Archive: You suck Scott Wolf – Red is better
Source: Gisoku no Jutsu
Original post date: 26 June, 2007
Okay, Wifey and I watched the incredible wrongness that is Double Dragon the Movie last week. I hadn’t seen it before, and my other half had seen it as part of one of her friend’s obsessions with Scott Wolf. Now, for the people out there who aren’t aware, Double Dragon was a videogame released to the masses in 1987 by the now defunct developer Technos. Double Dragon pretty much pioneered the side-scrolling fighting genre in video game land, and the games are classics – XBox 360 owners recently have had a remake thrust on them, but thankfully there’s also the option to enjoy it in all its original blocky glory.
Oops, got carried away again. Anywho, Double Dragon is a video game. Video games generally don’t translate well to movies, due to (a) the Hollywood studio execs are idiots, (b) the director and producers are idiots, (c) a story is contructed out of a property with no real story, and (d) there was no money to begin with, so it was a lost cause. Double Dragon pretty much falls into all of these categories – the studios behind it were idiots, the final package doesn’t speak all that well of the director/producers, there was obviouly very little money, and there is little premise for a story. That is because the storyline for Double Dragon is as follows – Billy Lee has a girlfriend. A dude in a mohawk punches her in the belly and then walks off. Billy and his brother Jimmy rescue the girl. Billy and Jimmy then fight each other as as to win her.
No, seriously, that’s about it. Wikipedia reckons there’s some post-apocalyptic futre thing going on. I think Technos (and by extension, Taito (who translated it into English) were smoking crack when they determined this, as the blocky scenery suggests 80s tragedy, not post-apocalyptic future.
So, in the movie Double Dragon, we start off with a winning opening – ninjas raid a Chinese village. We don’t know where, as a handy subtitle suggests that we are “Somewhere in China”. The shonky factor increases when we go a post-apocalyptic future – 2007 – to LA, whre a big earthquake blew everything up. We then witness Billy and Jimmy Lee in an underground fighting tournament that demonstrates that Wolf needed more body double shots, as he is officially shit. Jimmy Lee, unknown but talented, doesn’t suck. The dude that played T-1000 from Terminator 2 is the villain and has a goatee, and there’s lots of biff, bad effects and cheap explosions. There’s also Alissa Milano in short blonde hair, who, like Wolf, can’t fight to save her life either. Then at the end of the movie, they join two dragon-shaped pendants (the ‘Double Dragons’) and suddenly they have campy uniforms in blue and red colours. The end.
This movie fails on so many levels and should only be watched with a healthy sense of humour handy, possibly enhanced by (responsible, over 18 and legal [don’t close my blog MySpace :P]) consumption of alcohol. I won’t get those two hours of my life back, but at least I could laugh at it and didn’t waste any money on watching it.
Scott Wolf, go home to your Party of Five. Or better yet, Go Home and Be a Family Man. Man, I’m such a tragic geek 😛