Reaction & Review | The Ninja Mission

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering a Swedish action movie from 1984. That movie is "The Ninja Mission".

Now, I'm gonna be honest with you guys, I don't really know a whole lot about this movie. But judging by the title, I'm gonna be taking an educated guess here and say that the movie has something to do with ninjas, and that they're on a mission of sorts. Or there is a mission involving ninjas. I'm not totally sure which at this moment, but I am going to find out soon enough. I also know that this movie has spawned several sequels...sort of. I'm gonna get more into that when I cover one of those supposed sequels next month.

I can also tell you a little bit about the person who made this movie. And he goes by the name of Mats Helge Olsson. And from what little information I was able to find, apparently, he is known for making cheeseball style action movies that were suppose to resemble American-made action movies. I don't know how that's going to bode well for me, personally, but I am rather curious to see how an action movie from Sweden can do when trying to be like the action movies that were made in the U.S. Also, I think this is the first time, in this series, that I'm covering a movie from Sweden. I could be totally wrong on that, but I am pretty sure that it's accurate.

I really don't know if this thing is going to be any good. But I am hoping for the movie to, at least, be entertaining. And the only way I'm gonna find out, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "The Ninja Mission".

10 minutes later

My god...the acting in this movie is fucking terrible. I understand it's still early, but if this is the kinda acting that I have to get use to for the next 90 minutes or so, then I fear it might be torturous.

6 minutes later

OK, I've never seen someone shoot a dart from their elbow before. Especially since it was covered from that guy's coat. That is sort of unique, I gotta admit that.

18 minutes later

So, guys, I'm gonna ask this. Is ANYTHING interesting gonna happen in this movie? Because we are over a half an hour into this thing, and I have been struggling to stay the fuck awake. I'm genuinely hoping that the next hour is going to get better, but right now, this movie is boring as shit, guys.

17 minutes later

You know, guys, I understand that this is suppose to be a touching moment where both father and daughter are meeting for the first time. And I probably would care if these characters had some level of depth, but no. I just can't bring myself to care.

2 minutes later

OK, this has been bothering me since I started watching this thing. Why is it that certain handguns have these laser sounds every time someone shoots with them? It doesn't really make any sense, especially considering that other weapons, such as the machine gun I'm seeing right now, sounds like what an actual machine gun should sound like. I understand that I might be asking a trivial question, but it's these kinda details that really bother me a bit, you know?

19 minutes later

And the scientist is now dead. Again, I would probably care about his death, but you know what? I don't. At this point, I only care about the movie ending. Thankfully, there's about 23 minutes left in the movie, so the closer this thing gets to the end, the happier I will be.

The Review

Thank Christ, this piece of shit is done. Well, guys, that was "The Ninja Mission". Let me shut that crap off...OK. Holy shit, was that ever boring. Now, let's see if I can talk about this thing, shall we?

The first thing I need to talk about is what I mentioned at the start of this thing. And that is that Mats Helge Olsson was known for making cheesy action films that were suppose to resemble American-made action movies. And, for the most part, it does kinda live up to that standard. However, this is where we run into a problem. This movie almost relies on nothing, except action scenes. And I totally understand that there are those who are probably going to enjoy this kind of thing in their action movies. Now, before I continue, I need to stress that this was released in 1984. And the reason why I bring this up is because I haven't seen a lot of action movies that came out in the 80's. The closest ones I could think of are the latter two Dirty Harry movies, and "Lone Wolf McQuade", which I covered for this series. The difference between those movies and this one is that, those movies had some level of story. Even "Lone Wolf McQuade" had more of a plot than this movie did. Which is saying a lot, because "Lone Wolf McQuade" didn't really have any kind of plot to speak of. This movie, on the other hand, doesn't even try to go for some kind of story that would, in some way, be partially interesting. In fact, I guarantee you that even people who don't care about plot in action movies are going to find this thing boring as shit, because it relies far too heavily on action scenes. And I wouldn't have that much of an issue with it, if the action scenes were, in any way, interesting. And, outside of the last half hour, the action scenes are incredibly stale, because damn near all of them are straight up gun fights. And it is boring watch, because that's all you see in the first hour is nothing but that. The closest thing we get to partially interesting with these scenes is that one of them shoots a dart from his elbow, and that's kinda it. And the action scenes don't improve at all until the last half hour, where it starts to get partially interesting with our ninjas.

Speaking of which, I'm gonna jump ship to writing and get straight into it. There is no story here. At all. I'm gonna give you the summary of this movie's "plot". A scientist has an invention that could balance the powers between the East and the West, and he is trying to defect to the West. The KGB get involved and capture him as their prisoner. To give the power of this invention to them, they kidnap the scientist's daughter, Nadia, and it's up to our main character, Mason, who happens to be a CIA agent, to rescue both the scientist and his daughter before the invention is given to the Russians. That's it. That is literally the entire plot to this movie. Now, you would think that would sound interesting, if we had interesting characters to back it up. However, that isn't the case. Every character in this movie is completely shallow and lifeless. Now again, I totally understand that you don't need mountains of character development when making an action movie. But, at the very least, give the viewer a reason to care about any of these characters. Give them some kind of background on these characters and why we should, at least, take them seriously. But no. This movie couldn't even attempt that much. There is no life to any of these characters. Mason, I would say, is a shitty knockoff of James Bond. However, that would be a terrible insult to James Bond, because, not only is Mason missing the style, the coolness, and the personality of James Bond, he has no character to speak of. According to this movie, he's in control of ninjas, which I would've like to have seen more of and less of Mason, but oh well, I guess you can't get everything you want. I would've like to have seen how he has a connection to these ninjas, or how he came across them during, or before, his time as a CIA agent, but again, that would require some level of effort on whoever wrote this lifeless script. Nobody else here has any real development, and I didn't care about a single one of these characters. I didn't care about when Nadia's father got killed. A bit of a spoiler there, in case you cared about what happens to him. Overall, guys, the writing in this movie is so lifeless, and the lack of interesting characters is what kills this movie for me. Again, you don't need ultra deep characters for action movies. But if you can't give any reason as to why the viewers should care about your lifeless, shitbag characters, then they deserve nothing, except the quick of release of death.

