1982 Weng Weng Wild Wild Western Western
Rating: 6/20
Plot: The 2'9" international action superstar and his sidekick Gordon, "agents of the government," try to rid a village seemingly in the middle of nowhere of some evil guys.
My God, what a body count! I swear, this Weng Weng might be tiny in stature, but he can kill like ten Stallones. Bad Movie Club took on a Weng Weng movie a few months ago, and nobody dug it at all and some of the club members still seem a little angry at me about it. But I have no idea why because this little guy is so much fun to watch. His 25-foot scoots across the floor under bad guy's legs, the leaps from about four stories into the back seat of a Jeep, the humorous predictable effect of a 2'9" guy shooting a large gun, the annihilation of hundreds of bad guys with a Gatling machine gun, the kung-fu moves, a tiger growl that reveals Weng Weng to be more beast than man. What is not to love with this guy? If you ask me at the right time, I'm going to tell you that Weng Weng is my favorite action superstar ever and make an awkward attempt--complete with foaming at the mouth and less-than-agile roundhouse kicks to your groin--to prove that he's the greatest action superstar in the history of cinema. And to prove my point, I might show you the training montage from this movie with Weng Weng out in the desert, gunshot sound effects accompanying his cute little punches and kicks, the demonstration of his skills with firearms, the three changes of clothes. You will get a boner with a capital O, and I mean that regardless of your gender. You can give Weng Weng a sidekick, but it's hard not to ignore anybody else on the screen, even when they're carrying the titular hero in a sack for reasons that I don't think are ever explained. But you know what? Even though this is a Weng Weng movie and the little guy has a solid chance of winning his second Billy Curtis award at the end of the year, he's arguably not even the most memorable thing about this movie. No, that might be the performance of Max Alvarado as Lupo, a guy who's had his tongue cut out by the bad guys. Both Alvarado with his out-of-control gesticulations and the guy doing the dubbing overdo things here, possibly the worst combination of all time. At times, he sounds like a slightly-slowed-down Tasmanian Devil. And the weirdest thing is that he's probably got more lines than anybody else in the movie! There's even a scene where Weng Weng serenades a woman with Gordon accompanying him on the guitar, and there's Lupo providing some backup vocals. It just might be the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. Hearing Lupo "talk" for the first time was nearly orgasmic. I couldn't believe they featured him so prominently in the movie, but then again, why wouldn't you? Seriously, he's got more lines than anybody else in the movie. I'm not joking about that, and it's simply awesome. This movie is less of a cheapo mini-Bond thing than a weird spaghetti western. There's odd random Moog music spicing up otherwise mundane scenes, and I'm pretty sure some of the music was borrowed directly from real spaghetti westerns. The bad guys' motivation never really makes sense. They oppressively run this little town and kill anybody who tries to leave, but it's never really clear why. The main bad guy says things like "Please listen to what I have to say because I will not repeat what I have to say!" or "I believe that in spite of your samurai, you are a scrambling little mouse!" but overall, the dubbing here is not as bad as the other two Weng Weng movies I've seen. And Weng Weng, dubbed by the same tough-guy voice as in the other movies, says very little because his actions speak far more loudly and more melodiously than his words ever could. Those bad guys are certainly inconspicuous though. They've either got giant sombreros (as if there was another type of sombrero) or they're dressed like ninjas. Throw in a bunch of diminutive natives with mad bow-and-arrow skills, the worst falling-down-the-stairs stunt you'll ever see, and some of the most inept martial artistry of all time, and you've got yourself a movie that will harden your nipples and make you want to hang a poster in your bedroom.
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