We open with Some guy who's going to be our hero getting hit in the back by a batarang, falling off a cliff, and, uh, crashing into some water. 72 00:07:29,774.999 --> 00:07:30,185 That's it.

(07:30):
That's the opening scene. 74 00:07:31,724.999 --> 00:07:33,465 Cut to another comic book panel.
This scene is titled, The Rescue.
So we open with, uh, pitch black darkness.
.999No moon.
No stars, certainly no sun, but you get Nick Cage in a boat with the widest possible straw sun hat.
And, it's delightful.
Right out of the bat, everything Nick Cage does in this movie, Mwah! 100 percent beautiful.

(07:55):
Now, I'm gonna spoil something here for you, audience, because it takes way too long to get there and it really fundamentally doesn't matter.
Nick Cage is the father of the guy who was running through the forest.
.999So, Nick Cage is out night fishing with his buddy, and what would happen, but they come across the body of the dude who, in the middle of the day, got hit, got knocked unconscious and fell off a cliff.

(08:25):
So, they drag this guy out of the water. 85 00:08:27,49.999 --> 00:08:31,169.999 Nick Cage is like, well, we discovered a body, so I'm just going to fuck off and not be in this anymore. 86 00:08:32,139.999 --> 00:08:46,025 And, his friend goes, takes him back, uh, as part of his fishing haul, and he has this prolonged discussion with his wife about, oh, what are we going to do with this guy? They end up taking him to a U.

(08:46):
S.
military base.
Which, you know, as you do, right? Fuck hospitals.
Fuck local authorities.
Take him straight to the U.
S.
military.
All of this is to set up The next 30 minutes of this barely hour and a half movie where we've got ourselves our hero Whose name is Jake the movie takes way too long getting there You don't find that out till about halfway through the movie.

(09:08):
His name is Jake So they get Jake locked into a cell with army intelligence officer Marie of Garoppolis Who quite frankly? character name If it was mentioned, I never picked up on it.
I've got her in my notes as Octavia from the 100 the whole time.
So, and Octavia is a no nonsense, ball busting military intelligence officer. 98 00:09:38,454.999 --> 00:09:44,385 And we know this because she says, quote, I'm army intelligence and I'm good. 99 00:09:44,385.1 --> 00:10:05,869.999 And then as if to immediately undercut that line, we cut immediately to Army intelligence officer Octavia asking Jake, where did you get that stitch job for his minor back wound? But, the previous scene had a little old lady telling him that she fixed him up. 100 00:10:06,199.999 --> 00:10:13,315 So, immediately undercutting this character and her agency, she is clearly An ace intelligence officer.

(10:14):
Now, I'm going to break in here and say, I think the director had a personal vendetta with Maria Afgeropoulos and really wanted to make her look stupid.
.999Because this character is wildly underutilized throughout the entire film.
She is portrayed as really fucking dense, really dumb, unable to do her job, and then gets unceremoniously killed off.

(10:40):
Maybe in a half hour, maybe 40 minutes in.
So, completely underutilized for the level of acting caliber you've got relative to a bunch of martial artists.
But, I don't know, that's just a theory.
.999But before we can waste any more time on this, uh, we find out that our hero Jake Now, typically, to get amnesia, at least as portrayed in movies, one needs to get struck in the head, have some type of brain trauma.

(11:12):
Apparently, Jake's brain is in his fucking left lap because this guy got hit.
Again, I cannot stress this enough.
He got a mild wound in his back, but somehow that was enough to knock the fucking sense out of him, and this dude has no idea what his name is, he has no idea where he is, he doesn't know what he's even doing.

(11:33):
Let alone, uh, why, what was chasing him through the woods.
Nothing that could be helpful for Army Intelligence Officer Octavia.
So, critical plot line.
He's got amnesia.
He's gonna have amnesia through the whole film.
.999It is going to be endlessly frustrating for me that the characters around him continue to forget that he has amnesia.

(11:57):
.999Almost as if they themselves have amnesia and the director and the screenwriter are pretty fucking bad at their jobs. 118 00:12:04,234.999 --> 00:12:06,454.9 So regardless, getting back into it.
Amnesia Jake and Army Intelligence Officer Octavia.
They're, they're just chatting.
They're having a chat.
She really wants to drill, pull out of him, uh, any sort of useful information, but amnesia, am I right? So there's a concern that Jake is smuggling nuclear material. 123 00:12:27,704.999 --> 00:12:29,095 I don't, I don't get it.

(12:29):
We've spent a solid 15 minutes of this movie with, so far, on one single chase scene.
A boat ride or night fishing and then the majority of it in this one room Uh, prison cell in, in some military base.
It's very boring.
Very, very boring.

(12:50):
For a movie about an ancient hero fighting the evil space alien, it starts off incredibly slow.
.9I'm not going to lie to you, podcast listener, it was at this point that I was starting to feel pretty I don't know.
Pretty disheartened.
I thought I had a dot on my hands, but no sooner had I typed this sentence than Jake kung fus the shit out of like a half dozen military guys, and it's the fucking best notice.

(13:16):
I said Kung fu because there this movie has no jujitsu in it.
So at at least six different military guys all come in.
To this one room cell, and they start to unhandcuff him, and the switch flips to Jason Statham, and Jake just starts beatin some ass, and kudos to the military guys, they're all very polite, they line up single file, take him on one at a time, and then And it, uh, very politely, get the shit beat out of him.

