Karate Cop

Painful – that's the first word which comes to mind when I think of describing this movie. As a film star, Ron Marchini has possibly the worst catalog of starring vehicles among any regular action hero, and KARATE COP represents his low standard well. Some B-movies are a chore to watch, but KARATE COP crashes beyond this extreme by not only being technically inadequate but by being almost completely joyless.

The story: On a quest to find a teleportation crystal for the leader of a gang of street children (Carrie Chambers), an ex-cop (Marchini) battles through the vicious gangs of a post-apocalyptic city.

Given that Marchini is a karate pioneer whose name is heard alongside the likes of Chuck Norris and Joe Lewis, I was expecting at least something out of the fight scenes, but the film offers me zilch. Every single one of the eight brawls stink and their collection provides an encyclopedia of things to do wrong in a choreographed fight. Lead-footed kicking, poor timing, slow pacing, poor extension on strikes, cramped camera angles, unnecessary slow motion, and that dreadful technique wherein a strike is filmed with multiple shots and edited together to give the impression of many hits. Marchini looks strong but entirely graceless. David Carradine appears in a small, non-fighting role, and while I'm usually disappointed whenever Carradine partakes in a martial arts flick without showing his own moves, I understand why he might not have wanted to have gotten involved here.

Speaking of David, his scene constitutes the one and only part of the film that entertained me, solely because Carradine's personality eclipses both his costars and the production in general. Many movies with ambitions larger than their budget have struggled with trashy sets, clunky costumes, and destitute filming locations, but this is one of the few wherein the sheer bleakness of the production depressed me. To be fair, there are flashes of energy in the performances and several moments wherein the filmmakers make creative use of their indie medium, but these are obscured by the tepid tone and tedious pace. Every development in the plot feels like a concession: the movie *wants* to be over and is grouchily doing us a favor by reaching its conclusion, dragging its feet as it goes while muttering "Whatever."

I only finished the movie for the sake of this review, and I don't recommend that anyone else put themselves through the ordeal. Don't get this one. Pick up any Fred Williamson junker or Leo Fong schlock before putting money towards KARATE COP, which is among the pickiest of niche features I've ever seen and a very steep gamble if you're looking for fun.

With a name like "Karate Cop", what are you really expecting? This movie is a perfect example of a brainless, bizarre, early 90s action movie. It has terrible acting, has a plot with as many holes as swiss cheese, and stars a third-rate Chuck Norris clone (ouch!) and David Carradine (who is only in one scene and gets killed).

That said, my circle of friends enjoyed this movie because we have a soft spot for god-awful movies. So if you enjoy MST3K, frequent the IMDb's Bottom 100, and love to make fun of Norris, Segal, Van Damme, and Stallone than this movie is worth a look on a Sunday night, possibly after a few too many beers. Otherwise, avoid like the plague.

If you ever want to make a direct-to-video martial-arts movie, just watch 'Karate Cop' and take some notes. You will be well on your way to creating your very own direct-to-video karate video. Awesome.

John Travis (Ron Marchini) is the last cop on Earth. What exactly happened to the rest of the police or what caused this post-apocalyptic vision of Earth is never quite revealed. At all. In fact, it was only viewing 'Karate Cop' and looking it up on IMDb that it was a sequel to something called 'Omega Cop'. Anyway, John's a pretty busy guy, being the last cop on Earth and everything. He saves Rachel (Carrie Chambers) who turns out to be a scientist AND the leader of the 'Freebies', a group of freedom fighters who resemble Peter Pan's lost boys more than fighting rebels. Offered hot food, Travis offers to do some errands for Rachel, including karate-ing the local gang led by Lincoln (D.W. Landingham).

Did I mention that David Carradine makes an appearance? I guess that was just assumed.

'Karate Cop' reeks of being straight-to-video. Most of the dialog is irrelevant, and generally consists of Travis talking to himself. As for acting... Well. Here's what I think happened: Every time one of the actors made an attempt at acting, that actor was beaten until they learned to stand there remembering lines instead of actually acting. That is the most logical explanation I can think of. With the exception of Lincoln and Lincoln's champion (Michael M. Foley), the bad guys strike me as being 'inspired' by '1990: The Bronx Warriors', an obscure Italian movie which was itself 'inspired' by 'Escape From New York'. It may be a stretch to make these comparisons, but hey, I call them as I see them. As for Lincoln, he reminds me of Mojo from 'X-Men' and the Champion is nothing but a Bolo Yeung clone. Awesome.

As an action movie, it is VERY cheap. Ron Marchini spends most of his on-screen time anti-acting, beating people up or hiding from bullets and explosions. 'Karate Cop' is definitely one of those movies that will entertain if you enjoy mindless b-movies. None of the action scenes are of any mentionable quality, but hey, what do you expect?

'Karate Cop' is just a b-grade action movie. If that's your thing, check it out. It is a poor movie, but sure to entertain some - 3/10

I hired this movie recently from a video store, it was nothing like i expected, John Travis is the only cop in the world, he saves this girl from a bunch of ruthless thugs, she has something that belongs to these ruthless thugs and they come after her and John Travis, it has to be one of the worst movies i have seen i give it a three out of ten.

Thinking of the title of this film and the last film I do believe they should have been swapped. This one should have been Omega Cop and the other one Karate Cop, because he was not the last cop in the previous film, but he is here! What do we get, pretty much a film that is sort of a sequel, but at the same time it ignores the previous film's ending altogether. Still set in a strange future where the depletion of the ozone has caused crazies; however, they do not even bother doing a solar flare scene. They also copy Mad Max a lot in this one right down to the sawed off shotgun and leather.

Last we saw Omega Cop who is now Karate Cop he was in the mountains with three very attractive for an apocalypse girls swimming! Well forget that, because either they ignored that scene or Karate Cop is actually gay and decided he like roaming around the city looking at all the leather clad rejects from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome! Another girl needs his help as her totally tall blonde girlfriend dies while taking too long choking someone on a chain rather than watching her back and soon he must find a key component for a teleporter which is always underlined like I misspelled it and apparently not a recognized word even though I've heard the word since 1987's The Fly and which makes absolutely no sense existing in a film like this as I am doubting something like that could be made and things still be awful. Then again it does not make any sense why Karate Cop did not just unload both barrels of his shotgun into the henchman Snaker as that would have saved him a lot of trouble as I'm pretty sure the other dudes would have just left had he killed Snaker from the get go. However, then we would not have seen fat dude and his Thunderdome or rather his narrow fighting trench and super strong henchman that feels no pain from anyone except Karate Cop...

This film is like a lot of those sequels to cheap films in that it does some things different, but you are still watching the same crap with a lower budget so it's not quite as good. In the last film we get Adam West and in this one we get David Caradine because this film has a lower budget so you get a less polished and well known actor. Terror Within had George Kennedy and the sequel had R. Lee Ermey, same concept. They did okay though as far as the action scenes as they were actually about like the first film and there was a better duel at the end than in Omega Cop.

So, this is a sequel that should have been called either Karate Cop II had the first film been called Karate Cop or this one should of been Omega Cop seeing as he keeps saying in this film he is the last cop. All in all, it is pretty much the same film except with less attractive girls the hero keeps picking up throughout the city as he did in the first film. Seriously though, why would he have left the mountains and those women? We deserve an answer as ignoring it insults all of us!