Title: Double Dragon
Release Date: 1994
Starring: Scott Wolf, Robert Patrick
Directed By: James Yukich
Written By: Paul Dini, Neal Shusterman, Michael Davis, and Peter Gould
It’s the distant future of 2007! Cars run on trash, and mohawked-marauders roam the streets after curfew. Also, in the future George Hamilton and Vanna White are news anchors, and Andy Dick is a meteorologist. The movie never really explains why earthquakes have caused these celebrities to pursue careers in broadcast journalism, but whatever.
Koga Shuko, played by Robert Patrick, is on a quest to re-unite the mystical Double Dragon Medallion which, I am told, would make him all-powerful. Naturally, this guy has to be stopped, and who better than Billy and Jimmy Lee?
Billy and Jimmy Lee are two brothers who become orphans at a young age. Somewhere along the lines, some Asian lady, Satori Imada, took custody of them and, I’m guessing, trained them in the martial arts. (Though, it never really says which martial art.) What Billy and Jimmy don’t know is that Imada also happens to be the guardian of half of the Double Dragon Medallion.
Luckily, Billy and Jimmy won’t have to go at it alone. They have Alyssa Milano, who leads the “Power Corps,” a band of street vigilantes that are dedicated to fighting the good fight for New Angeles, and wearing bad clothes while they do it. Since Alyssa Milano has absolutely no acting ability, her performances are usually rated on how nude she gets, and for how long. In the case of Double Dragon, sadly, it’s one of her worst performances ever.
What strikes me most about this movie is not the terrible acting, or even the lame fights scenes that look like they were choreographed by six year-olds; rather, it’s the writing. It took four different people to come up with this story, and I’m not convinced that a single one of them were putting any effort into it.
For a movie based on a fighting game, there is actually very little fighting. Yeah, there are scenes where people get attacked, but most of the action scenes involve Billy and Jimmy Lee trying to avoid the fight. Occasionally, Jimmy would throw a kick here and there, but for the most part it was Billy using some sort of zany shenanigan to get away.
Double Dragon as a whole is really one of the dumber movies that I’ve seen in quite a while. I own a lot of stupid movies, but this one has really done a number on my IQ. I’m just glad I am still capable of writing as many words as I have for this review. I may not be so lucky next month.
Movie Quality: To be honest, Double Dragon wasn’t as painful to watch as I had originally expected. The director really didn’t do that bad of a job; he just had very little to work with, including that crap-ass Corey Haim wannabe, Scott Wolf. Now don’t get me wrong, Double Dragon is a bad. movie. A really really bad movie, but at least it didn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out. That has to count for something.
Faithfulness to the Game: Well, it had some of the characters from the game. It had Jimmy and Billy Lee, as well as Abobo and a lady who uses a whip, but other than that and the title of the movie, there’s no way to know what game the movie was actually based on.
