The silliness of Gymkata

Gymkata is a silly movie. At one point the hero tells a villain to put his hardware back into his pants. (He was referring to knives.)This is not to suggest the movie is terrible. (It might be though.) This movie features a man combining karate and gymnastics into a new fighting style. You either go for this kind of nonsense or you don’t.

It is fun. Some of the fight scenes are good. Richard Norton is on hand on as a villain. Kurt Thomas was an Olympian but as an actor, he is not great. (He did not have a long acting career after this.) I might have seen worse or less likable action heroes in my time. I did like his ability to do a backflip.

Thomas plays Jonathan Cabot and he is recruited by US government to take part in a contest called the Game (the rules of which aren’t really explained) in a country called Parmistan and if he wins the US will get to deploy a statelite from Parmistan. The country has conviently located props for Jonathan to use his gymnastics skills while fighting. (The movie’s plot is less clear than I am making it sound.)

Yes this movie is from the 1980s.

 If you like the American Ninja films, maybe this is for you. It is not for everyone. I saw this when I was younger, so perhaps I have some misplaced affection for it.

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 18, 2018 at 6:18 PM

    C'mon Man. You know this was a cheesy film that tried to emulate Jean Claude Van Damne.

    ReplyDelete

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