Gymkata - Le parcours de la mort

This is one of America's finest films. If you don't know, now you know. In the words of Lord Bephfington "I would give my right arm for DVD copy of this classic." By combining both humor and action, Gymkata makes for easy viewing over and over again.

Looking like a bizarro MacGyver and armed with a deadly gymnastics/karate hybrid fighting style, real life gymnastics champ Kurt Thomas flips, kicks and spins his way though a host of vaguely ethnic baddies in the fictional nation of Parmistan. His mission; to win The Game, a deadly race through Ninja filled forests and a town full of crazed maniacs. If he wins, his prize is one wish, which he will use to allow the U.S. to place a satellite monitoring station in Parmistan to act as an early warning against a potential nuclear attack. Thankfully, there are plenty of uneven bars and pommel horses in Parmistan.

Maxim once voted 'Gymkata' the 17th worst film of all-time, but honestly it's pretty entertaining. The plot is beyond dumb and the acting is atrocious, but the fight scenes are a blast thanks to some creative choreography, the real life skills of Thomas and a director who knows the genre in Robert Clouse ('Enter the Dragon', 'Blackbelt Jones', 'The Big Brawl' and 'China O'Brien 1 & 2').

The best thing about "Gymkata" is that it takes itself very seriously. Actual men and women worked on this film with no intention of creating a hysterically abominable failure. Yet, despite a premise that fails to produce anything beyond derisive laughter, the project somehow landed financing.

Highlights include: The Khan of Parmistan, a man who looks like Albert Einstein with Carl Levin's comb-over. "The Town of the Crazies," a village of criminally insane people. A man who severs his own hand for no apparent reason in the aforementioned town. A man (also in that town) who wears a cloak with the back cut out to reveal his buttocks. The oft-repeated location, "Karabal, on the Caspian Sea." The title card that lets us know when we've arrived at "Karabal, on the Caspian Sea." Princess Rubali and her odd fascination with cutlery. A man named "Thorg," who has been admired by the hero "since Munich." An actual line of dialogue that refers to "a nightmare in hell." The five punch/kick sound effects that get recycled beyond believability. A character who presumably fell to his death in a gaping, barren canyon only to have his fall "broken by some trees." The random placement of gymnastics apparatuses. The complete lack of resolution to numerous dangling plot points. Kurt Thomas's wardrobe and haircut. The men working at "The Salt Mines," who just poke a large pile of refined salt with hoes. Also, we get the privilege of seeing a shadowy government agent push away a gymnastics groupie who tries to get too close to a post-dismount Kurt Thomas.

If you happen across this movie, you must watch it. "Gymkata" stands as an example of what happens when no one offers a dissenting opinion anywhere in the filmmaking process. This is a technique that was later revealed in Joel Schumacher's "Batman & Robin."

"Gymkata" fulfills every expectation you may have of a film combining gymnastics and ninjitsu. Plenty of gymnastics, plenty of ninjitsu. See it with a friend and enjoy its many failures. All hail "Gymkata!"

It's a rare film that actually attains the heights which it reaches for in a world so filled with really bad chop-socky flicks.

Which brings us to "Gymkata"... which succeeds in being the absolute WORST.

A shock, since it was directed by the same Clouse who gave the world "Enter the Dragon", Bruce Lee's signature film. But then, what can you expect in an action film that features Buck Kartalian?

The real star is Kurt Thomas, or at least that's what the credits say. But if every actor had as little talent as he, there would be no need for Lee Strasberg. Let's just say as an actor, Thomas makes a great gymnast.

Which is all this movie really calls for. Kurt plays a gymnast recruited by the CIA to help the good old US of A claim a distant land for their "Star Wars" military post. Great, we all think, until we realize Darth Vader won't be making an appearance.

But this also isn't a "Rambo"-style actioner - Kurt doesn't go in with machine guns and grenades, ready to blow this peace-loving country into submission. No, he is instead trained in the lethal art of gymkata, which consists of walking up a stairway using only your hands, carrying on a conversation with yourself with intermittent back-flips thrown in every so often and hoping and praying to God that wherever you fight there will be uneven bars, pummel horses and other gymnastic-looking pieces of architecture about.

Why all the training? BECAUSE, dear movie-lover, this aforementioned foreign country will only give its land over for military use to whichever nation's representative can finish a deadly kind of decathlon where everything from arrows, scimitars and the mentally-unbalanced are thrown at the competitors. Of course, with no other weaponry in evidence, it's shocking that Russia hadn't already claimed it. Heck, Australia could have shipped all their excess kangaroos over and kicked everyone into submission in less time than this movie takes.

Anyhoo, "Gymkata" is about as graceful as a doped-up rhinocerous and twice as intelligent. Of course, for entertainment value, there's always the Village of Crazies and Buck Kartalian playing the ruling Khan. Yes, the same Buck Kartalian who once played the lead in "Please Don't Eat my Mother", about a guy and his carnivorous plant (Buck played the guy).

And if you thought THAT movie was derivative....

No stars, no hope, no future and (please) no sequels for "Gymkata".

I understand there is also a 1978 movie called "Gymkata Killer". Well, there went the ONLY original thing about this movie - its title.

People love to rip on this camp classic, but I have probably seen this movie as many times as Star Wars. Johnathan Cabot(Kurt Thomas) is a swashbuckler like no other, and he has an uncanny knack for finding gymnastics equipment to do routines on and defend himself. The pommel horse in the village of the crazies is a perennial favorite, as is the horizontal bar in the middle of the town of Karabal, on the Caspian Sea.

Look for a cameo by the Where's the beef? lady in the village of the crazies, and a plot that is a convenient afterthought to the creation of a context where Thomas' gymnastics skills can be highlighted.

As if one bad movie about Gymnastics wasn't enough, Mitch Gaylord decided he'd give it a shot in American Anthem, which came out a year later.

Unfortunately, this Gem is not available on DVD.

-CNW