Review: Black Dynamite (2009) · 12:09am Jun 4th, 2016
Black Dynamite, despite all appearances, isn't a long lost blaxploitation film, but rather a deliberately retro send-up/love letter to the genre, and, while it's obvious in every frame that the cast and crew love blaxploitation with a passion, it doesn't quite hold together as well as it could have, though, to be honest, that may be the point.
Director/writer Scott Sanders deliberately constructs the film in an intentionally rough and haphazard way. Boom mics drop into frame only to be acknowledged by the cast, a ghetto Black Panther thug quotes his own stage direction in his dialogue, the film has a noticeable, grindhouse grain to it (and even seems to be "missing" a few frames), and the story is completely nonsensical, and is obviously just a vehicle for everybody to run around and have fun with the genre.
And, on that superficial, kick-back-and-relax level, the film works. It doesn't for a second think it's anything more then a tongue in cheek, over the top pastiche. Instead, it gleefully embraces the genre and its tropes, running wild with them to their extremes.
Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White, who co-wrote the screenplay) is an unbelievably and comically badass individual, able to bed pretty much any woman he comes across, and whom provokes instant reactions of fear and wonder in every person he meets. Jai White performs the part brilliantly, and really, his natural comic timing and ability to simultaneously play all the tropes perfectly straight while making fun of them, is a joy to watch.
The rest of the cast all embrace their roles with fiendish glee, creating an array of stereotypical yet lovable parts, and, coupled with the retro soundtrack (all written for the film!), help further enhance the sense that you're watching an actual product of the era.
Of course, for those same reasons, the film has some troubles.
For instance, there's quite a bit of sexuality, and while it's all played for obvious laughs (what blaxploitation film didn't have sexy vixens whose only purpose was to be bedded by the protagonist), at times, it feels a tad gratuitous. Now, I'm not exactly a prude, but if you're gonna have a sex montage, have a sex montage, don't fade to black and replace it with a series of surreal, hyper cartoony people having (graphic) sex with each other.
Furthermore, while obviously trying to do a plot critique is pointless for a film like this, the plot in and of itself is still rather scattershot, and makes the film more like a collection of skits and episodes then a proper story. While the villain scheme of shrinking black men's penises is suitably inane, at the same time, it feels needlessly base. After all, this is a film that has a villain named Fiendish Doctor Wu, who works for a comically evil, BDSM loving Richard Nixon. For some reason, having the focus of their plan be "shrinking Black dicks" feels bizarrely pedestrian and lowbrow for a film that is able to, at the same time, make genuinely funny jokes referencing Greek myth or the broader genre itself, or even the medium of film.
But, perhaps that's just my good old fashioned conservative upbringing talking, I don't know.
Still, the film is undeniably fun to watch, and is quotable as all get out. There's a good reason it developed such a cult following, even getting a cartoon spin-off, since pretty much every line here is a quotable joke that makes for great meme material. And, even with it's more needlessly explicit moments, one gets the feeling the classlessness is done deliberately, as part of the overall "So Bad, It's Good" aura the film carries in every frame.
Black Dynamite is, in the end, a recklessly enjoyable film, if a flawed one. I kind of wish it had gotten a slightly more coherent, sturdy story, if only to make the jokes feel less like separate skits and punchlines, and more like an organic whole.
But, then again, that's probably the whole point.
So, I think 4 stars will suffice.
Ew....
Wait until you see the short lived 2 season Animated series of Black Dynamite.
3996677 i remember catching one episode on Cartoon Network at, like, 2 AM. It was a blast.