Final Impact

This time Lorenzo Lamas plays a retired kickboxing champion who trains a new martial artist (Michael Worth) the ropes, while planning on getting revenge on the ruthless fighter who humiliated him. The final fight is there but...hey where are you going? Final Impact sounds more like a porno flick, or indeed my last case of constipation then it does an action film. I mean what final impact is there to be had? Is it possible the the generic title has something to do with the impact of Lorenzo's feet colliding with people's heads? Whatever the case maybe, you'll have more fun debating this rather than watching the final product. Which amounts to nothing but a sub par kickboxing action flick that is short on action and low on inspiration.

*1/2 out of 4-(Poor)

Lorenzo Lamas stars as Nick Taylor a washed up kickboxer who trains a kid named Danny (Michael Worth) to fight the fighter (Jeff Langston) who humiliated him in this poor fight flick. Final Impact is a movie with a low degree of style and imagination making this one for only die hard martial arts junkies, however even the fightscenes are surprisingly sub-standard, making this a movie with no real worth.

In my search to catch up on all the PM Entertainment movies that have somehow eluded me over the years, I finally checked out 'Final Impact' today. And I have to say that I enjoyed it.

I was a little disappointed by the lack of action, but genuinely surprised by the amount of drama.

Llamas plays Nick, a former champion kickboxer who can't handle the realities of life after losing to over-the-top bad guy Jake Gerrard, succumbing to alcoholism and depression. Nick finds a way to turn it all around by training a young Michael Worth (who delivers a good performance) to take on Jake and exact his revenge in the ring, fist-to-fist.

It's no 'Rocky,' though it tries to be. The fight scenes are decent and shot pretty well (the foley work is laughably cheese at times). But the performances are all around solid and the music is enjoyable. Vegas made for a beautiful backdrop to the film as well.

'Final Impact' reminded me greatly of another PM classic, 'Deadly Bet.' Though, 'Deadly Bet' has slightly better action so I give that one the advantage.

If you like PM Entertainment films, or a little drama with your kickboxing, you really can't do any better than 'Final Impact.'

Does anything original happen in this movie? No, you've probably seen it a million times. I think a huge reason I didn't turn this movie off was because Lorenzo played the part so well and it didn't seem forced or out of character if that makes sense. He brings this coolness to the character even though you should dislike him. Besides him there's not a single memorable character in this.

The kick boxer that Nick (Lorenzo) trains is pretty meat and potatoes. He can fight but his acting is like some high school kid doing the bare minimum to pass a Spanish class, shooting for that 60% or so. However the worst actor by far has to be the old man perpetually smoking cigars who is the other fighters coach for Jake the bad guy at the end of the movie.

The sets were diverse, there was a few scenes I was tempted to laugh at how poor the acting was and the cheap keyboad musical scores I'd take points off but all in all, this movie turned out to be better than I thought it would as really I just put this on to fall asleep to.

Final Impact is one of my favorite kick-boxing movies. We're talking about B-movies, I know it, but the 9 I gave wasn't out of place at all. I couldn't say how many times I re-seen this flick principally for the action scenes, stunning and entertaining, truly at Van Damme's level. Mike Worth is a tough guy and a good actor too. Don't you think he's quite underrated ?

The story was a pure cliché of the genre, the formula is the same of Karate Kid or the latest "kickboxer" episodes, but here was before it became rotten (mid 90s) and out-of-date. I hope many of you agree with me about the fantastic scene of the cumulative fights of the championship. Well shot, breathtaking edited, blow by blow in a whirling minute of action. It's a classic for these kind of movies, but even Bloodsport's or Kickboxer's aren't at this level. Probably just Mehri's next year "To be the best" (a must see movie) or Bloodsport 2 (another pearl). Gary Daniels was a great fighter and his two bouts against Worth are thrilling and cheesy. Too bad Ian Jacklin didn't have a role; we barely see him in the starting scene. He made a great job in other movies either as the bad or the good guy.

The DVD doesn't offer a thing. No extra scenes, rare material or interviews. I hope in the future (when perhaps, I hope, this genre will return mainstream) will be release a decent product, worthy to be called "DVD".

This film will please solely the genre lovers, but being so underrated seems just an average, meaningless clone.