(13:48):
It's, it's great.
And as he's tossing people all over his little tiny little jail cell, with, with a half dozen bodies, you would think those would pile up pretty quickly.
But, due to the magic of cinematography, those bodies magically disappear when somebody else falls in that exact same place.
Because, hey, This isn't some kind of schmuck operation here, we gotta make sure people are safe.

(14:11):
So, bodies are disappearing left and right, but at the end of it all, with minimal effort, our hero Jake has beaten the shit out of, uh, again, at least a half dozen military officers.
But he's no match for the quick wit that is, uh, Army intelligence officer Octavia, who stabs him in the stomach with a sedative, I guess? I don't know.

(14:35):
.9995And then after that, uh, cut back to Jake being tied back down to the same chair in the same room, and we're right back where we started. 142 00:14:43,559.9995 --> 00:14:47,850 So, a really fun action sequence with absolutely no consequence.
This movie is doing a fantastic job.
One other thing to note about that fight sequence.
None of the military guys at any point thought, Hey, we've got a deranged prisoner who is literally punching people in their faces, punching our friends.

(15:04):
We have guns.
We could easily stop him if we used our guns.
Nope, very polite, very badass of them actually, to take him on in fisticuffs, if only it had worked out better for him.
But, apparently after all of this, Octavia decides to go and take him for a supervised walk around the military base. 150 00:15:25,354.999 --> 00:15:29,305 Because nothing says you've earned my trust like beating the shit out of my co workers.

(15:30):
So good! And that's it.
That's the end of that scene.
Uh, we cut and move on to the next comic book splash panel titled Reunion.
We come back in on some random dude walking up to the military base and as he's approaching, Uh, these guards who are at the front of the base are a little more aware.

(15:54):
They understand that they have guns, there's someone approaching them, they should use those guns.
However, they, they pull them too, too slowly, and this guy just punches the shit out of the four guards at the main gate of the military base.
He just walks right up to them, casually beats them, beats them ass, and moves on.

(16:20):
.999This, this scene has so much to love because It's a one man running across the tops of buildings, dodging bullets, and casually strolling up to military guards. 159 00:16:38,329.999 --> 00:16:53,410 Instead of being shot by any of the, I don't know, a hundred or so people who are probably at this base, uh, just proceeds to punch and kick and do a bunch of jumpy, flippy, spinny shit. 160 00:16:53,605.1 --> 00:17:05,015 And kill them all! It's so good! And again, I cannot stress this enough to you, the action is actually pretty good.

(17:05):
So this guy, this guy who walked up to the base is actor Tony Jaa, and this man is a legitimate martial artist.
He is fantastic, he clearly knows what he is doing, and what he is doing is not jiu jitsu.
.999He, he uses his fists, his feet, does some pretty amazing flips and stunts, but all of it looks like, it just looks pathetic.

(17:31):
Literally, surrounded by people with machine guns, this one man can sneak, not even sneak, just casually stroll into the base, beat down literally anybody in his path, Casually stroll over to his buddy who is being held prisoner and free him.
.999And man, there is, again, so much to love in this one sequence.

(17:54):
.9You have guards with stormtrooper aim.
You have guards that refuse to pull their guns and have honorable fistfights with this clear badass who's going to murk them with just a look.
You've got gratuitous use of slow motion, and I'm talking, if you've ever watched professional wrestling, where they'll slow things down so you can see the guy throwing a punch or throwing a kick or jumping off something crazy high.

(18:20):
And then cut back into full motion when it's about to impact it, so you don't really notice that it's stage fighting.
Maybe.
So, super gratuitous use of slow motion and very clear that no punches are landing, no kicks are landing.
This is a dude just doing some, an acrobatic dance routine and it looks like there's some fighting happening. 173 00:18:42,999.999 --> 00:18:47,269.999 We even get some Matrix, the Matrix style bullet time thrown in. 174 00:18:47,959.999 --> 00:18:49,879.999 Just for fun? I can't tell. 175 00:18:49,899.999 --> 00:18:56,79.999 It's, it's 90s all at once and said, just give me all that shit. 176 00:18:56,409.999 --> 00:18:57,279.999 Sprinkle it in.

(18:57):
I don't care where, just make it happen.
I want everything.
I am making a gumbo.
.999And I need to add just a little bit of every 90s action trope we can possibly sprinkle in here. 181 00:19:10,879.999 --> 00:19:12,239.999 It's so fucking good.
Anyway, so Tony Jaa punches his way over to Jake.

(19:17):
So once Tony Jaa reaches his buddy Jake, He knocks out all the guards.
He's already unhandcuffed, so that's not a concern.
.999They do the, the, the Predator style high five, and they clasp hands, and they're like, You can hear the director going off from off camera.
.999Fuck yeah.

(19:38):
It is, It's so good.
The camera lingers on this bro five for way too long, and Again, you are surrounded by guys with guns.
You would not, none of this makes sense.
It's so good.
.999Anyway, so now that we've shown one man is capable of beating enough ass to successfully break into a military base, it's time to show that two men are able to successfully beat enough ass to break out of a military base.

(20:08):
And it is in this moment where you've got Tony Jaa running ahead.
The camera pulls in for a first person view of Jake's perspective as they are escaping the military.
And it does some really weird stuff.
You're, so we're walking through in first person.

