If you've ever wondered why Carl Weathers didn't become the greatest black action hero in movie history, this film will clear things up for you. He had the physique. He had the charisma. But in an era where a black actor was lucky to get one shot at big screen stardom, Weathers wasted his chance on something so poorly done it's barely a millimeter away from being an outright parody of bad 80s action flicks.
Sergeant Jericho "Action" Jackson (Carl Weathers) is a badass Detroit cop with so much backstory it feels like this thing is a sequel. An excessive force scandal has landed him a desk job and taken away his gun, but then he gets mixed up in the assassinations of auto worker union leaders. That points Jackson at car maker Peter Dellaplane (Craig T. Nelson) as the man responsible for the deaths and with help from Dellaplane's wife (Sharon Stone) and junkie mistress (Vanity), Jackson cycles through just about every 80s action cliché imaginable while acting as his own comic relief. People get punched, kicked, shot, blown up, set on fire and the most interesting thing about the whole shebang is seeing a couple of the other stars of Predator show up in minor roles.
Firstly, Weathers is still great, even in this crap, and both Sharon Stone and Vanity get naked. Secondly, Craig T. Nelson does a nice job playing a cartoonish villain who could have been the bad guy in at least 2 dozen other 80s action flicks. Thirdly, everything else in this movie feels like the product of an energetic third grader.
From not understanding what the bullet from a .357 handgun would actually do to the human body to portraying a junkie going through withdrawal as though it were as bothersome as a hangnail to having not one but two scenes where a man challenges his armed opponent to put down his gun and duke it out, and the opponent does it, Action Jackson is kind of astonishing. I'm not sure I've seen any other film every work this hard to be this routine and hackneyed. There are two Vanity musical performances, one gratuitous scene of Weathers with his shirt off, 5 super-ninja bad guys who would have to have the power to teleport and turn invisible to do all the things they do, 40 minutes of the movie that go by before Jackson does anything even remotely resembling action and a complete absence of any attempt to even vaguely approximate proper police procedure.
By the time it got to the point where Action Jackson has Dellaplane's entire scheme explained to him a lady barber who must also trim the nose hairs of Uatu the Watcher to know any of the things she knows, I almost thought I was watching an incredibly subtle satire that was just pretending to suck. But then Dellaplane lets loose with an utterly unironic speech where he not only gives the whole Bond villain "tell the captured good guy everything" speech, Dellaplane also announces that he's going to have his own son killed for absolutely no reason at all. The son had been mentioned several times in the story as an issue between Dellaplane and Jackson and it was as though they felt a need to tie up that plot point, but did it in the dumbest way possible.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger made The Last Action Hero, Action Jackson was the sort of film he was mocking. So, this is like the worst parts of an awful movie all put together for your viewing punishment. Skip this thing.
Sergeant Jericho "Action" Jackson (Carl Weathers) is a badass Detroit cop with so much backstory it feels like this thing is a sequel. An excessive force scandal has landed him a desk job and taken away his gun, but then he gets mixed up in the assassinations of auto worker union leaders. That points Jackson at car maker Peter Dellaplane (Craig T. Nelson) as the man responsible for the deaths and with help from Dellaplane's wife (Sharon Stone) and junkie mistress (Vanity), Jackson cycles through just about every 80s action cliché imaginable while acting as his own comic relief. People get punched, kicked, shot, blown up, set on fire and the most interesting thing about the whole shebang is seeing a couple of the other stars of Predator show up in minor roles.
Firstly, Weathers is still great, even in this crap, and both Sharon Stone and Vanity get naked. Secondly, Craig T. Nelson does a nice job playing a cartoonish villain who could have been the bad guy in at least 2 dozen other 80s action flicks. Thirdly, everything else in this movie feels like the product of an energetic third grader.
From not understanding what the bullet from a .357 handgun would actually do to the human body to portraying a junkie going through withdrawal as though it were as bothersome as a hangnail to having not one but two scenes where a man challenges his armed opponent to put down his gun and duke it out, and the opponent does it, Action Jackson is kind of astonishing. I'm not sure I've seen any other film every work this hard to be this routine and hackneyed. There are two Vanity musical performances, one gratuitous scene of Weathers with his shirt off, 5 super-ninja bad guys who would have to have the power to teleport and turn invisible to do all the things they do, 40 minutes of the movie that go by before Jackson does anything even remotely resembling action and a complete absence of any attempt to even vaguely approximate proper police procedure.
By the time it got to the point where Action Jackson has Dellaplane's entire scheme explained to him a lady barber who must also trim the nose hairs of Uatu the Watcher to know any of the things she knows, I almost thought I was watching an incredibly subtle satire that was just pretending to suck. But then Dellaplane lets loose with an utterly unironic speech where he not only gives the whole Bond villain "tell the captured good guy everything" speech, Dellaplane also announces that he's going to have his own son killed for absolutely no reason at all. The son had been mentioned several times in the story as an issue between Dellaplane and Jackson and it was as though they felt a need to tie up that plot point, but did it in the dumbest way possible.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger made The Last Action Hero, Action Jackson was the sort of film he was mocking. So, this is like the worst parts of an awful movie all put together for your viewing punishment. Skip this thing.