Leofwine_draca THE ANNIHILATION is the fourth instalment of the AMERICAN NINJA franchise and my first exposure to it too. It's notable for featuring in its cast both Michael Dudikoff, who starred in the first two films in the series, and David Bradley, who replaced him in the third. Bradley is kidnapped along with a bunch of commandos by a terrorist group led by a British warmonger. He also has an army of ninjas at his command. Dudikoff is called out of retirement to effect a rescue mission and does so with his usual deadly relish. This is a film which was shot in South Africa on a tight budget and it's ridiculously boring. The action scenes are non-exciting and the fight choreography is poor, a surprise as I enjoy a lot of 1990s-era action B-movies with their powerful kicks and punches. In the end I was merely waiting for the credits to roll. Even some of the Godfrey Ho ninja cheese-fests were more enjoyable than this. I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist.

FlashCallahan CIA agent Sean Davidson and his sidekick Carl are sent into the stronghold of sadistic British ex-soldier Mulgrew to rescue some Delta Force commandos who have been captured and tortured. When Sean, Carl and doctor Sarah run into some problems, Peace Corps vet Joe Armstrong is lured out of retirement to stop Mulgrew's plan to explode a nuclear device in New York City.....We all know what the American Ninja films entail, lots of men in black pyjamas running around a forest throwing sharp things at bad actors.And this is no exception, but at the end of the day, it's the same old thing time after time, good guys with better hair, trying to stop a sadistic villain, who wants to blow up the world.The villain in this one is so bad, in every literal sense, you just wish some twelve year old girl would just kick him in the jewels and tell him to go to bed. He swans around just shooting people and looking at chests, his acting is the most evil thing here.Then we have some über sort of ninja who has an eye patch, who you know is going to have a final fight with Dudikoff, but nothing never really happens and its just a waste.Add a montage with ninjas training and falling on spikes,mans two men getting into a helicopter you just know is going to blow up, you get a really average movie you may have liked when you were fourteen, but when your a little older, realise David Bradley wasn't such a good role model.

alucard_castlevania86 After a quite disappointing third sequel, the fourth one did bring back some grace into the franchise (eventhough it didn't work out as I hoped). Steve James resignation for the fourth sequel (and if I'm not mistaken, this film was made before he passed away) in my opinion was due to the fact that the director decided to bring Dudikoff back after a setback in the third installmentFor me, the most interesting but could have used a little bit of polishing up in the film was the plot itself. A group of soldiers gets captured by an Arab and English terrorist building a bomb. The American government then sends Sean Davidson (David Bradley) to try and handle the situation and when he fails as well, they finally the send in the back the original kickass ninja pro Joe Armstrong (Michael Dudikoff) into the action since it was sort of like when everything else fails, Joe Armstrong doesn'tThis was a pretty interesting sequel and probably the 2nd best of the entire series behind Annilation. To get to this film, I have no real idea why Dudikoff agreed to return back to this fourth installment (maybe he did it just for the sake of the fans of the franchise) but thankfully, he really brought the life back into the series (and for fans like myself) even though he didn't seemed like he was in the mood of acting in this sequel. David's character in this sequel in my opinion was far more respectable than in the third one. He might have done a decent if not good job on the 3rd sequel but in my opinion, his performance here as the 2nd leading actor was way better since he really looks more of a ninja expert in this one compared to the third installmentHowever, there were a few minor complaints that I have for the film. First off, I expected Dudikoff and Bradley to team up together and become buddies like almost immediately in the film but sadly this did not happen for until like the final 20 minutes of the film. The final fights from both sides (Dudikoff's and Bradley's) were not really that entertaining either since Bradley only had to fight a chicken whuss and Dudikoff once again made an Arabic ninja (whose even more quite in the film than Michael was throughout the film) look like a kindergarden amateurAnother complaint that I would like to bring up (although minor) is that I think that it felt like pointless having the scene where Joe was making his weapons (the sword and shurikens) and holding up the sword in front of his face like it was the most important possession that he ever had but in the end, he just fought the enemies with his own bare hands and never used them at all throughout the ending of the film. I think that maybe the director had accidentally forgotten about that part which was why we never got to see Dudikoff using his weapons in the end. Another part that I have to complain was that they never really told the story of how Joe (Michael) and Sean (David) became friends in the first place and all in all, I felt like maybe this was more of like shrink and squeeze in as much as possible kind of plot story than the one that they had originally intended to createHowever, these flaws did not ruin the film too much since I felt it really did make up for the rather disappointing third sequel. All in all, I would really recommend this to all American Ninja fans out there and anyone else who just wants to spend three hours of their time watching some mindless but still a rather fun action movie

bronsonskull72 Michael Dudikoff returns as Joe Armstrong the original "American Ninja" who is the last hope to save the other "American Ninja" Sean Davidson (David Bradley) from an angry Arab who is developing a nuke that can fit in a suit case in this dull yet much improved sequel. American Ninja 4 has a few okay actionscenes and the overall quality is better this time out, but overall the movie is far too wooden to be much fun. Only a few inspired moments emerge to make this one rise above a "Turkey" rating. My only other observation has to deal with Dudikoff himself, he looks very bored and disinterested with the whole thing,while the other actors are just woeful. Strictly by the numbers.