(20:29):
Again, we're going back to the director saw a bunch of action movies, one of which had to have been Doom.
And he goes, okay, that had a really cool first person perspective in it.
It wasn't very cool.
I want to do that.
.999But at the same time, we're walking along and you, you will occasionally see, from first person, punches being thrown, kicks to the head, that's all fine and good. 201 00:20:56,349.999 --> 00:21:06,920 But then all of a sudden, One of the bad guys will knock our hero down, which, bullshit, if anything the entry sequence showed me that these guys are invincible and the military dudes can't do shit.

(21:07):
So the fact that somebody was able to touch this guy, immediately breaking my immersion here.
But, so our hero Jake gets knocked down and all of a sudden he steps out from behind the camera.
We're no longer in first person, which leaves me with A lot of questions.
The only conclusion I can come to is that there was actually a documentary crew who was filming this prison escape, and Jake was using the cameraman as a human shield, so that's why nobody can shoot him.

(21:38):
.9He's got an innocent bystander with a camera in front of him, and so you see the punches and the kicks being thrown around the cameraman's body, and then once that documentary cameraman gets knocked over, Jake goes full action hero and jumps in, does some jumps and flips and kicks a bunch of dudes in the face.
And then goes back over, helps his documentary crew buddy up, and we're back in first person view.

(22:03):
This happens no less than three times.
It is insane. 210 00:22:09,309.999 --> 00:22:17,419.999 I had to understand what, what possibly possessed this, this film crew to think this was a good sequence.
So again, back to the internet.
Because if there's anything that is more delicious than how awful this movie is, it's listening to the director talk about this movie.

(22:28):
.999And he, he even professes in an interview that, Hey, I always thought it was really cool that, that like video games are done in first person, man. 214 00:22:39,74.999 --> 00:22:42,715 So, I wanted to give that to my viewers.
But, I also wanted it to be like, a game you want to jump in you want to be that guy.

(22:49):
So I gave you that sequence.
You're welcome.
.999The fucking pomposity of this douche bag is cannot be overstated.
.999It's so great.
Oh God, this movie is such a fucking mess.
Anyway, so after having a successful escape from the prison, we cut to Jake and Tony walking through a field where a bunch of Kung Fu warriors are taking a nap, I guess? Because they rise up out of this tall grass all around them.

(23:27):
And the only reason for doing this is purely for dramatic effect.
It certainly doesn't look good.
.999You literally just have these people popping up out of the ground.
It's insane.
Again, the only thing that makes any logical sense is They all just got really sleepy.
.999They were all supposed to go and retrieve Jake from the military complex, but they all They wandered through the Wizard of Oz poppy field or some shit took a nap on the way there Tony Jaa was the only one who was able to successfully stay awake and he was like, ah, fuck me I have to go do this on my own So he one man armies his way through brings him back and now everybody else is waking back up just in time to shit talk Now up to this point like we discussed Army Intelligence Officer Octavia and Jake had a real meeting of the minds over how do you not know anything? Do you really have amnesia? What is amnesia? Is it just a way to stretch the run time of our movie? And the answer is yes, because now we have a different group of characters.

(24:33):
.9And so we run back through the same amnesia creating conflict bullshit as we did at the military base.
Because writing is hard and you've got 90 minutes you need to fill.
God damn it, it can't all be kick punching.
.999So after they have a whole mess of shitty dialogue, we have a hard cut to someone watching these people fight.

(24:54):
So while these people are arguing with each other over what is amnesia and what is the plot of the movie and clunkily expositing what they're trying to do, we hard cut to someone stalking them.
with Predator vision.
And it was in this moment that I had that description playback in my mind and we're just watching Predator.

(25:18):
All this is is a remake of the Predator with a bunch of kung fu people.
Which is extra disappointing that Hulu did their own remake of Predator and I haven't watched it, but I have to assume it's better than this bullshit.
Anyway, so our Kung Fu warriors get attacked by the Predator.
Uh, he's an invisible, he can shoot lightning, but remember kids, lightning is no match for the power of jumpy spinny punches.

(25:44):
So, after the Predator harasses our, our Kung Fu squad for a little bit and annoys them, uh, everybody just gives up and walks away.
But after the Predator gives up, military guys show up.
Because they just got embarrassed in their own base, they weren't about to let that go unanswered.

(26:05):
And it's hard to tell how far away this happened.
But the movie's only spent about maybe five, ten minutes between the breakout and when the military guys catch up to him.
So I have to believe they were just maybe half a mile down the road from the base. 245 00:26:23,439.999 --> 00:26:26,070 Anyway, so military guys come out. 246 00:26:26,359.999 --> 00:26:29,699.999 They actually pull their guns this time, which I thought was pretty impressive.

(26:30):
And then, oh shit, this was the moment that I realized that our annoying kung fu spirit squad is actually just the emo power rangers.
They're all dressed in black sleeveless cloaks that go down to about, about their ankles, and they're, uh, here individually identified based on the weapon that they use.

(26:53):
So one of them pulls out some nunchucks and we have a sweet nunchuck versus automatic rifle fight that doesn't end with this girl being blown into smithereens.
Some guy pulls out an honest to god pipe from a holster on his back like he's pulling a fucking broadsword out.