Now, beyond the borderline, plotless writing, and the shitty characters, what about the acting? Well, I commented at the start of the movie that the acting was terrible. Well, not only did I get terrible acting, but it got progressively worse as the movie went on. Nobody in this movie put in any kind of effort that I would say was half decent. The acting is incredibly wooden, and this is all attributed to the fact when you are given a script that is this lifeless, you can't expect any of the actors to make their dialogue work. And for a movie that claimed to be a cheeseball style action movie, I was kind of expecting the acting to be just laughably bad. However, I didn't get any of that. Instead, all I got was acting that started off terrible, and it just went downhill from there. The worst actor, by far, has to go to whoever played Ableman, our villain for this movie. Every single line of dialogue he gives comes off as, not only as wooden as the rest of the cast, but I swear, he speaks like a human version of Speakonia. I want you to imagine that for almost the entire movie, coming from our villain, where it comes off as wooden and robotic as possible. If you seriously want to watch this movie to riff on it, then you might get a laugh out of his horrendous acting. I, personally, didn't get any of that while watching it. So I can just write the acting off as shit in general.

Moving onto special effects. As I was watching the movie, there weren't a whole lot of special effects, outside of some occasional blood effects. At least, until the last half hour kicks in, where guns are blazing, and there's heads being sliced in half by our ninjas, and just blood, in general, exploding from body parts. And that's where the special effects really take it up a notch. And honestly, even though this takes a complete left turn in terms of how much blood there was, it actually kinda made this movie partially interesting. Which leads me to wonder why this movie didn't do more of that? I understand that it wouldn't fix the writing at all, but at least it would've made the previous action scenes more interesting to watch. But anyway, as I said, there is a ton of blood pouring from bodies, and it really makes the special effects shine in this scene. All of the blood is practical blood, and the blood that is used here looks great. The only problem is that you have to get through the rest of the movie, in order to get to that halfway interesting action scene in the last half hour of the movie. And I really don't think you'll be able to sit through this thing without attempting to fall asleep. Because I was yawning multiple times, just trying to stay awake and hoping for the movie to get better, but it didn't. However, I'm getting off track here. Long story short, special effects are the only highlight of this movie.

Camerawork here is OK. Lighting is lit well, for the most part, outside of a few scenes that were shot in the dark. But since they're minor, I'm not gonna count it as a negative. I want to touch upon sound, for a moment. Because I'm still trying to wrap my head around this. So, we have some handguns that makes this laser sound. It comes from Mason's gun, and several other extras who have these laser-sounding guns. And, it still boggles my mind as to why they make this sound. Either the Foley Artists wanted to add it in because it sounded cool, or they have never heard how a handgun sounds like, and they just decided to use that sound because fuck you, that's why. The only other movie I can recall where I heard laser-sounding guns was when I watched "2020: Texas Gladiators". And that is fucking shameful, because of all the movies you had to replicate laser-sounding guns, why in the fuck would take a note out of "2020: Texas Gladiators"? In fact, thinking about it, I'm sensing a pattern. Both "The Ninja Mission" and "2020: Texas Gladiators" were made in European countries. I have to wonder, do Foley Artists in European countries think that adding in laser sounds for handguns sounds cool, or have they never heard how a handgun sounds like in their lives? I'm kinda curious about that, and I totally understand that it has nothing to do with the review, but it was something that I kinda noticed. Anyway, beyond the oddball choice for the laser-sounding handguns, the sound-mix is mixed well. I couldn't tell you a single piece of music that was, in any way, memorable. It was kinda shit, for the most part, so I guess I can add music as another negative to pile on this movie.

So, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "The Ninja Mission"? No. This movie is boring as shit. I'm not totally sure if I could recommend it to fans of plotless action movies, because they might even find this movie to be boring as shit, too. The only other way I could, maybe, recommend this thing, is if you have friends over on a bad movie night. If you want to riff on something, then by all means, go ahead and check this thing out. It might prove to be a fun time, providing you haven't fallen asleep from boredom. This movie sucked balls. And the worst part about that is that I have to cover one of the supposed sequels next month. I feel I like I may not make it through that movie, if this movie is anything to go by. However, it could always prove me wrong and actually be interesting. But right now, I just want to go and  do something else. And seeing as how I mentioned James Bond, I think I'm gonna pop in a 007 movie. I haven't decided which yet, but anything is better than watching this shit piece again.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until, next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.