Action Jackson (1988)
Really, really dumb and only marginally fun, "Action Jackson" is a bit of a mess. Carl Weathers is Sergeant Jericho Jackson, a.k.a. "Action Jackson" for his knack of being "where the action is". Makes sense to me. Jackson has an archenemy in an evil car manufacturer named Mr. Dellaplane, played nicely by Craig T. Nelson. Apparently Dellaplane and Jackson have a bit of a history together, in which a past incident between the two resulted in Jackson being demoted and taken off the streets. This sorta pisses of Jackson since all he does now is push pencils at police headquarters, never getting to live up to his "Action" moniker. However, Jackson is soon involved in a murder ring set up by Dellaplane to kill some local union officials, with Jackson teaming up with ex-Prince darling Vanity to stop Dellaplanes plans.
My main beef with this one was that it tried to be a hybrid action/comedy type of flick, with the comedy bits just never really meshing with all the gunfights, explosions and multiple deaths. Cheesy one-liners are of course a staple of many action films, and while some of it does work, many here just aren't funny. The film does serve up a fair amount of explosions, gun fights, a clan of mullet wearing ninjas, and in one wonderfully cheesy scene, Weathers outruns a cab driving baddie who's going at least forty-miles an hour. You gotta love stupid shit like that, no?
Weathers does well as our main man Action Jackson, but his dialogue, as with every other character in the movie, is just really shabby. The person who surprised me the most in this one was ex-Prince babe Vanity, playing a nightclub singer who leaves Dellaplane to help out Action. Shockingly, Vanity was actually competent in the acting department, was easy on the eyes and most important of all, shows us her boobs. What a gal huh? Overall though, while it could be chalked up to being dumb fun, there was just something amiss with this one. Eighties action buffs however, may want to give it a try. On a side note, watch out for the audio track on this one, the old cassette I viewed I noticed the audio was really low, so when you crank it up to hear what is being said you'll be rewarded with some plastic, punchy 80's pop blasting your ears every ten minutes.