(27:14):
Including sword drawing, ching, sound effect.
.9It is, oh man, it is so good.
In this moment, it occurred to me that the people making this film, other than the director, knew that it was a piece of shit.
So they were going to have a little bit of fun with it.
And there clearly, clearly was, this was a case of the sound guy saying, fuck, what, what noise does a pipe make? Who cares? Put a sword effect on it.

(27:46):
We're not spending more time than we need to.
.999We're just going to cash this paycheck.
.999It'll be fine. 259 00:27:52,419.999 --> 00:27:52,769.999 So.
The way this scene is shot, it's supposed to be this impressive fight sequence with just, you know, a single camera, and it transitions from one fight to the next, really flowy, really artsy.
But because of how they end up doing it, the Knife Power Ranger decides that he's gonna go turn around and do this sick move where he throws the knife over his back shoulder, but it looks like he just throws it into an empty field.

(28:20):
Because the, the camera is in such a way that you can't see what he's throwing at.
It looks like he's just throwing it into empty space, and the sound effects guys do their job.
They make the sound of that knife hitting a body and it falling down, complete with an extra going, Uh, it's, it's the fucking best. 265 00:28:40,354.999 --> 00:28:46,095 So the emo Power Rangers are so invested in having fun beating up on the military.

(28:46):
That they completely missed the fact that poor Jake has been kidnapped again.
And now we go back to the military base.
.999So, we are 30 minutes into the movie.
For the third time, we find ourselves back in this same military interrogation cell where we started. 270 00:29:07,500.1 --> 00:29:09,699.9 And, goddammit.

(29:11):
They paid for that set, they were going to get their money's worth.
But all we do in this scene is go back to the military's interrogation cell so that Octavia can be convinced that they need to leave the cell.
What a fucking waste of time.
.999So with little to no explanation for what's going on, why we should care, Octavia must have read the script and realized that they needed to get to the conflict and really set up what the villain of the movie is. 275 00:29:41,659.999 --> 00:29:47,190 So she takes Jake out into the woods with most of the military base guys? I don't know.

(29:47):
It seems like six people, but it's hard to believe.
Maybe the others are all concussed still from getting kicked in the face by Tony Jaa.
So Jake leads Octavia and her remaining team out into the woods, and all of a sudden the predator starts throwing batarangs at him.
.999This time, however, he has no problem hitting and killing anybody.
And within a matter of seconds, the entire military, except for the peop except for anybody with a name that we've been introduced to, is dead.

(30:15):
So after all the military is dead, Jake and Octavia run away, and this one smarmy asshole Stan has a face to face standoff with the Predator, and it's, it's this shitty looking alien suit with a blue LED face board making sure that you can't see what's inside. 282 00:30:40,334.999 --> 00:30:45,265 Eventually, the movie is going to make the mistake of showing us what is beneath that helmet.

(30:46):
And oh man, you are not ready for how terrible the CGI is in this movie.
But instead of having an honorable duel between the smarmy asshole and the predator, someone from the film crew off screen hands this guy a machine gun.
And he blows the predator away.
But, trick move, the predator also has the ability to heal from bullet wounds.

(31:09):
.999So he just gets back up, kind of gropes the guy on the shoulder, and he falls down, presumably dead.
The predator walks off victorious and that's the scene.
.999Who is this guy? This random military captain who has had this face down? Who gives a shit? It doesn't matter.

(31:32):
But this is as good a point as any to take a break.
And when we come back we'll jump back into all the insanity that is jujitsu.
And now, a word from our sponsor.
Hey there. 294 00:31:49,959.999 --> 00:32:12,000 Do you find yourself part of a gang of intrepid young heroes who is doing battle with an intergalactic force and the only way you can do so is with ill defined mystic martial arts? Have you thought to yourself, Well, Man, it would be really easy to defeat this alien if only I had an off brand weapon.

(32:13):
If that sounds familiar to you, I'd encourage you to come on down to Tommy T's Discount Off Brand Weapon Store.
That's right, Tommy T's Discount Off Brand Weapon Store.
The only place where you can find, uh, nunchucks, random pieces of pipe, uh, PVC glued together at some really weird angles that definitely would not, would probably sting a little bit.

(32:38):
.9It's the only place where you and your band of emo friends can find all of your Discount Off Brand D List Movie Weapon Needs.
Remember, at TommyT's Off Brand Weapons Emporium, you too can be ill equipped to defend the world because you're not the main character, and you know it.

(32:59):
Alright, and we're back. 301 00:33:00,434.999 --> 00:33:02,625 Once again, as always, thank you to our sponsors.
And with that, we're gonna jump right back in. 303 00:33:06,265.001 --> 00:33:17,495 So, last we left off, Jake and Octavia were running away from the Predator while their last remaining friends, Sacrifice themselves.
I don't know.
It's hard to tell who's got allegiances here in this movie The only thing that really is clear is that humans good, alien bad So as they take the heroic action of running the fuck away They slip and fall into a hole.

(33:33):
Well, I should say that Jake slips and falls into a hole Octavius slips takes a batarang to the chest and dies.
So You That's it.
She's done.
We're about halfway into the movie and we've just killed off one of the only other recognizable names in the film.
Furthering evidence in my case that The director really just did not like Mariafteropolis, but neither here nor there.

(33:59):
So, the entire military force is successfully killed off.
Fucking keep up if this movie doesn't slow down for shit! After our hero, Jake, has fallen into this hole, we meet the man, the myth, the legend The one and only Nicolas Cage.
He's just been chillin in this little hidey hole that he's furnished into a lovely little two room apartment.

