This week’s edition of the Cinemasochist’s Dungeon of Horrors had to be altered from it’s original plan. The Master’s pick this week was “Doom Runners”, a 1997 made-for-television post-apocalyptic movie produced by Nickelodeon. It starred Tim Curry as the villain and former wrestler Nathan Jones as the bodyguard for the pre-teen heroes. Unbeknownst to The Master, it was a surprisingly decent film with a compelling story, good sets and creativity to overcome it’s shortcomings. Basically, it wasn’t Dungeon of Horrors material.
To save the day is a good friend of mine and member on the FAN boards, Solomon Grundy. And by save the day, I mean he made my life a living hell! I mentioned that I was looking for a suitable replacement for “Doom Runners” and he suggested “Cheerleader Ninjas”, which is the film equivalent of an asshole who hangs around you and your friends and laughs at his own jokes. He told me words couldn’t describe how much he loathed this film. Having seen it myself, I know what he means.
Unfortunately, I need to use words to describe why I hated this film. So, here goes nothing. Kevin Campbell decided to make a film to show off how smart he was. At least, how he understood film clichés and what makes a bad movie. He immediately gives this impression by opening his film by introducing us to the main characters and explaining their role in the film. The big joke being the main cheerleader won’t show her breasts until the end of the film. You know, how like most sex comedies played out. Spelling out the joke not only diminishes it’s impact but shows a lack of faith in the audience. Not to mention it’s incredibly obnoxious.
This is the brand of humor “Cheerleader Ninjas” delivers. For what seems like the longest ninety minutes in history, Campbell beats us over the head with toilet humor and self-referential humor. His main goal is to parody cheesy B-movies by presenting their flaws in the context of his film. That in and of itself is fine. Continually pointing them out to prove he knows what he’s talking about is not.
The plot is as follows. The Church Ladies who operate the local Catholic school believe four perky cheerleaders from Happy Valley High are involved in distributing internet pornography. Blaming them for the fall of civilized society, they enlist the help of a gay teacher who was turned down by the cheerleaders to be on their squad. The joke here is that he’s gay. And that Catholics are hypocrites, as they’ll enlist the help of a gay man (who they feel is a sinner) to do their dirty work. But, mostly that he’s gay.
He assigns his detention students to combat the cheerleaders and take them out. These rebels hate cheerleaders and love talking nasty. They are also ninjas, prompting the protagonists to become ninjas as well. This is mocking the overuse of ninjas in the eighties and how they often played a minor role other than adding to the title. We get a couple of fight scenes which involve bad choreography, nudity, obvious mannequins/blowup dolls and random guys in costumes. Again, this is all spelled out for us (there’s an announcer who constantly breaks the fourth wall).
Since you can’t have a film about the internet without computer geeks, nerds are brought into the equation to add more self-referential humor. They make cracks about Bill Gates and Microsoft, as well as driving home the stereotype that all nerds are social outcasts who will never get laid. Don’t worry, this film is an equal opportunist in stereotypical humor, as the cheerleaders constantly drive home the fact that they’re brainless and use their looks to get by. Well, that is until the finale where we learn not to judge a book by it’s cover.
Notice how I haven’t mentioned the characters by names? That’s because their names are useless. They’re not even characters. They’re walking stereotypes who act as mouthpieces for Campbell. He has them constantly break the fourth wall to address film clichés and stereotypes and, as I’ve mentioned countless times already, spell out a joke. I get that this is Campbell’s way of “ruthlessly” breaking down a formula, but that doesn’t cut it for me. As opposed to making a bad film to point out the flaws in a bad film, why not do something productive and actually make a good film?
Final Rating: F