This thing was some sort of a tax write off, right? And the filmmakers all ran afoul of the authorities in Guam and were dragooned into the production as part of some state-sanctioned community service? I can't think of another explanation for the lackluster, don't-give-a-crap quality of this inaction flick. I mean, the genre of taking a martial artist, sticking him in front of a camera and having him fake fight guys until you've got enough footage for a feature film is notoriously terrible. Maybe not quite a bad as the zombie genre, but within spitting distance. But most genre trash like this is either made by people who don't know it's trash or for people who don't know it's trash, resulting in movies that at least have a sort of adolescent striving for coolness and badassery. Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon has its star spend most of the flick in a floral shirt, shorts and a pair of "mandels". An action hero in "mandels"? Yeah, they really weren't even trying with this thing.
Max Havoc (Mickey Hardt) is a former kickboxer-turned sports photographer who gets sent to Guam for a cushy assignment snapping pics for a hotel ad campaign. While there, he gets caught between deadly assassins seeking an ancient jade sculpture and the beautiful woman (Joanna Krupa) who doesn't want to give it back. Richard Roundtree and David Carradine also show up in small roles and do nothing but make you wish somebody had done a Shaft/Kung Fu mash-up back in the day.
Now, there are so many negative comments to make about this plot, this dialog, the somnambulant direction of Albert Pyun, the half-a-note acting of Mickey Hardt and the fact that this thing looks more like a video from the Guam Tourism Bureau than it does an action movie. I would imagine that most anybody who'll ever be interested in watching Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon won't care about that stuff, so why bother. Instead, let me focus on what the likely viewer of this joke will care about and tell you how much that stuff sucks.
First, none of the women in the cast get naked. Not Joanna Krupa. Not Carmen Electra. Not Tawney Sablan. None of them. There are no sex scenes at all. Scenes with them in bikinis is as racy as it gets.
Second, the fight scenes here are both rather short and fairly lame. A lot of it looks like bad pro wrestling, the kind where guys get "hit" and then they jump in the air and flip around. Hardt may be a legitimate ass-kicker in real life. In this film, it barely looks like he can break an egg. I've seen better fight scenes on Walker: Texas Ranger. Heck, I've seen better fight scenes on Fraiser and How I Met Your Mother.
Third, there's a lot of talking in this movie. A lot. Hardt and his too pink, too-big-for-his-face lips talk a lot. Krupa talks a lot while remaining frustratingly clothed. Tawney Sablan talks a lot. Even Carmen Electra in a cameo talks a lot. I won't say there's as much yakking here as your average Woody Allen movie or an old episode of thirtysomething, but there's an enormous mass of conversatin' going of for a low-budget action flick. I guess all that dialog does give Krupa and Sablan a chance to show they're adequate actresses, but that's balanced out by exposing Hardt as having all the acting talent of a roast beef sandwich.
If you're going to make something like Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon and you can't be bothered to proved naked chicks to leer at or people getting the snot beat out of them in entertaining ways, why are you bothering?
And you know what the worst part is? There's a sequel to this thing. A sequel! Gah. I strongly recommend you avoid this movie and think the people who thought there should be another should be shot out of a cannon.
Max Havoc (Mickey Hardt) is a former kickboxer-turned sports photographer who gets sent to Guam for a cushy assignment snapping pics for a hotel ad campaign. While there, he gets caught between deadly assassins seeking an ancient jade sculpture and the beautiful woman (Joanna Krupa) who doesn't want to give it back. Richard Roundtree and David Carradine also show up in small roles and do nothing but make you wish somebody had done a Shaft/Kung Fu mash-up back in the day.
Now, there are so many negative comments to make about this plot, this dialog, the somnambulant direction of Albert Pyun, the half-a-note acting of Mickey Hardt and the fact that this thing looks more like a video from the Guam Tourism Bureau than it does an action movie. I would imagine that most anybody who'll ever be interested in watching Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon won't care about that stuff, so why bother. Instead, let me focus on what the likely viewer of this joke will care about and tell you how much that stuff sucks.
First, none of the women in the cast get naked. Not Joanna Krupa. Not Carmen Electra. Not Tawney Sablan. None of them. There are no sex scenes at all. Scenes with them in bikinis is as racy as it gets.
Second, the fight scenes here are both rather short and fairly lame. A lot of it looks like bad pro wrestling, the kind where guys get "hit" and then they jump in the air and flip around. Hardt may be a legitimate ass-kicker in real life. In this film, it barely looks like he can break an egg. I've seen better fight scenes on Walker: Texas Ranger. Heck, I've seen better fight scenes on Fraiser and How I Met Your Mother.
Third, there's a lot of talking in this movie. A lot. Hardt and his too pink, too-big-for-his-face lips talk a lot. Krupa talks a lot while remaining frustratingly clothed. Tawney Sablan talks a lot. Even Carmen Electra in a cameo talks a lot. I won't say there's as much yakking here as your average Woody Allen movie or an old episode of thirtysomething, but there's an enormous mass of conversatin' going of for a low-budget action flick. I guess all that dialog does give Krupa and Sablan a chance to show they're adequate actresses, but that's balanced out by exposing Hardt as having all the acting talent of a roast beef sandwich.
If you're going to make something like Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon and you can't be bothered to proved naked chicks to leer at or people getting the snot beat out of them in entertaining ways, why are you bothering?
And you know what the worst part is? There's a sequel to this thing. A sequel! Gah. I strongly recommend you avoid this movie and think the people who thought there should be another should be shot out of a cannon.