Mighty Jack

This is the pinnacle, the summit, the peak, the zenith, the hands-down, shoo-in, bar to measure the height of worst film i have ever seen. Do you know how bad a film has to be to get marked 1.8 out of 10? The 1.8 i see today is an over-rating too, I guess it allows some 10's from family members and total stoners attributing it with some genius of badness. But there is no hidden genius delivering awful greatness, it has no redeeming qualities, it is an incomprehensible mish mash of truly terrible special effects acting and cut and paste narrative. It makes no sense at all. I owned the film for my party years, a time where sublime hilarity could be sought in the universally terrible, this film beat that idle determination to discover fun in all the wrong places to a pulp, it is unwatchable... i just about watched it all the way through over a period of 10 years .. i think. .. (hah I just clicked the 'no spoilers' button... it is not possible to have spoilers, there is no plot to give away.)

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.

That was my thought-process during the entire movie.

It looked like some sort of spy movie... and there was a plane coming out of the ocean, I think... and a Japanese guy declaring his heart had always been German... oh, and a supergroup named Mighty Jack, led by a Japanese JFK lookalike.

But lordy, I never EVER understand WHAT was going on. The entire "movie", which was coddled from a Japanese TV series, had all the logic of a fever dream.

Even now, I couldn't tell you what I thought was happening, or even who was who, since the good guys and bad guys were indistinguishable.

God, what a bad film.

I've owned a VHS copy of this film for more than 25 years and no matter how wasted I get i can never reach past 10 minutes in any single viewing. This film is utterly incoherent. Even accepting the cultural nuances of 1960's Japanese narrative when experienced with 'Westen' expectation, it evades any grip of comprehension. The tin-pot, Special effects are remarkable in their lack of charm and no acting performance warrants the payment of even a kind word. The IMDb rating of more than 1 out of 10 can only be due to cast and crew voting as even their families could not have summoned such generosity. This extraordinary collection of images and sounds is so unwatchable that it is always my trump-card to the question: "Worst Film Ever Made?"

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.