March 26, 2007
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I always knew sporting goods stores were bad news.Hey there, stranger! Gosh, has it been a week already? It seems like only yesterday we were discussing life, liberty and Will Smith's Pursuit of Happyness. In case you haven't heard from the good folks at the Arts and Culture Center for the Hopelessly Mediocre yet, I accidentally slipped into a coma late last Tuesday after returning from a local antique store with a copy of Paul Aaron's wonky Chuck Norris vehicle A Force of One. The tagline printed on the package suggested that the world-famous action movie icon would somehow hear the silence while seeing the darkness, a trick I was more than willing to pay five bucks to experience. What did I get for my wrinkly Lincoln, you ask?
A coma.
I've heard that The Chuck Norris Coma -- also known as CNC -- preys on those who buy into the pop culture hype surrounding the aged martial arts expert, especially the empty-headed fools who anticipate great things before sitting down with one of the man's countless motion pictures. And as much as it pains me to admit such a thing in a very judgmental public forum, I have to state the truth for the sake of the nation at large: I am one of those empty-headed fools who ignorantly believed he was about to experience something substantial, something life-alterting. When my brain came to the sudden realization that nothing of the sort was about to transpire, it immediately called in sick and I disappeared into an inky black void filled with reruns of Small Wonder. It's a simple case of setting one's expectations too high.
For those who would like to share in my cinematic agony, A Force of One stars Chuck Norris as karate champion Matt Logan, all-around well guy and adoptive father to a nerdy black kid with a very nappy afro. When he's not busy helping small children learn the secret arts of the Orient or training for his upcoming title bout, our bushy blonde hero is helping the local police department with their ninja problems. I've seen this kind of thing happen in Lexington at least once a week, so I can easily sympathize with their plight. Damn ninjas.
Matt, enraged to the point of physical violence after witnessing a stockpile of illegal drugs stashed in the basement of his local neighborhood police station, agrees to help the coppers with their karate-choppin' killer despite the fact that this community service drastically cuts into his own sweaty training sequence. Though his law-enforcing students learn the basics of hand-to-hand combat straight from the master himself, two more wind up floating in the river just a few scenes later. Who is the karate wizard behind these heinous crimes? Can Matt Logan jump kick this no-good ninja before something horrible happens to that goofy kid with the afro?
More importantly, can you evade CNC long enough to uncover the answers you seek? I seriously doubt it. Sorry to disappoint.
American martial arts films talk too much. Way too much. If they had something interesting to say, that would be different. I would undestand completely, and promptly issue an apology to their children. With something as insipid as A Force of One, you don't need a lot of dialogue to have a good time. Give us the basics, cut to the first action set piece, and don't let up until the karate madness is causing the plasma in our eighteen million dollar televisions to fester and boil. Sony Chiba doesn't stick around to woo the ladies or mumble incoherently about unnecessary plot points, does he? Of course not. He steals a kiss, rips off your testes, laughs in your face, and leaps out a nearby window with your manhood clutched in his gooey fist.
To call the film lifeless would be an insult to those without lives. Then again, this may explain why I started to slip into my candy-coated coma shortly after our hero trains a very peculiar collection of police officers in the ways of kay-rot-tay. Once this entertaining segment has run its course, the story spits and sputters like an old man jonesing for another hit of off-brand Enzyte. My unexpected departure from the waking world came shortly after Chuck Norris tries his hand at romance. Similar scenes in other Norris flicks usually cause nausea; this time, it took my soul and seven days of my life.
Oddly enough, the only way to cure CNC is to fast-forward to the conclusion of the offending film, generally right before Chuck Norris does something foul to someone's face. Nobody bothered to google this helpful nugget of information until after I'd developed an interesting array of oozing bedsores. However, from the rickety chair inside the solitary confinement cell of my psyche, the ending looked pretty good. If I weren't afraid of what a repeat viewing of A Force of One would do to my emotional and mental stability, I would probably watch it again. It takes me a while to learn things.
For those of you who are expecting great things from A Force of One, be prepared to spend a week locked away in a world of your own design. Of course, your experience may differ slightly from my own. If you're a jolly old soul who's quick with a smile and a good word about your overweight pervert neighbor, you might come out a-okay. The rest of us, I'm afraid, are in for a very, very long 91 minutes. Stick to the Chuck Norris flicks that involve lots of heavy artillery and horribly stereotypical foreign foes. Leave this one to the completists and the fanboys.
Unless, of course, you need an extended vacation to nowhere.
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