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.
