In every rare viewing of a bad film there are things you never expected to see and ponder thoughts you never believe would come to mind. For me it’s perhaps the first time I actually wished a film would fully commit to ripping off another film because of how unsalvageable the original material was. “Ninja Apocalypse” takes ninja with superpowers, an apocalypse setting, an underground military bunker, and zombies committing the unimaginable sin combining all of those elements into a boring film.
Ninja Apocalypse follows The Lost Clan gang from…it’s never clarified where the movie takes place so lets us pretend New York. So a charismatic leader summons several gangs in a post apocalyptic world in a bid to overtake their rivals. When he is killed, The Warriors are falsely blamed and now must fight their way home while every other gang is hunting them down to kill them. My mistake I meant The Lost Clan not The Warriors. It’s hard to believe even though it rips off the basic premise it manages to make whatever material it steals from “The Warriors” come across as the most competent components in its script. Except this time the context and the setting are extremely nonsensical. Then again should one really judge the logic of “Ninja Apocalypse”. Yes it should be judged because if there’s one thing it lacks is a working brain cell. Now aside from the basic premise and three plot devices (the sacrifice, seduced by women wanting to kill males characters, the ending) calling it a ripoff of “The Warriors” would be praising it instead of criticizing it. Yes, the fact it didn’t ripoff “The Warriors” successfully is a negative. Especially in regards when it comes to the film “plot twist” in the end finally revealing who shot Cyrus, I mean Fumitaka. It’s a failure of twist because the character doesn’t appear for a majority of the film and whatever recurring characters do reappear in the film don’t get enough characterization to make audience guess who the culprit is. Part of the fun of a “who done it” is guessing who actually committed the crime which you can’t do if you aren’t provided anything that’ll allow that.
I’ll buy the utter nonsense premise like anyone who likes seeing B-movies, but stocked characters, plot exposition upon plot exposition filled dialogue, attempts to add humor only to discard it within ten minutes, and bereft of a story can’t be overlooked. Our cast of heroes consist of two brothers, a woman, a deaf mute blackman, and a ninja with questionable loyalty. From that selection of characters their background are simply mentioned. It never elaborates on Cage having a family or ever goes into detail in how he became the leader of “The Lost Clan”. The same applies to all of its characters where it simply mentions moments or characteristic than moving on without elaboration. Another area it lacking is logic. Now with a title like “Ninja Apocalypse” of course it shouldn’t be taken seriously, but radiation doesn’t work the way this film believes it does. In this film ninja have powers so it would safe to assume it’s a result of radiation. Except later on in the film it is said by our heroes that radiation basically turned people into zombies. Not just any zombies, the kind that if cut in half can duplicate. So if the radiation turns people hundred of feet in an underground facility into zombies how in the world are people not below the earth not zombies! Radiation does not work like that! If it was just this oversight I would have not given it another thought. Than it claims the lowest level of the underground facility contains radiation. Hmm….so the inside of an underground facility consisting of hundreds of level below the surface of earth contains radiation yet the surface doesn’t. These writers can’t seriously be this stupid…oh yeah they probably are given they were to lazy to fully commit to ripping off “The Warriors”.
On a technical level everything about it will come across as low budget not for the reasons you expect. Yes everything looks cheap from the convenient store bought costumes, the fake weapon props, and the very shoddy CGI effects. It’s the tinier details that also display the lack of funds that even with it budget wasn’t enough to make such a simple movie. For instance there’s a fight scene consisting of several gangs against “The Lost Clan” and in the background it’s visible the performers are standing still. Only to be moving when they see some sort of signal off screen. Issues like these are always present in the action scenes despite taking place in the same location bodies will sometime disappear in a cut. Details like blood spatter on a wall will disappear immediately in the next cut in the same fight scenes. Adding to the problem are the slow performance of the action scenes that make these issues noticeable. Fight choreography is below average and these fight scenes instead of diverting your attention from the inconsistencies is build around that to reuse as much as resources as possible. In context the characters power aren’t used to diverse the kind of fight scenes you see all usually resulting in a fist fight or sword fight. The most visually annoying about how it shot are the dozen of lens flares and few instances of white flash effects. If the story or acting was any good the lens flares wouldn’t have been much of an issue since there’s something to divert from that issue. However, like everything else the lens flares are a results of visible light posts in every scene. Intentional or not they get distracting.
Late in the film there’s a scene that can causes seizure if seen in the dark because of how much white flash effect are onscreen in less than ten seconds. Set design, much like the performers in costumes, reused the same textures, material, and structures. Actors have to go around in circles to give off the illusion the set is actually a lot bigger than it actually is. The acting is no better. All of the performances are stiffed and wooden. Christian Oliver is incapable of selling himself as the film heroes. Even when he’s angry there’s no ferocity in his delivery. If anything Isaac C. Singleton Jr. does the best among the hero cast given he can’t speak or listen to sound. Not to forget Ernie Reyes Jr. who plays the villain is weak. If “The Rundown” could make Ernie Reyes Jr. beating up Dwayne Johnson look convincing with less screen time what’s this film excuse. Even Reyes Jr. fights against Christian Oliver whose physically same size as him never comes across as a threat. Just everything in this film is poorly assemble together.
Ninja Apocalypse fails as a ripoffs not coming close to duplicating anything with success from the source its copying from and fails as a b-movie due to it’s failing in every area without entertainment to be found. It could have been a ripoff, it could have been a entertaining b-movie, but in the end is devoid of anything positive from a filmmaking and entertaining perspective.
0/10
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