Kickboxer 5: Le dernier combat

Mark Dacascos delivers the moves and his usual workman-like acting job in this utterly predictable martial arts revenge flick. James Ryan is appropriately evil and vicious--until he just caves before our hero. But little, not even the location filming in South Africa, can save this by-the-numbers film, especially with a climax that is...well, just not climactic.

This time Mark Dacascos is the headlining kickboxer who destroys the company that killed his friends. Seems like the Negall federation has killed off champions who refuse to join (Including Sasha Mitchell's character David Sloan) of course this leads to a final confrontation between Mark Dacascos and James Ryan. Redemption:Kickboxer 5 is the only film of the series that I had never saw prior to my ordering of the Kickboxer 5 pack. This particular entry for some reason never played on USA or TBS like the others did. After watching the final product it's not hard to see why. First off the David Sloan killed off in this film looks so unlike Sasha Mitchell (Why didn't they use Geoff Meed who bares somewhat of a resemblance?) that I refuse to acknowledge that this indeed has anything to do with Kickboxer 1-4. I must admit that I rated Kickboxer 1-4 higher than I normally would due to my nostalgia at the time, I would get home from my gas station job and plop down on the couch and that would be on TV much to my delight. Redemption:Kickboxer 5 doesn't even have that to fall back on and indeed there is hardly any kickboxing at all to be found in this super lousy sequel. Dacascos has natural screen presence and James Ryan has his moments as a bad guy but I prefer ass kicking in my kickboxing movies and therefore this movie adds up to less than nothing for me.

1/2* out of 4-(Awful)

Not as good as the first Kickboxer movie but better than all the other ones. I recommend this movie if you like the Kickboxers movies because it is a good movie and Mark Dacascos is pretty good in the movie and it is also a good martial arts movie.

Continuing my journey through the Kickboxer universe, I've arrived at Kickboxer 5, the last (so far) numbered sequel. Unfortunately, they saved the worst for last.

From the get go, the cheapness is overwhelmingly obvious. When your opening title sequence looks cheaper than the last iPhone video you took of your cat chasing a flashlight beam, you know you're in trouble.

David Sloan is gone, murdered by a South African kickboxing syndicate for reasons I'm not entirely sure of. Are kickboxers kidnapped, falsely imprisoned, and murdered as much in real life as they are in the Kickboxer movies?

The always-awesome Mark Dacascos plays...I don't remember his character's name. I'll just call him Kickboxer. Kickboxer has to go to South Africa and do something kickboxing related...I think. I just finished watching it and I really don't remember.

One unusual plot point that is never expounded upon is the relationship between Kickboxer and his elderly, sweater-vest wearing, gentleman friend. At first, it seems that the gentleman is Kickboxer's gym manager, but a bit later, it appears they live together. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

MST3K fans will, of course, recognize James Ryan , here playing the head of the evil South Africa kickboxing syndicate, as "MacPhearson" from the classic Space Mutiny episode. Every time he appeared on screen I reflexively started yelling out David Ryder's nicknames.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to moving on to the next entry in the franchise.

As usual Dacascos displays some excellent moves and great style in the fight scenes. The choreography ain't half bad either. However, thats the only compliment I can come up with for this movie. The dialogue will have you cringing and the plot is extremely weak and full of holes.