austin-45114 Review of Expect No Mercy

Expect No Mercy (1995)

Lots of people get kicked in the head only its not real... or is it?

[8/10 · 30 September 2022]

Opens with the most hilarious virtual reality landscape ive ever seen, but to be fair, the playstation VR's visuals look pretty stupid too. Movie wisely has a villain who looks like the singer of that band that sang "Cherry Pie" so that we are on the edge of our seats awaiting the kicks to his head. Virtual CIA agent asks "what kinda gun is that?" after watching Billy Blanks fire holes into a shooting target, as if the target is meant to withstand bullets, which would totally invalidate its purpose, but whatever. Secret cyber assassin on murder mission has to kill a witness and then we realize his gun's not silenced, which violates the first rule of the assassin code. 8 out of every 10 actors in the film has a dumb goatee because this is 1995 and those are the rules. Someone says "Good luck... you'll need it", because this is an action movie about a man with an improbable task and that sentence is required. That blonde chick from Walking Dead appears and its refreshing to not see her miserable every second that she's onscreen. A character is called Warbuck, which would be incredibly ridiculous if there wasn't also a character called Spyder. The virtual training sessions are a Syd Barrett acid nightmare featuring disembodied liquid heads and purple buddhist dungeons. Some guy wants to fight Billy simply because "Its what I do" and i feel really bad for him and hope hes ok. Billy says "aka!" and "kajaaaah!" while beating people up, which should be dumb but its not. Its awesome. All the kicking sound effects sound like Streets of Rage from the Sega Genesis which is equally awesome, especially since the cyber fighting sessions look like a fighting game... on acid. Or on Mars. Two assassins camouflage themselves by simply crouching next to trees that are twenty feet away from their targets and they are unseen because thats how espionage works. Just crouch next to some trees and be silent and wait. An innocent man caught in the crossfire realizes he was pointing his gun at a cop and then bounces his gun in his hands like a hot potato going "oh whoa whoa!" A lot of people get kicked in the cyber head which is a good thing because Billy Blanks is one of the worst actors of all time, but he succeeds in this territory, and understands the rules: Say the lines however they come to you, and then look really cool while kicking people. I have seen a lot of action movies and I can confirm that this is one of them.