| Coyote Moon (1999) Cast:Jean-Claude Van Damme,Pat Morita,Danny Trejo,Larry Drake,Jamie Pressly, Gabrielle Fitzpatrick Van Damme stars as a suicidal vigilante out to avenge his mugging in this entertaining movie that provides enough action scenes to satisfy the action crowd as well as enough unitentional humor to please camp buffs looking for a silly actioner which revels in the action to the point of being ridiculous. When I saw Kickboxer back in 89, I kept wondering what if Jean-Claude Van Damme was "The Karate Kid" and how well it would've turned out, I was of course kidding but then ten years later we got Coyote Moon which teams Jean-Claude Van Damme with Pat Morita (Mr Myiagi) and director John G. Avildsen of course I never realized that this would be the closest we'd ever get to that movie. Infact pretending that Pat Morita is Mr. Myiagi provides the movie with a lot of the entertainment factor here. Although Morita's English accent is good for a few laughs. In anycase Coyote Moon travels the line between terrible movie and terribly entertaining. The action sequences are indeed well staged and it's nice to see Van Damme together with Morita, Larry Drake and Danny Trejo etc. I think the problem was that they needed Mickey Rourke in the title role but instead we got Van Damme which insured that it had tons of action but its not very credible and yet this qualifies as a great guilty pleasure with just how ridiculous it is. Indeed the scene where Morita says "I bet Lomax gets lots of pussy!" or Drake who non-chalantly explains why he loves his youngest son more than his boneheaded older sons. "I actually loved Petey's mother, your births were because of good old fucking." naturally this sets the tone for the film and therefore this movie is a lot of fun. Although this is strange to see from an oscar winning director, this is probably as close as were going to get to a Karate Kid sequel starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. D.John G. Avildsen *** |