Double Dragon (1994)

double-dragonDouble Dragon (1994)

Directed by: James Yukich

Starring: Robert Patrick, Mark Dacascos, Scott Wolf

one-star

When people talk about movies based on video games, they usually make a big deal about how they’re all awful, and then they try to one-up each other by naming the worst video game movie of all time. Usually I love it when people ask me what’s the worst movie I’ve ever seen, because then I can talk about stuff like Weasels Rip My Flesh or Elf Bowling: The Movie that they’ve almost certainly never heard of. When it comes to video game movies, though, the worst of the lot are actually pretty well-known, so when I say that Street Fighter is the worst, they think I just haven’t seen many of them and I don’t know what I’m talking about. Look, people, I’ve seen everything Uwe Boll has thrown at the screen and I watch shit like Double Dragon to get a good comparison. Street Fighter is still the worst.

Just like in the game this movie is based on, Jimmy and Billy Lee wear blue and red. Unlike the game the movie is based on, Robert Patrick is the villain sporting a Vanilla Ice haircut and he’s looking for a magic talisman that’ll give him ultimate power over the far off future world of New Angeles (the far off future being the year 2000, if I remember correctly). There are a lot of Mad Max-ian, poorly choreographed fighting scenes, and even more terrible jokes. Alyssa Milano is in the movie in tiny shorts, there’s a big mutated fat guy who I remember as the first boss of the game (which I never really got further than because I suck at video games), and… that pretty much covers it, I guess.

The thing I was most disappointed about with this movie was how unfaithful it was to the source. As anyone who’s ever played Double Dragon will tell you, the game is all about beating the crap out of your friend with a crowbar until he dies, then he comes back, punches you in the stomach, takes your crowbar, and beats you to death with it. Repeat. Every once in a while you had to fight some enemies, usually when your little brother or whoever you were playing with started whining about “truce! TRUCE!” …Which would last about two screens until you went back to beating each other up again. Why wasn’t there more of that in the movie?

About Reid

Born in a dumpster, died in a fire. View all posts by Reid

Leave a comment