Review of American Ninja (1985) by Jorgen O — 31 Dec 2017

American Ninja is a perfectly passable, schlocky piece of 1980's action. It's about a soldier in the American military named Joe (Michael Dudikoff) who has memory loss. He also happens to be a secret ninja.

He and his comrades, including his girlfriend Patricia (Judie Aronson) and his macho friend Curtis (Steve James), are in danger because some evil Asian ninjas are after them, for reasons that are probably explained but I didn't catch.

It's not my fault necessarily, the movie is just really bad. Although, of the three movies, American Ninja is probably the best (technically). Joe isn't actually that likeable of a hero. He does the whole "silent but deadly" thing, but here it doesn't come out as awesome.

It just comes out as confusing and irritating. It seems like if I was one of the other characters, Joe would get on my nerves because he NEVER ANSWERS ANYONE'S QUESTIONS and insists on being mysterious and cool.

Most of the characters are cliche: Patricia is just a random damsel in distress, and Curtis is the tough Black commando. And both of these characters didn't like Joe at first, but after he did, like, one thing that was cool, they both warmed up to him 100%.

Curtis challenges Joe to a fight, and Joe basically just pulls the exact same fight move on Curtis a bunch of times, and then Curtis admits that he was wrong about Joe and that he's actually cool because he just rolled him around a few times.

So the characters, who happen to be cut-outs, develop way too quickly. And at one point, someone says that Joe's date of birth is unknown... so is it possible for him to be like, 50 years old? Here's another thing about this movie: the action is fairly boring.

It's mostly the dialogue that keeps you invested (at all) in the story. The first American Ninja is, as a movie, the best of these three movies. I'm giving it a C. But it's not the most entertaining.

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