Max Havoc: A Maldição do Dragão

Max Havoc is not a cinematic masterpiece. In fact it's a poorly produced movie. the attempt of trying to make a Hollywood action movie on a beer budget is clearly evident and does not work. What saves this train wreck of a movie is Joanna Krupa. She might be one of the hottest women in Hollywood. My GF said she can't act. I disagree and wish my GF would move out. She's a failed actress and comedian who hates on other people that actually appear in movies. Where Max Havoc took a bad turn was not more Joanna Krupa. The director or producer or studio should have included nudity parts with Joanna Krupa. When you cast eye candy you have to show eye candy. I do hate when movies feature a star like Carmen Electra on a DVD cover when they have a minor part in the movie. It's like bait and switch. I hope that Joanna Krupa is more movies.

Max Havoc (Mickey Hardt) is an ex-kickboxer turned photographer who protects two attractive sisters from the Yakuza led by David Carradine. Seems that one of the sisters bought a jade dragon from dealer Richard Roundtree and after numerous awkward moments, Max Havoc saves the day but doesn't save the film. As far as narrative flow goes, Max Havoc:Curse Of The Dragon is possibly Pyun's most chaotic movie ever made. (And I saw Nemesis 1-3, Bloodmatch and Deceit) The problem with Max Havoc is that it only provides occasional laughter. From laughably overblown suspense sequences that involve hostage taking, getting run over by a row-boat, getting cut up in a limo and much much more. However Pyun actually makes the biggest mistake by hardly giving us any dumb moments and basically the movie is mostly dulls-ville. There is some controversy over how this movie was made, but I for one am indifferent to such matters. Sure it's not right but i'm not here to discuss politics and my neutral observations are simple; Max Havoc is a terrible movie with only a few (unintentionally) hilarious moments to keep you from shutting it off. Among the unintentionally hilarious moments is how Pyun pays direct "homage" to Cyborg (itself a masterpiece compared to this) in that Pyun shows pointless flashbacks for no other reason but to stretch out the running time. In this case we watch Max Havoc deliver a jumping punch which is then followed by David Carradine looking mean into the camera and smoking his cigarette and showing his rings. Also the ending makes no sense and the impression here is given that the movie wasn't even indeed finished. Max Havoc:Curse Of The Dragon is so incompetently edited that fight sequences are literally scrapped before the confrontation ends! Also the story is so over the map it's impossible to follow it coherently and finally the movie features acting so terrible that it sometimes borders on surreality. David Carradine and Richard Roundtree look (rightfully) embarrassed, Carmen Electra is not in it much and newcomer Mickey Hardt is so bad that he makes other Pyun leads (a list that includes Jean-Claude Van Damme, Sasha Mitchell, Michael Dudikoff,Gary Daniels, Steven Seagal and (shudder) Olivier Gruner) seem like master thespians. Seriously where did they find this guy? Still the main question is whether Max Havoc:Curse Of The Dragon works as a guilty pleasure style movie, and sadly the answer is no. There are a few laughs to be had but mainly we watch Mickey Hardt snap photos for like forty minutes before anything happens and this in itself is a tragedy because without dumb action, Max Havoc:Curse Of The Dragon is just painful to watch.

Note:On the DVD there is a biography of David Carradine and Richard Roundtree however both sections neglect to mention Bound For Glory,Kill Bill Vol.1 and Shaft on the filmography for the two distinguished actors. Which only shows the ineptitude of all involved.

* out of 4-(Bad)

A friend of mine in Guam sent me a video of this movie that was made there with Guam Government money. It was utterly stupid and beyond pointless. I feel bad for the Guam Government for losing money in the scam. They'll never make money on this pile o' sh*t movie.

It's about a sport's photographer who goes to Guam to take pictures of some hotel. He meets some girls (playboy model Joanna Kruppa plays one of the girls - in a cover story for Playboy Kruppa called MAX HAVOC "really stupid!" Well she's right) and some kung-fu gang is chasing her. I don't know why. Anyways, Max Havoc helps her out. The fights are so poorly done, it looks like stuff my kids shoot on their Hi-8 Video camera. But beyond that, MAX HAVOC is so BORING. You want to fast forward through it, but that doesn't even help!

The movie makes not a lick of sense and it's hard to imagine someone making a film this bad. I IMDb'd MAX HAVOC director Albert Pyun and he makes really awful movies, so I guess it makes sense that he made MAX HAVOC. That seems to be his forte: making really bad movies, but not "so bad they're good" movies say in the spirit of Ed Wood, his movies just flat out suck. Talk about ZERO talent. I wonder if he cons people like he conned the Guam Government when he made this film. What a legacy!

If you see this movie in the video store (somehow I don't think it will ever make it off the island of Guam), hold your nose!

We've all seen them: bad movies. However, MAX HAVOC: CURSE OF THE DRAGON sinks to uncharted lows of stupidity and boredom. I guess this mess seemed like a good idea to some mentally bankrupt "Hollywood Never-Beens," but even an Elementary school film-maker wouldn't be proud of this celluloid atrocity.

A sports photographer goes to the Island of Guam to shoot pictures of something, I don't know what and the screenwriters (There were two!!!) doesn't seem to know either. His name, Max Havoc, is straight out of a bad 80's action film (except it's a bad 2004 action film). While in Guam he runs into some girls who can't act and they involve him in some mind numbing plot points and there's lots of remedial kung-fu "action."

Carmen Electra is in the film for all of 10 seconds but she's got the top-billing. (Yeah, it's one of those rip-off films. The DVD case says: STARRING CARMEN ELECTRA and she's barely in the film. Not only are you, the viewer, ripped off by this film it looks like the Islanders on Guam were ripped off too as the producers got the Locals to sign a loan deal that went bad ((of course - they make bad movies and default on production loans!!)) or some such sh*t.)

There's all the clichéd scenes you expect in a Grade-F "action film." Lots of slow-motion, yelling and running around. No car chases but there is an "action" scene with a boat that's going about 2mph! The girls don't take any clothes off, so you don't even got that. The film reminded me of one of those bad "skin-a-max" films you see in Hotel rooms, except there was no porn in this film just bad story, bad sets, bad acting, bad lighting and bad direction. At least the film-makers were consistently bad: Not one single good thing appears anywhere in this film!

The film ends (thank you, God!): Max Havoc chases away the bad kung-fu guys and gets the girl, Guam gets pinched for the film's budget and you, for having made the mistake of picking this turd up, gets ripped off for whatever Blockbuster charged you.

Being from Guam, of course I wanted to see this film. Everyone made such a big deal about it and the Government put up the money for it.

What a really bad movie. It made little sense to me and was a waste of time. I watched it on TV here so I couldn't fast forward it!

Some of my friends were in it as extras, so I guess it was cool seeing them, but the shot they were in was out-of-focus, so even that was worthless. My friends were angry. I guess they waited for hours and hours and never got paid.

The only place this movie is ever gonna play is in the your local car-wash bin for $1.99. It's not even worth that!