Customer Reviews

Expect No Mercy

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Here we have another production with the ever famous duo of martial arts actors Billy Blanks and Jalal Mehri - great martial artists who are laughable actors that when paired together create a so bad its good movie. On top of it, this movie deals with martial arts combat in a virtual reality system - oh dear. Someone was smart to let Anthony De Longis and Michael Blanks (Billy's brother) be in this film because they save it - and so does the non-stop action.

I figured that any virtual reality action coming from a 1996 B-martial arts flick would be a joke, and yes it is bad. Thankfully the entire movie doesn't really revolve around that. There is a virtual reality martial arts academy, where students train through this program, but the academy is actually used as a front. The academy's leader "Warbeck" (Wolf Larson) thinks he is God, and runs a secret assination program with some of his fines men - Damian (Anthony De Longis) and Spyder (Michael Blanks). I never knew De Longis could fight, but he does ok in this film, and steals the show at times, being just dirty in the film. Michael Blanks is always a treat for me. Though he rarely has a line, he always plays a villain (Dragon Fire, Circuit, Bloodfist 6) He has longer legs than his brother, and the results are impressive leaps and kicks that look great.

There is so much action in this film its crazy. Unfortunately, some of it takes place in the virtual world and looks like pure crap. Most of it does take place in the real world. The movie even begins with some great action, and again, the charcaters Damian and Spyder get to show off as the bads guys. Later in the film, both Billy and Michael fight each other in what is probably the best fight of the film. It's a 4 minute fight that looks pretty good, and Michael Blanks kicks his brother's butt pretty good for awhile. Jala Mehri gets to fight Anthony De Longis on a rooftop in the end, which is an ok fight. The final fight is Billy Blanks against Wolf Larson. In addition to being a pretty bad actor, I didn't think Larson was all that good of a fighter and even though its a lengthy fight of several minutes, the final fight could have been better.

Yeah, this is a pretty bad movie that's very cheesy and all the usual American B-movie stuff. But it somehow still manages to be very entertaining, with tons of martial arts action and some great villains. Its a pretty easy watch when you just don't want to think.

There is nothing Kenny Smith cannot excel at

It's with mixed feelings that I write my review of the last of three cinematic team-ups for martial artists Billy Blanks and Jalal Merhi. In the three years they teamed together, if nothing else, they provided the DTV action scene with sustenance and created an image of themselves as two of the more consistent action heroes of the low budget section. With that said, I wasn't a fan of their last two movies and won't rave about this one either, but in retrospect, it's the best of their three collaborations for focusing on what sorta-kinda worked in their last two and remaining interesting even during the more questionable parts. In short, it's probably the best film that Blanks and Merhi could ever make together, but that's not saying much.

The story: assigned to infiltrate the mysterious Virtual Arts Academy of the eccentric Mr. Warbeck (Wolf Larson, L.A. Heat, Tarzan), federal agent Justin Varnier (Blanks, Tough and Deadly) teams up with fellow initiated agent Eric (Merhi, Tiger Claws) and deluded academy member Vicki (Laurie Holden, The Mist) to find out that Warbeck's academy is a front for a camp of assassins trained via his signature blending of virtual reality and the martial arts.

Computer graphics nowadays are so advanced that watching the low-budget offerings of 1995 is shocking. The blocky CGI backgrounds present in the virtual reality fight scenes are cool in a retro sort of way, but the gimmick gets really old after a while for a couple of reasons. Not only are the fight scenes in the VR world the worst of the bunch (thanks to a deficiency of camera angles, a complete lack of atmosphere, and a weird sparkly effect on the fighters that blurs everything they do), but the whole VR concept has minimal impact on the rest of the movie: Warbeck makes a few grandiose statements about the computer being the future of the world and stuff of the like, but nobody ever fights to the death in the virtual world and it's questionable if any of the characters seem like better fighters after training in it. It's a novel idea for the time (if we choose not to remember The Lawnmower Man), but it really seems like the only reason it's there is because writer J. Stephen Maunder wanted a gimmick to spice up an otherwise clichéd storyline.

