No Holds Barred (1989) · 4:40am Apr 14th, 2018
So... is friendship a religion in Equestria? I mean sure it's a relationship status and they've used the "magic" of friendship to win the day against the forces of evil or darkness or whatever but, I really get the vibe that it's become a religion. Friendship in a very generic way is sort of a new testament if you will.
Think about it, in the beginning (granted some retcon stuff later) the audience is introduced to two sister one of light and another of dark. In their time when they were doing the heavy lifting with the whole sun and moon thing and vanquishing evil. They learned lessons... occasionally from other ponies who were flawed. One gives into her darker impulses and is cast away. Over time others presume to know what and how they feel about things but they really don't and life continues on with some light but a lot of dark places too.
Enter Twilight Sparkle and friendship. It's redemptive, it can defeat or banish beings of immense evil power and as it spreads so to does goodness. The lessons they learn later on are recorded in a book (Truthfully it could be a few books considering the various reports and other journals). Upon defeating their latest evil the good news is sent out around the world about it. They establish their own school to teach others about it and further spread their message.
It's very general but I've just been getting this vibe for awhile and it sort of was cemented with the first couple of episodes (I like that the students were attacked by what were essentially Critters. That's nice.) I wonder if they'll have some commandments or perhaps demandments. Hulk Hogan did. Heck like Twilight Sparkle he even had a film career and his first starring role was in the one I'm going to jump into now.
No Holds Barred is the story of the world wrestling champion Rip Thomas (Hogan). He's loyal to his fans, loves his charitable work and the network his show is on. Unfortunately for him a different network run by the evil Brell (Kurt Fuller) wants him and at first is willing to pay anything to get him on his network. When that fails he then resorts to trying to destroy Rip by threatening or hurting those he cares about. Along the way Brell employs a big guy named Zeus to fight him in a no holds barred wrestling match.
At this point in time Hulk Hogan was at the peak of his popularity. A major motion picture with a modest budget seemed like the perfect vehicle for the Hulkster especially if it involved wrestling. So, on a budget of eight million dollars the movie was made and it opened at number two at the box office the opening weekend. Number one was some indie film nobody even remembers called Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Suffice it to say it slipped out of theaters quietly and after distribution fees were paid broke even at around sixteen million in ticket sales.
But just because something doesn't do well at the box office doesn't make it a bad film. We've seen this many times before. Big Trouble in Little China tanked hard but is by no means a terrible film. So in an unprecedented move by me I'm going to let the movie's most revealing scene explain to you the overall quality of this movie. NHB you're a go:
... Oh. Well... um... I can't argue with the truth. It's not a good movie. It has a couple of moments but, for the most part the best stuff is done by Kurt Fuller as Brell who plays his part about as big as he could. For awhile he seemed to have that role locked down appearing as a jerk aid to the mayor in Ghostbusters 2 among other things.
Still in a lot of ways it's a curious little chestnut of a movie. Truth be told my friends and I rewound the above scene numerous times and laughed our heads off at it. We'd then take turns pretending to be Rip and the limo driver. Sometimes it would be in different scenarios but it still generated the same laughs. Then we'd go do something else. In a weird way it's a movie that, while quite bad still hearkens back to a time when that was a great joke and hulkamania still ran wild.
The Stats:
1 dead body, 0 breasts (though Joan Severance in a bra isn't bad to look at), 1 attempted rape (seriously that's the only thing it could have been), multiple fist fights, gratuitous glass smashing, gratuitous camera equipment destroying, gratuitous restaurants complete with either fans or robbers, gun fu, car fu, motorcycle fu, hammer fu, urine fu.
Shout outs:
Kurt Fuller as Brell is at times a few octaves away from scaring the little girl, but mostly for actually get a check crammed down his throat by the Hulkster during the film.
Stan Hansen as Neanderthal for his "Teeny wangers," line and for being a legit tough guy in real life.
Tommy "Tiny" Lister as Zeus for screaming "Aaaaahh" a whole bunch that I'm sure the doctor would be proud of him.
Hulk Hogan as Rip Thomas in a, "Bless your heart how's your mama," performance.
Joan Severance as Samantha Moore the love interest for looking good in a bra and trying to class up the film.
