Mighty Jack

Even bad movies have an appeal to them. Perhaps a film has horrible acting, perhaps a minuscule budget which sadly shows itself practically in every frame, perhaps lousy effects like a rubbery monster and people drip bright fire engine red colored blood, or perhaps the script is stupid or poorly represented by an incompetent director.

None of these criticisms work in terms of wrecking the entertainment factor. If that were true, not enough would have sat through Plan 9 for more than 15 minutes to make it a cult classic. Seeing Tor Johnson struggling to get out of a grave wouldn't be remembered if it doesn't serve as a kind of entertainment. But people do find bad movies entertaining, if only to laugh at how bad they are.

Mighty Jack does not have the Plan 9 quality in terms of entertaining bad films. The worst thing anyone can say about any movie is that it is boring and Mighty Jack is just that, boring.

The movie is two separate episodes of a 60's TV show called Fight! Mighty Jack! From what we see from what ended up in this movie, I am guessing the show didn't have a run that lasted more than 26 episodes.

I don't know why these two episodes had to be put together in a single movie. I don't see the point to it. I understand the first half of the movie was to establish characters but it doesn't really work,and it doesn't develop a plot to set up the 2nd half of the story beyond the fact that there are good guys, Mighty Jack, versus the bad guys, Q. I think the lack of any kind of cohesion in terms of story is where the boredom factor lies because you don't really know or care about any character on the screen because there's no reason to know about them.

This fails in a lot of ways, the most entertaining aspect of how bad this is for me was their sad attempts at special effects. The toy divers, the toothpaste tube looking Mighty Jack ship/jet. The dubbing which turns every actor's performance into wood,but the worst is how dull it is. There is a clear distinction between bad and being boring while being bad. I never met anyone who deliberately sat down and watched this movie and just watch it like I did.

I can think of several bad movies that fit into the boring category too. UFO Target Earth, The Curse of the Headless Horseman, Manos The Hands of Fate, Monster A Go-Go, The Creeping Terror, The Naked Witch, The Snake People, all share this movie's space in that list. Being bad is one thing being dull while being bad is something else. This is bad and dull. Entertainment factor is near nil.

Apparently edited down from a Japanese TV series, "Mighty Jack" looks more like several completely unrelated spy films chopped up and reedited randomly. The plot, if it can be said to have one, is an exercise in incoherence. A plot synopsis is impossible for this film, *none* of it makes sense. What an endurance test this film is, anyone who makes it all the way to the end deserves some sort of medal.

Well, maybe not, but my oh my, isn't Mighty Jack getting a bad press! The simple fact is, the "movie" (it's nothing of the sort) has been soooo hacked about from its TV origins it's all you can do but sit back and either turn it off or enjoy the ride. See above for the basic outline of "plot" proceedings but, yes, it's pure trash. But here's why I like this video: the Gerry Anderson style models and effects. Along with so many otherwise disposal Jap flicks, this one is festooned with tasty technology and nifty effects that the script (and acting) is frankly not worthy to be seen with. Like Anderson, this film fetishises the Skydiver-alike Mighty Jack with repeated, dare I say lingering shots of it's various functions and ticks. OK, this kind of stuff only suffices for a distraction but if you enjoyed Derek Meddings water/model effects in "UFO" or you're a model nut, this is worth a look. Just a quick one, mind.

I saw this 'movie' as an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It is actually another in a long line of Sandy Frank cocktails where he pieces together several television episodes and presents them as a movie. He did the same thing with another MST3K riffed movie, "Time of Apes". He did a bit better job in this one than that one as that one left so much out that by the end you really felt like you missed a lot of key plot points. This one seems to be made up of the first few episodes of the television show it was cut from and the last few and the episodes are so distinct that nothing is really brought up that makes it seem like you missed a whole heck of a lot of things that would have helped in understanding the film as a whole. I will say that the first portion of this one is not all that bad and is the highlight while the second portion of the film gets really crazy as it starts with one thing, then turns all spy movie and then finishes with a zany barrage! So, overall, not a really good mash up, but miles ahead of "Time of Apes" and the "Fugitive Alien" movies.

The story starts out with a man being kidnapped by the dastardly organization known as Q. Soon the super secret agent squad, Mighty Jack, is dispatched to rescue this man in their super big ship that can fly and submerge! During this section of the film, we learn that you apparently have to open your eyes to see the amazingly bright lights and go blind and keeping them shut is not an option and we learn that the super awesome ship does a lot of bank turns. The second portion of the film has Mighty Jack discovering Q has the ability to make ice that does not melt! There is a lot of double agents in this section of the film before the awesome climax of watching the Mighty Jack ship fight a big old glacier!

This made for a very funny episode of MST3K as most Sandy Frank movies do. Even if they are overall good films, his editing and dubbing can turn even sort of good films bad and this one just does not seem all that good. A strange show that seems to be part model attack show like Ultraman or that one Toho film featuring the ship that fought the serpent monster combined with a Bond film as the main villain was obviously copying Blofeld as he was even accentuated with a kitty cat. The jokes were funny and the one bump making fun of the whole barrel over the guy with blinding lights was great.

So this 'film' was better than a couple of other Sandy Frank mash up television shows that I have seen, but still not good. The cast is okay, but as with most dubbed films, you cannot really get a true feeling as to what their true ability is. The first portion of the film was the best part as the second portion of the film seemed almost rushed. This may have been the case as the show may have been told they had to end it so they could have ended it the best way the could. Not the first time I have seen this as the video game Xenosaga was to be a six part series of games, but got cut short and the third game seemed very rushed and sped you to a conclusion that seemed rush.

Imagine going on the teacups ride at Disneyworld spinning round and round. Remember that feeling when you stepped off the ride? Well, who needs teacups when there's Mighty Jack!

I cannot even attempt to explain what this was about. There is the good guys who battle "Q" the evil organization whose leader looks like the japanese version of Blowfeld. The film includes rescuing a guy named Nintendo...I mean, Atari, escaping many traps, survive double crosses left and right, use of special effects from Kay-Bee, a huge iceberg, and no plot to be found anywhere. Even after 3 viewings, I could find no answers. Just headaches.