REWATCH: Gymkata [1985]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

This movie is an old one for us: old enough that it's on the original picture of the first few movies we watched when we had just started Bad Movie Night in 2012, old enough that Sarah hasn't seen it. Because it had been long before the Facebook group or the spoon rating system, and since we often just shout out, "gymkata" as an explanation of a specific kind of movement, we figured we should watch it again and properly review and rate it.

"Gymkata" tells the story of "Enter The Dragon" but with gymnastics. We have some opening shots of the lead, actual gymnast Kurt Thomas, doing his thing while somewhere else a man is running from some guys on horseback who kill him. We are given the plot at breakneck speeds: Thomas has to enter some vague competition called The Game in the country of Parmistan and win so he can request that a US satellite be built there. Weirdly enough, the odds of dying in The Game are high and yet, Thomas agrees anyway. For a satellite. Also, his father died in The Game. This is a great plan.

Thomas trains for The Game with some experts and the Parmistan princess and they have a thing even though (or perhaps because) she doesn't talk. In Parmistan, the princess is taken and brought back to her father where she is expected to marry his right hand man who also runs The Game and is planning a coup against the king. Thomas enters The Game where the right hand man is basically doing whatever he can to kill him and bumps into his father along the way who is quickly killed. Thomas defeats the right hand man and saves the entire government of Parmistan so quickly that when we got a final freeze frame we kept looking at each other and saying, "Wait, is that it? Is it over?"

So let's get the obvious out of the way: gymkata, the fighting style of Thomas' character, is very silly. It's fighting gymnastics. Also Thomas runs like he's going to vault and without a pole in his hand, he looks bizarre. Other than that, the premise is derivative, the plotting is expected, the acting is bad, and the flag-holding ninjas look bored -hang in there, guys- but I list all of these as examples of why it's worth a watch and we got a few solid laughs.

Spoon Rating: 6.5