Word of explanation, the DVD packaged as Shadow Warriors, was actually part 2 as the original was called Assault On Devil's Island which introduced the world to the team up that would define terrible movies forever. Hulk Hogan, Carl Weathers, Shannon Tweed and Martin Kove. Anyway for some ridiculous reason they made a sequel to Assault On Devil's Island and this was the result. If however you want to see Assault On Devil's Island, you have to buy it as Shadow Warriors 2. It's sort of like the whole Missing In Action/Missing In Action 2 debacle in the 80s. In anycase Shadow Warriors stars Hulk Hogan. What more do I have to say? Oh alright i'll elaborate.

I saw Assault On Devil's Island when I was 16, the reason is because back in 98 some time, a Dolph Lundgren movie called Cover-Up was on TV and because I couldn't fake sick (due to excessive skipped days) I set up my VCR and got not only the Dolph Lundgren Good Friday thriller but also the first of this tragic series. Actually Assault On Devil's Island was hilarious, but it's been 9 years or so since i've seen it. However this movie picks up a couple years later and it seems that our heroes no longer work for the Navy. In fact according to the flashbacks one would swear they were Marines. They're mercenaries now and the first thirty minutes is of a rescue attempt that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.

The beginning mission finds Hulk Hogan, Carl Weathers, Shannon Tweed and some generic army sidekick travel to Austria to save a kidnapped girl for a doting mother who claims that her husband (the girl's father) doesn't really care for his daughter and is just kidnapping her to punish the mother for leaving. However the big plot hole here is that what man would abduct his own child so that he could raise the kid? I mean if I was a suave James Bondian style villain i'd be out getting threesomes rather then playing daddy to a whiny kid who never shuts up. Anyway our heroes break into a party and rescue the said girl and the big chase action sequence is on a cable car. (You know sort of like the things that you ride on when you go skiing) because nothing is more exciting then riding on cable cars. Anyway what seems like forever takes place and they finally deliver the girl to her mother and we learn just how noble our heroes are.

Then Hulk Hogan recognizes someone who used biological weapons on his men and he decides to go to Saudi Arabia armed with guns and bombs, how this guy got through security is anybody's guess but damn it when he shoots up the place the sparks really fly. Although the action sequence would be more exciting if Hogan didn't just stand there and fire endless rounds of ammo while stuntmen do perfect backflips as they run into the bullets. Hulk Hogan surprisingly gets captured and is infected with a virus that will kill him in 72 hours. Because bad guys are always too squeamish to shoot the hero in the head, so they go out and try to use ridiculous forms of murder that the hero always overcomes. Hogan escapes thanks to Carl Weathers, Shannon Tweed, Martin Kove and the generic army guy. We then learn what the bad guy's plans are.

The bad guy wants to launch a missle (From Canada, as if William Shatner wasn't enough) onto Seattle, would be dramatic acting takes place as Shannon Tweed panics over the fact that her daughter lives there. Of course watching Shannon Tweed trying to emote (She doesn't even get naked, so what's the point of casting the broad) is almost as bad as watching Hulk Hogan act, which frankly is painful to endure. While Carl Weathers ponders how the hell he could've gone from making Rocky, Predator and Action Jackson to this. Indeed Weathers' bored performance is easily the Ironside agenda, since his bored demeanor and irritated demeanor still manages to outact his other co-stars. Martin Kove who should be a poster boy for the site, contributes an awful performance that is at least more entertaining then Hogan and Tweed's. I always liked The Kove especially after the brilliant Steele Justice, when he used a frying pan to cautarize his wound. Although Kove is somewhat in his element, this is nowhere near the bad movie fun that was Steele Justice.

Anyway the movie ends as stupidly as it started, although I must admit I chuckled when I saw Martin Kove used a bazooka to blow up a missle, while somehow flying his plane. Perhaps he had some of his Steele Justice invincibility left. Who knows? Unfortunately Carl Weathers and Martin Kove are overshadowed by Hulk Hogan and Shannon Tweed, so unlike the Sly Sly Stallonify approach, the right word is what Generic Mugwump spoke up on in his Stallonification rant. Still with Hulk Hogan, there was potentional for laughter. Unforunately though his dramatic scenes are too painful to watch, even for the seasoned bad movie knight. So in the end Shadow Warriors is not worth seeing.

Assault On Devil's Island though...perhaps, after all you can't go wrong with the winning combo of not only Hulk Hogan, Carl Weathers, Martin Kove and Shannon Tweed but also Billy Blanks, Trevor Goddard and of course Billy Drago. Because no actor outside of Shatner and Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger) had been the bigger ham plus we do get to see Tweed's two main talents, although she's in bed with Billy Drago which makes me rethink my whole status on Shannon Tweed. I mean getting sodomized everynight by Gene Simmons is one thing, getting it by the Drago, well ugh.

Hamlin Grade: 1.5

Ryan
"Board certified professional safety dancer, cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance then they're no friends of mine!"