(34:25):
And, uh, it gets really weird and esoteric.
Because it's Nick Cage.
I don't know if you guys are super familiar with Mr.
Cage's body of work, but it ranges from the benign to the insane, skewing more toward the insane.
So when Nick Cage starts making claims that he's an older version of our hero Jake, I start to believe that this has got some weird time travel subplot that I'm not aware of.

(34:54):
.999When people actively ignore Nick Cage in a scene, maybe he's an asshole in real life and on set? I don't know, but I start to think that maybe he's a figment of people's imaginations and only Jake can see him.
.999None of that's the case. 321 00:35:08,84.999 --> 00:35:15,075 It's, he's just a weird old neighbor that people have hanging around and no one really likes to talk about.

(35:15):
But you can't ignore him either when he's staring you directly in the face, actively engaging you in conversation.
So it gets weird in Cage's hidey hole, um, Cage waxes poetic in only the way that Nicolas Cage can, about his weird hobbies and while he's kicking Jake's ass.

(35:38):
So you would think that this man is the Jiu Jitsu warrior master, No, we're gonna find out later on in the movie that he's the one guy who ran away from his fight with the Predator and Which as far as I'm concerned makes him the smartest guy in the movie.
When you're facing down an ancient evil alien whose sole purpose of coming to earth is, we'll find out, to do honorable battle with a bunch of crazy warrior monks That he trained thousands of years ago on how to do jiu jitsu.

(36:14):
That running away is the only logical option.
.999But anyway, after stumbling into his hidey hole, uh, Nick Cage and Jake get into a fight.
They get into this fist fight, and they start kicking around, jumping, flipping around Nick Cage's little house here.
And in between punches, Nick Cage gives us all of that extra exposition and backstory that we were craving, because we are on a budget.

(36:39):
.999We have got time constraints here, and you gotta squeeze in that exposition in between wherever you can, even if it is between punches. 331 00:36:47,64.999 --> 00:36:57,515 So, uh, we find out that, uh, Cage knows that the Predator is an honorable warrior, and he only wants to fight people in a one on one duel.
.9So the, the background here is that thousands of years ago in a temple in Malaysia, an interdimensional portal opened up and this alien Predator walked through, and he taught people how to perform Jiu Jitsu, and then every six years he has come back to Earth specifically with the intent of fighting the next generation of Jiu Jitsu warriors, Predators.

(37:20):
So that he can face a challenge and have an honorable dual with people worthy of his skill.
I personally believe that he comes back every six years because he's really mad that they don't know how to do Juujitsu after he taught him how to do it.
So it opens up a lot of questions.

(37:40):
One, did the alien teach jujitsu to the first group of Warrior monks and they didn't bother teaching anybody else 'cause they thought they would just kill him when he came back.
.999Did they, did the alien not understand what jiu jitsu is and he really just wants to Just kung fu fight with people? Or does the alien keep coming back because he's so pissed off the people forgot the jiu jitsu that he taught them That he just wants to humiliate human beings for the rest of eternity.

(38:10):
I don't know. 339 00:38:11,569.999 --> 00:38:14,980 I don't fucking care because none of it matters.
The whole point is to set up Honorable Duel, that's what we're here for.
So in between the expository fistfight, After the expository fistfight, Jake's friends show up and convince him to come along to the next scene.
And, again, because Nick Cage is in this movie, he's gotta make use of him, they drag his ass along for fun.

(38:37):
So they go to the temple, the one where the predator shows up at. 344 00:38:41,994.999 --> 00:38:47,275 And when they get there, Cage delivers some more rambling nonsense backstory.
I couldn't tell you what it was.
I, I genuinely did not care.
In my notes I have, who fucking cares? And that is a true statement because all it is is window dressing for some more flippy spinny kick punching.

(39:01):
At this point, after everyone has got their flippy spinny kicks out, the movie realizes it has been about five minutes since our hero took his shirt off, so now it is time for abs.
And as we're, we're showing off that sweet washboard, we get Even more backstory.
We get more clunky dialogue from Jake's girlfriend, Nunchuck Girl.

(39:24):
And it's at this point she tells him that you can the Predator's one weakness is that if you're wearing one of those sweet, sleeveless trench coats that all the emo Power Rangers wear, he can't see you. 352 00:39:36,924.999 --> 00:39:44,355 For monk reasons? Unclear, doesn't make sense, and the movie is not in any way interested in describing it.

(39:45):
Because it needs, it's just a thing.
Random one off, hey, if you wear a super cool sleeveless trench coat, you'll be totally invisible to the all powerful death machine.
Feels like we should use that a little more often, but whatever.
So dialogue continues. 357 00:40:02,44.999 --> 00:40:10,205 Once again, people on the emo power ranger squad here forget that Jake has amnesia, which creates even more conflict amongst the team.

(40:10):
These guys are never going to kill an alien if they can't even remember that.
Their buddy got hit in the back and lost his all of his memories.
But whatever.
We had to get over that shit so we can move on to the next scene where the Power Rangers go predator hunting.
.999And so they split up into two groups to go take down the predator. 363 00:40:30,124.999 --> 00:40:33,265 Which, rule number one, you never split the party.

