The Octagon (1980)

 

Chuck Norris: the man, the myth, the meme. It is truly baffling how the guy became so famous, because nearly all of his films are either bad or horrendously boring. Sure, you could get some enjoyment out of 'The Delta Force', but most of his output... whew. This is no exception. You'd think a flick about ninja, a terrorist training camp and quite a number of fights would be entertaining, but instead it's a boring slog hampered by horrendous editing and pacing issues.

Norris plays a guy who was adopted by a (I guess) Japanese master and trained to be a ninja and who had a falling out with his brother Seikura. Years later Norris is a stoic and silent martial arts' master who gets all the ladies even if he doesn't try.

And he doesn't try. By god, how he doesn't try. 

After a date is killed, he sort of figures that there are ninja on the loose, which of course couldn't be. There is also only one person in the entire world that could possibly train ninja: his estranged stepbrother! 

Then it's off to sort of find where the training camp is and deal with the baddies. It's tough to follow, because there is little to no rhyme or reason why things happen. Norris is supposed be investigating, but he just stumbles across everything for plot convenience.

Heck, the prospects of the ninja training camp all turn on the ninja at the drop of a dime for - you've guessed it - no reason, other than to have a big brawl at the end.

This could have been fun, but it is shot in such a boring fashion you will zone out by the halfway point. It is not helped by atrocious acting across the board. Norris has never been a great actor, but it really shows here. He has the range of a wooden stick, if that stick had been made out of the most boring wood one could possibly find. Both Art Hindle and Lee Van Cleef try to find enjoyment in hamming it up, but they aren't enough in it to save this film. The villain is boring; the fight scenes are shot so blandly that not even the half decent choreography can save them. 

Don't get me started on the ladies here, either. Talk about short-selling female characters. There are three (!) love interests for Chuck, but the first two get killed rather unceremoniously and then they figured out they needed one for the finale, so a lady from the ninja camp changes sides out of the blue. 

It. Makes. No. Sense.

Sure, there might be people defending this by saying it is so bad it's good, but no. It's just bad. Really bad.