Apart from the primitive 3D animation, the production looks pretty good - minimalistic and kinda underpopulated (shades of TC 2000?), but solid. I can't say the same for the action content, though. Jalal Merhi will always be known as one of the most lackluster onscreen martial performers, but Billy's stuff is usually pretty good...except in the movies he did with Mr. Merhi. The choreography could be better all-around, but it's the cutting and editing that really breaks a lot of the fight scenes: the filmmakers seemed to believe that showing a tight close-up is more exciting than pulling the camera back to show off the form of a kick, punch, or throw, even if it's something remarkably cool like someone delivering a flying kick down a flight of stairs. Luckily, Billy's athleticism shines through: despite needing to brave his way through an embarrassing stickfight, not even the damn post-production editing can completely ruin the coolness of some of his moves, especially during a four-on-one randori. His battle with his real-life brother Michael (Dragon Fire) steals the show for its back-and-forth fluidity and the eventual death by steam. Jalal Merhi doesn't have any fights worth mentioning, which is in accordance with his character: he's the costar by definition only, with next to no personality and very little plot significance. Personally, I think this is for the best. The fact that Wolf Larson clearly pantomimes his way through the final showdown is disappointing, though.

"Expect No Mercy" is only a two-star rating, but my three stars represent a general improvement over the faults of the earlier films. Seeing lots of Billy and generally little of Jalal goes a long way, but it's the bunch of little enhancements like marginally-better fight scenes and even the mildly amusing tidbits like the weirdo VR animation that put this one a step above the others. Watch some clips online before considering a purchase.

Forget Tae Boe. Billy should have kept doing karate movies. This movie was filled with action. The fight scene at the end between Billy and his real life brother was great as was the grand finale between Blanks and Wold Larson's character. Neither Blanks nor this movie would have ever been nominated for an Oscar, but for sheer entertainment and great karate action, Blanks, Charles Daniels and Michael Worth are second to none. Most of the time they will have a good story wrapped around these great fight scenes. So what separates Blanks from the other thousand karate movies out there? Personality. He can also act. This was a good movie. About what I expected since what I expected was not a dull moment. Wold Larson is also very good as the villain. He is a great in roles where he has such fight scenes as I have seen him in a karate movie before. This movie was only missing in the romance department. Other than that it shot no blanks. Great for us American star karate movie fans.

This movie is starring the always hilarious Jalal Merhi who has dreams of being Steven Seagal but some how can't accomplish this. Also starring in this movie is the always nonacting Billy Blanks. The real star of this movie is the dialogue with lines like " You surprise me I didn't know you could think" being deliver by Jalal Merhi while kicking a man off a roof you have to see it to believe it it's one if the many hilarious lines in the movie. This movie is best watch with some friends so you and them can play MST3K. But if you want to see the "Jalal and Billy team" best it's so bad it's good movie then watch "Talons of the Eagle" it's great.

Jalal Merrhi definately is getting better with each production, however Billy should stick to Tae-Bo. I saw a familiar face in the student who does the Nun-Chuk routine. This actor (Joseph Clark) is making a dominant appearance in action films and on Canadian Television. He also appears in "Expect to Die" in which he has a brilliant performance as a kidnapper. The babe in this film was pretty hot. The Tarzan guy was miscat.

Gary Larocque is the heart of this film; he moves from tepid conservatism of emotions to a fury of life-on-screen and shows us what it means to be an actor: One of the best performances of his generation.

You will laugh until you die! Billy "shootin" Blanks teams up with that worthless French dude (it's freedome-fu now) to beat up evil "cyber criminals" as he puts it. So funny.

This movie had some great stuff in it. The movie had about 20 fight scenes and neat special effects. The problem is that about half the fight scenes are down right horrible. They're slow they use dumb moves, the actors overact the pain and all the fights in the seacond half of the movie are so poorly choreographed that I want to fast forward and get back to the plot. I think they switched choreogrophers somwhere in the middle. It is a good movie with some good fights and some bad ones. bits of it are creative. other times it's unbearably boring

Expect No Mercy is watchable only as a late night video fodder.Aside from that,it's a repetitive and nonchalent load of running,jumping and kicking.