(40:33):
It always goes bad.
You're you're not gonna have a good time.
It's fine.
We're predator hunting, baby.
So one half of our intrepid band of Power Rangers goes off and they find the predator.
.001He's chillin in the trees, watchin them, all, and it's so good, they immediately spot this invisible cloaked death machine, just chillin doin a squat on a tree branch, all four people in this subgroup of our Power Rangers team.

(41:02):
stare directly at him while telling each other, Hey man, shh, don't talk about it.
Don't let the predator know that we can see him right up there.
.999It's comically terrible on both ends.
.9995Like, oh no, we, we definitely do not know where Mr. 374 00:41:17,754.9995 --> 00:41:18,575 Predator is. 375 00:41:18,774.999 --> 00:41:23,355 Couldn't possibly be that he's just taking a squat up there in the tree.

(41:23):
No, sir.
And the predator I'm so good at hiding.
I'm a hide and seek champion on my planet.
No one's gonna see me here.
.999I'm just so, so bad. 381 00:41:39,34.999 --> 00:41:45,675 Anyway, so they find him hiding in the trees, and one dude just keeps staring him down while he waves the others on. 382 00:41:46,4.999 --> 00:41:48,775 What are they going to go do? I don't know.

(41:49):
Other than One-on-one Honorable Juujitsu duel.
And so our, our one guy, our one guy stays behind and it's pipe guy from before.
So the pipe power ranger pulls his weapon out and he's ready to go.
And so this guy is spinning around his lead pipe and, and doing jumps and spinning flip kicks.

(42:11):
Predator pulls out a, this gigantic.
fuck off sword that would make cloud strife go hey man you're that that's a bit much why don't you fucking tone it down so he he just stands there and tolerates all the flippy spinny bullshit and and just slices our guy right in the foot.

(42:33):
Turns out that when you're just focused more on looking cool and flipping around and throwing your arms and legs in every possible direction, you really don't have a ton of control.
So at this point, I'm kind of thinking the Predator might be the hero.
And that he, he's the one who's got it on track.
He's trying to save these people the embarrassment of thinking that they're jujitsu warriors.

(42:57):
So the Predator pulls out a big fuck off sword.
Honorable duel ensues.
And it's, it's entertaining for what it is, but then the movie seems to have realized that we have got too many living humans and not enough movie runtime left.
.001So realizing that we have too many live humans and not enough movie runtime left, two more jujitsu guys show up and just get absolutely wrecked.

(43:21):
These are guys that are so bad they don't even have Power Rangers themed identifying weapons.
There's just fat jujitsu guy, and.
And the other guy.
.999So, one of the idiots attacks the Predator, and the Predator just grabs him by the throat and rips it out like he's fucking MacGruber.

(43:44):
It's great.
.999The one place this movie did not skimp on the budget is the throat ripping department.
Ah, so good. 404 00:43:51,705.1 --> 00:43:53,74.9 So good.
But meanwhile, The plan must have been for this guy to get his throat ripped out and be a distraction because it allows fat jujitsu to sneak up behind the predator and get the drop on him.

(44:05):
But because the predator is the predator, because that is not an honorable fighting style, predator activates his face melting gloves and just touches the guy and he's fucking done.
.999And in that moment, Where the Predator melts this fat jiu jitsu guy's face off, the, the fog in the visor comes down, and we see the most embarrassing CGI face that I have ever seen.

(44:34):
It is as if somebody had just been tasked that day with, how do we make, how do we draw a face? And It's, it's so painful.
I can't, I can't do justice to it.
Pause the show right now.
I'll wait.

(44:54):
You need to see what this looks like.
It is, it's so bad.
So bad. 415 00:45:00,314.999 --> 00:45:01,085 Go Google it.
.999Come back.
.999I'll be here. 418 00:45:02,734.999 --> 00:45:03,735 And then we can keep going.
.999Alright, did you see it? It's so bad. 420 00:45:07,594.999 --> 00:45:09,485 I, I don't have words for it.
It baffles my mind because this was a conscious choice.

(45:14):
They set up this faceless villain.
And have, for a good 50 minutes of runtime, 50 60 minutes, kept that face anonymous.
You have it concealed, it adds, it's one of the few things the movie does right, it adds that extra level of fear and terror for this character.

(45:36):
Even if he is a fucking goofball the entire way through, by not seeing its face, you have at least this cool look, this moderately cool looking armor that you can hide your character behind and say, yes, this walking death machine is an unfeeling, uncaring, soulless monstrosity that only lives for the hunt.

(45:58):
That could work.
What doesn't work, is goofy, awful looking CG face trying to show rage and emotion with somebody who clearly doesn't have a mastery of Microsoft Paint. 428 00:46:14,649.999 --> 00:46:17,650 Bad choice, and the movie could have just chosen to edit it out.
.999But somewhere along the way, a series of humans looked at that and said, yep, that's the shit. 430 00:46:25,339.999 --> 00:46:28,510 That is what's going to strike fear into the hearts of our audience.

(46:28):
That has to make it into the movie.
And so it did.
I, I, someday, someday I'm going to make my own terrible movie and I'm going to use all, all of the bad decisions.
Anyway, cutting back in.
We, we've seen the villain's face, and it really didn't impress, but We've successfully killed off three of our eight humans, so we're good to go We're moving along at a decent clip, but we find out the movie Didn't really mean to kill off that many characters that quickly, so it decides that they needed to bring one back from the dead And the one we get is the dude who had a machine gun duel with the Predator, and he ends up kidnapping Jake.

