The Cynical Critic

So some time last week one of my friends had been telling me about this movie he saw on cable. He told me that it looked like one of the worst movies he had ever seen. So naturally, it had become my duty to make sure I saw this film. The following review is an obvious film candidate for “Terrible Tuesday”, and unlike most reviews where I try to keep my final judgment to the end, their really is no way of getting around it with this movie. It sucks. Honestly. It’s horrible. No. It’s worse than horrible. It’s (and this is a word I rarely use) atrocious. It literally is a bane on the human race. So if that’s enough info for you, then I suggest you stop reading right now and save yourself the pain and misery I had to suffer. If you really don’t want your day ruined, just click on the little x at the top right hand of this window, and continue going on with the rest of your life.

However, if for some reason you are into cruel and unusual punishment, if by chance you really enjoy self mutilation, or if “S&M” is your thing (don’t worry though, thats not what this movie is about), then I guess you may want to continue reading. But don’t you dare say I never warned you.

Continuing on now for those of you that are truly brave, let me first tell you the title ad director of the movie before you decide to go any further. The movie was directed AND written by Jean Claude Van Damme. No, that’s not a typo. No, I haven’t lost my insanity (yet). This movie was literally written, directed, and acted out by Jean Claude Van Damme. He more or less did everything himself. Are you scared yet? Wait it gets better. Let me tell you the title of this film. Are you ready? Ok. Here it is:

THE QUEST

Yeah. Thats right. The name of the movie is The Quest. Seriously. This is quite possibly the most generic movie title ever conceived. Honestly, they could have just named the movie “fighting guy” and it probably would have been better. Or better yet, they could have just called it “MOVIE”. At least that way it would most likely get overlooked. So then, how are you doing? Are you still hanging in there? I’m guessing right about now that escape button on your keyboard is looking real nice. But if you do decide to stick it out, let’s continue. Here, let’s take a look at the movie poster for this film.

Wow. Yeah. I’m more or less speechless right now.

It says Go the Distance. Ok, I’m gonna go the distance. The distance to the rental store to take this piece of crap back.

So then, since you have allowed your eyes to see this horrible image, we might as well continue with the rest of this movie. The film starts out in a bar. An aged man orders a drink and sits down. Soon after a couple of extremely cliche’d “hoodlum” type guys walk in. They are classically dressed in both black leather and chains, and as if that wasn’t enough the leader guy is armed with a switchblade. Oh goody. Anyway, the three guys threaten the bartender, but are then stopped by the old guy, who is revealed to be Van Damme. The bartender asks where he learned to fight like that but Van Damme doesn’t answer. Cue the title screen. Yay.

The movie jumps back to 1925 (WTF), and shows a Van Damme who is a pickpocket and steals money to give to his “kids”. He is chased by the police while running through town on a pair of stilts, and eventually he stows away on a ship with some pirates. The pirates find him, but he is rescue by Roger Moore (the guy who played James Bond) and is then stranded on an island and force to learn Muay Thai. And just for clarification, I didn’t make any of that up. That is literally the actual first 45 minutes of the film.
Around this time what can only be described as a flashback occurs. At least I think it’s a flashback. It’s a completely different scene than from what was happening before. The scene depicts a boy and his mother sitting on a park. The boy picks up a piece of paper, and then the scene is over. It lasts about fifteen seconds.

After this, Van Damme escapes the island and meets Peter Moore again. Van Damme is obviously pissed, but Peter Moore tells him about this fighting tournament where the grand prize is a “Golden dragon, made out of gold.” Yes. That is an actual line from the movie. A Golden dragon made out of… gold. So Van Damme agrees, and they head off for the tournament. What follows is a good ten minutes of people riding on elephants, donkeys, horses, people walking up hill, people walking down hill, people crossing streams, and people walking through forests. Needless to say, one could leave, make a hot pocket, eat it, come back and they still wouldn’t had missed anything.

Eventually they get to the tournament and it is full of cliche’d fighters. Their is a guy from Germany who looks remarkably just like a Nazi even though Nazis didn’t exist yet. Their is a fat guy, who presumably plays the role of the sumo wrestler. Their is a Jamaican guy who break dance fights. Yeah. Then their is a little Chinese guy who fights like a monkey. Cool. Finally, their is a Scottish guy who fights in a kilt, and the main bad guy, some huge dude from Mongolia. As you can see, the cast is quite diverse.

Anyway, to make this as painless as possible, Van Damme fights a bunch of these guys, and ends up winning. He then takes on the Mongolian guy who as literally crushed everyone in his way. He loses pretty bad at first, but then for no real reason comes back and wins. At first I didn’t really realize this was the last fight, because the movie must have decided that it wasn’t a good idea to lead up to it at all. After the fight was over the next scene was another flashback of the little boy and his mother. This time the boy crumples up a piece of paper and the scene ends. The movie then goes straight to the credits.

Ok, so basically at this point I am just sitting their with this look on my face as if to say “WTF.” During the time of the flashback scene I was expecting something to happen. But then it was over. So then I thought, “Oh, I bet they are gonna explain it’s relevance to the story that just happened.” Instead, immediately after that scene the credits begin to roll. I just sat there, confused and puzzled. Until finally it dawned upon me:

The flashback scenes have absolutely no purpose to them whatsoever. They are entirely, pointless.

Aside from that their isn’t a whole lot about the movie to be said. As you may have read the plot is basically horrendous. I guess I should mention that this movie has the distinction of having quite possibly the worst soundtrack I have ever heard. At certain points in the movie I felt like shoving dull butter knives into both my ears. It really is that bad.

I give this film a 7.5 on the crap-o-meter. If you are really looking for a terrible film, this may suit your wants. Finally, if you really don’t believe anything I just said, take a look at this movies trailer. If you don’t at least chuckle at just how bad it is, then congratulations, because you sir are either dead or a robot.