Watch American Ninja 4: The Annihilation For Free

Absolutely Fantastic

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

THE ANNIHILATION is the fourth instalment of the AMERICAN NINJA franchise and my first exposure to it too. It's notable for featuring in its cast both Michael Dudikoff, who starred in the first two films in the series, and David Bradley, who replaced him in the third. Bradley is kidnapped along with a bunch of commandos by a terrorist group led by a British warmonger. He also has an army of ninjas at his command. Dudikoff is called out of retirement to effect a rescue mission and does so with his usual deadly relish. This is a film which was shot in South Africa on a tight budget and it's ridiculously boring. The action scenes are non-exciting and the fight choreography is poor, a surprise as I enjoy a lot of 1990s-era action B-movies with their powerful kicks and punches. In the end I was merely waiting for the credits to roll. Even some of the Godfrey Ho ninja cheese-fests were more enjoyable than this. I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist.

When the evil Mulgrew (Booth) and his Japanese "Red Faction Army" (actually a bunch of ninjas) plan to take over the world, Sean Davidson (Bradley) snaps into action to stop their nefarious plan. Even though he's working with compatriots Carl (Alexandre) and local doctor Sarah (Stille), Mulgrew still seems to have the upper hand. To get out of this jam, they call in the REAL American Ninja, Joe Armstrong (Dudikoff). He was off working in the peace corps (funny, that doesn't sound like the Joe Armstrong we know and love), but you know what they say, if you want something done right...call in the American Ninja. Now with the power of Armstrong on their side, they can't lose...or can they? At this point, the American Ninja franchise was on life support. Part 3 was a slog, so Cannon must have figured, let's get the same director and do it again. Bad idea. It feels more like a Nu-Image movie, and the fact that Avi Lerner and some other future Nu-Image people were working behind the camera shows this must have been their training ground, which is unfortunate, but explains a lot. One of the things they did right was get James Booth as the main baddie. Recall that this is none other than Limehouse Willie himself. But since Cannon recycles plots all the time, what they should have done is dispense with all the nonsense herein (like extra characters named Pongo and the pseudo-Mad Max trappings and all that) and do a remake of Pray For Death, but with Dudikoff in the Sho Kosugi role. Then we'd have something. But by now it was the 90's, and things were on the downswing. This movie feels like a cash-in with very little, if any heart behind it. Even Dudikoff doesn't show up until 44 minutes into the movie, and he was probably prodded into it.The connection between Davidson and Armstrong in the movie is done with the most slender thread imaginable, to the point of it being laughable: "they're friends", we're told. Okay. How come we never heard about this so-called "friendship" before? Just this one throwaway utterance is supposed to explain why Armstrong would come to Lesotho, Africa and save the day. We've heard of bad writing, but that's just childishly pathetic. And it's bad enough that Steve James isn't in this movie - the supposed main star is David Bradley, who has so little screen presence, he's more like a blank face than an actual actor. If he didn't have eyes, a nose and a mouth, and instead just had a big question mark on his face, no one would notice. Plus he makes a lot of silly noises when fighting, and he's almost certainly wearing "guyliner" in some scenes, which is not manly. Did Cannon REALLY THINK Bradley was better than Dudikoff? It shows that maybe this series deserved to go down the tubes, because of poor decision making.In the action department, there are some decent battles, a bit of jungle action in the beginning, and maybe a couple of exploding guard towers/falls and possibly a heli as well. Plus there's the Prerequisite Torture, but it's really hard to care about the characters, except for Dudikoff. There's the time-honored ninja training camp, featuring the al-Qaida monkey bars, and Mortal Kombat-style obstacles. But on the bright side, at one point, in order to change clothes from his street gear to full-blown ninja, Dudikoff jumps into what can only be described as a "Ninja Hole". When he jumps in, he's classic Dudikoff. A split second later when he jumps out, he's all Ninja'd out. We liked the Ninja Hole. Maybe it's near the Ninja Cave from Cannon's Ninja III: The Domination (1984). If there are spots on earth where people can instantaneously turn into ninjas, we want to know about them.As happened with American Ninja 3, not to mention a lot of other movies, the song here is better than the movie. Eddie Ray Wolfe's "Fight Fire With Fire" is great and should have featured in the movie itself, not just the credits. Chalk it up to another bad decision. In all truth, there is very little "Annihilation" in this movie. Despite the presence of Dudikoff, we're sorry to report this is a dud.For more action insanity, please visit: www.comeuppancereviews.com

I think, number four in this series is a bit too violent. Also, I mean, does the gang Joe hooks up with have to look so much like in "Mad Max"? And couldn't he, being like the greatest martial artist in the world, perhaps have applied his talents better at the peace movement? Though I like the series, I don't understand why they have cut down on the Ninjutsu and put so much emphasis on telling a complex story. Surely, we watch a movie like this to watch great techniques. Anyway, this series is very good when it comes to showing actual techniques, except that Ninjutsu does not have so many high-kicks that they perform. That looks more like kick-boxing, although, of course, high kicks can be effective in certain situations. Anyway, I think all of the five movies are worth seeing, but it is somewhat a pity that they are not even better.

I saw this on cable a few years after it came out-- and I was disappointed-- Steve James was gone! To me, he really made the first three films work, with his humor (and for what its worth, he was the better actor, all three times).the semi-wooden Michael Dudikoff comes back, paired with part 3's really wooden David Bradley.Part 3 was tolerable if only for James's presence-- I feel he should have been made the star after Dudikoff left, but of course that didn't happen.The plot involves some terrorist conspiracy, but of course in films like this it's incidental to the action scenes..I don't blame Steve James for not coming back for this last installment. Avoid this!