(47:21):
For being the hero, the one that people talk about through this movie as the guy who is going to kill the Predator, the special, the chosen one, I mean, everybody sucks this guy's dick throughout this entire movie.
But he's really bad overall at, at just not being, you, you could kidnap this guy with a pillowcase and a crowbar. 438 00:47:49,934.999 --> 00:47:52,505 It does not take a lot to get the drop on this guy. 439 00:47:52,604.999 --> 00:47:57,680 The fact that he does survive the movie, makes me very legitimately angry.

(47:57):
But so for the fourth time in this movie, our intrepid hero has been kidnapped.
And this time we find out that through, he's been kidnapped exclusively to have the plot of the movie talked to, told to him again. 442 00:48:12,669.999 --> 00:48:15,519.999 And this time it's our, our army military captain. 443 00:48:16,499.999 --> 00:48:22,100 And to give you guys just a taste of how terrible this dialogue is.

(48:23):
With the very first thing Captain Dickweed says to Jake is, I have a license to kill you.
No expiration date.
That line is delivered without the slightest hint of irony, the not in any way self aware.
Somebody somewhere said, No, no, no.
You need to deliver that like a badass.
And kudos to the actor for trying, but woof. 450 00:48:46,140.1 --> 00:48:48,99.9 Heh heh heh.

(48:48):
It is.
The worst parts of this movie are easily the talky parts.
So, we get back into more exposition where, uh, Captain Dickweed tells Jake that he's been tracking the Predator as part of Army Intelligence for 24 years, but, couple things.
.999Fuck that, there's absolutely no way that this actor is old enough to be, have been hunting the Predator for 24 years.

(49:12):
Second, if the Predator just fights these guys in the temple every time, how could anybody track it? It never leaves.
What are they using to track it? Fuck you for asking questions, movie's not interested in answering those.
.999In a dramatic twist that no one could have seen coming, this military captain knows exactly how to kill the predator, and it's via a dope fucking sword fight.

(49:38):
.999So get ready people, we're racing towards the conclusion of this incredible film, and now it is sword fight time. 459 00:49:44,359.999 --> 00:49:49,714.9 But before we can get there, it's Nick Cage rambling metaphor time! Man.
And so, right as we've set up what the finale has to be, we jump in with more exposition.

(49:58):
We jump in with more dialogue.
And Nick Cage is the only man who can deliver it with such flair and integrity and just over the top batshit insanity.
We find out now.
What everyone has been dying to know.
Nick Cage's backstory.
And it's fucking boring! It's boring as hell! I'm not wasting time on it! But we do get, from this bit of dialogue, the best line of the movie that perfectly encapsulates just how terrible everything is.

(50:29):
.999Nick Cage goes, Hey.
Just remember the one thing you always have with jiu jitsu.
Leverage.
Which might be true if they were doing actual jiu jitsu, but they're not! They're fucking sword fighting! And fighting with nunchucks! And it's so bad! It's so bad! So, after demonstrating that at least one person in the movie knows how jiu jitsu is supposed to work, we find ourselves in What we can generously call Act 3 of the movie.

(51:01):
Which is where we jump straight into the final fight.
There's no setup, there's no time wasted.
It's just comic book panel, boom, here we go.
.999The Predator's fighting with the rest of our emo Power Rangers squad.
And they're not doing well.
All right, we, the nunchuck girl starts off, and she's blocking batarangs with this impenetrable nunchuck flurry.

(51:24):
But the predator just remembers that he has super speed, so he runs right past her, punches her, and dies? Maybe? Unclear, really ambiguous, but he hits her with super speed.
He hits her so hard she disappears from the movie.
Uh, next up is a different jiu jitsu girl.
I mean the predator definitely kills her.

(51:45):
.999There's no ambiguity.
.999One of the faceless power rangers that doesn't even get to have a weapon identifying her. 483 00:51:52,439.999 --> 00:51:56,090 She just shows up, maybe one minute worth of screen time, dead.
.999All right, next up it's knife guy.
He immediately, so he comes into the fight.
with his knives ready to go, looking like a badass, he immediately drops his knives.

(52:06):
So he's a fucking goner.
But hey, he at least gets to flip the predator the double bird while he's dying.
So you get that as a moment, I guess. 490 00:52:17,254.999 --> 00:52:18,345 Which leaves me with a question.
Is the double bird a universal symbol for go fuck yourself? Does the alien understand what the middle finger actually means? Or is this purely just I want to look cool, you're, you're paying me to be in your movie, and something that was completely improvised, and they were like, oh fuck yeah bro, because this movie was made by a, a team of bro dudes, dude bros, and I can easily see it going either way.

(52:51):
Or does the double bird mean something different in, in alien culture? Are they pulling a Rick and Morty where it's a, you know, peace among worlds? What the fuck is going on here? And so after honoring the alien with the double birds as he dies, it is time for our hero to make his stand.
But twist! His best friend Tony Jaa shows up because he read that it's his turn to die in the script.

(53:17):
We're down to just Tony Jaa, our hero Jake.
And Nicholas motherfucking Cage And this is the defining moment for Cage's character where he pulls out his Rambo cosplay, ties his bandana tight, pulls out a giant sword, and then teleports onto the battlefield to have his hero moment as Nick Cage shows up to do honorable dual with. 496 00:53:42,835.1 --> 00:54:01,905 Do you remember what I told you way back when? In the, about the midpoint of the podcast? That those special emo sleeveless trenchcoats, that those are actually, allow you to be invisible to the predator? Turns out, all you gotta do is put your hood up! And you vanish from Predator Vision.

(54:02):
Why everybody doesn't do that and just sneak up behind him and stab him in the neck, I don't know.
.999But, regardless, we need to have our hoods up because we introduced that plot point, we need to pay it off somehow.
So, Cade shows up, and he's doing his thing, getting ready for his honorable duel with the alien.

(54:23):
And what we are treated to is a fight scene that has so many camera cuts.
So many camera cuts.
.999Presumably to cover up for the fact that in 2020, Nick Cage has the mobility of a scarecrow and probably that that predator costume is really limiting the mobility of that stuntman too.
So we get wildly disappointing sword fight and after that's all said and done, I, I, I'm sad to report this to you all, but Nick Cage gets his throat cut.

(54:59):
And so with our hero dead, the only enjoyable part of the movie dead, We're, we're thrust into the finale with ten minutes left.
So with the entire emo Power Rangers squad dead, with the exception of Jake and Nunchuck Girl, We move to a scene with EVEN MORE EXPOSITION AND BACKSTORY.

(55:21):
I don't, I don't understand.
This movie has 10 minutes left.
It's, it has no time.
It needs to deliver a banger of an action scene and get the fuck out of there.
But somehow it thinks it still has time to let you know that Jake, his dad, was Nicolas Cage the whole time.

(55:43):
And this comes not just via clunky expositional dialogue, But includes a dramatic grayscale flashback to a little kid throwing punches at definitely not Nicolas Cage. 512 00:55:59,474.999 --> 00:56:07,894.999 Apparently, they only had enough money in this budget for him to do the scenes that he was in, and they could not afford to do this reshoot.

(56:08):
Cage, Nick Cage is nothing if not an insane professional.
So he was like, hey, I'm fucking done.
You want me to come back? Not a chance in the world.
.999Being unable to get Nick Cage back for the flashback, we're left there with a mixed martial artist contemplating what it is to find out that your dad just got murdered in front of you.

(56:32):
Once again, I have a litany of questions.
Why introduce this? At all.
So what what the movie thinks it's done is it has raised the emotional investment But the reveal that Nick Cage is his dad would have landed a lot better Before he died because it he's already dead What is it's trying to twist the emotional dagger after the fact when the reality is you twist the dagger with Cage is his dad, and then you kill him.

(57:05):
That's, that's the way it works.
It's no more tragic to find out after he's dead that, oh, that was your dad the whole time, dude. 522 00:57:16,154.999 --> 00:57:16,614.999 Whatever.
This movie is nothing if not a masterclass in people not knowing how to make movies.
So after that last, last reveal, it's now time for the final fight.

(57:28):
And what we witness is an epic beatdown.
So for all the other human fights in this, or all the other fights in this movie, The alien has at least had the courtesy of killing them quickly.
In this one, he's just playing with his food.
Like, our guy gets beat up viciously.
So bad that it, he apparently gets smacked so hard.

(57:52):
That it cures his amnesia.
And when it does, he remembers that he had a dad.
Whoa, man.
.999And with that knowledge back, he finally, it finally sinks in that his dad is dead.
.999And so our hero powers up, and he beats some ass.
.999He beats some alien ass. 536 00:58:13,769.999 --> 00:58:14,929.999 We've seen this whole movie.

(58:15):
that nothing really works to kill this guy.
You can shoot him at point blank, all it'll do is blow up a little hole in his crazy little predator suit, but then it'll heal over.
So their solution to how do you kill the unkillable warrior is blow a hole in its stomach, stuff two grenades inside of it, and then kick him backwards into an interdimensional portal.

(58:40):
It's fucking amazing.
So what we are led to believe is an honorable duel between our hero Jake and the evil alien turns out into a cheap shot setup for a dishonorable blow your stomach open and stuff grenades into it fuck you alien epic movie moment.
.999And I gotta tell you, we've watched an hour and a half of complete nonsense.

(59:06):
I'm just glad this is over.
And so with that, The movie's done. 545 00:59:10,765.1 --> 00:59:12,785 Evil's vanquished.
Why would we need to spend any more time wrapping things up? It's all got a nice pink little bow on it.
It is good to go.
So, as part of our wrap up here and our critical analysis, I find myself asking, what was the point of this movie? And all I can come up with is to remind us that sometimes, less is more.

(59:33):
You don't need to have an evil alien in your martial arts movie.
You just need to have monks beating the shit out of an entire military base.
.999The movie peaked at that point, and all of the subsequent fights with the alien? Disappointing in comparison.
.8125So sometimes, you just gotta keep it simple. 553 00:59:50,783.8125 --> 00:59:51,842.525 That's my takeaway.

(59:53):
How would I rate this movie? Six out of five stars.
It's incredible.
Who should watch this movie? Amnesiacs.
They're really gonna feel seen in this one and they won't care about the complete misunderstanding of what jiu jitsu is.
.999We're gonna bring the house lights back on and bring this episode to a close.

(01:00:15):
As always, thanks for listening.
I hope you had as much fun as I did.
I don't know that that's possible with this movie.
.999Nick Cage is the fucking best.
This movie is the absolute worst.
And on that note, have a wonderful night, I appreciate you being here, and I'll see you in the next one.