You take the good
You take the bad
You take them both, 
and then you have, 
the facts of life, 
the facts of life.

~ Facts of Life TV series theme song

The hard facts of life are that there will always be a high point and a low point. An apex and a nadir. The peak and the valley. The objective fact of Nicolas Cage’s career is that his absolute worst movie or lowest point (according to user reviews on IMDB) is WATC(H) #96 Jiu Jitsu (2020). 

I can confirm that this film is his worst. At 2.9 stars it falls below Zandalee (4.3) Deadfall (4.0), The Wicker Man (3.8) and even (gasp) Left Behind (3.1). I think, in my personal rankings, it was possibly even worse than Sonny (which for me was one of my least favorites). 

But as with most Nicolas Cage films that are bad, it was also “weird bad” which should have it’s own category: “gonzo horrible”.  Gonzo horrible means there are large swaths of the film I can easily fast forward through after seeing them once, but there are other scenes, plot details, and dialogues that are so weird (and inexplicable to human reason) that you find them somewhat entertaining. This IS the Nic Cage factor, and we’re all here for it.

If not for Nicolas Cage, this IMDB reviewer’s hilarious take would be the final word on the matter:

“The greatest fight sequence in this film will not be on the actual screen, but will be fought internally. Between your higher self wanting to stop wasting your own time, and your lower self wanting to laugh and see if it could possibly get any worse!”

But since Nicolas Cage is “in it” and does “bring it”, let’s summarize this hot pile of trash and go gonzo horrible on it.

The Rough Plot / The World According to Wylie

Stylistically, this film is an action video game with bad graphics and acting. It’s also some kind of comic book as each scene is prefaced with an illustrated “comic book” panel. Here’s a rundown of what happens.

A guy in the jungle of Burma (or is it Myanmar) is getting attacked by an alien(s) (think predator style alien, semi-translucent to invisible whom we later discover is also named Brax). Brax is flying amongst the trees and is peppering this runner with large animated looking throwing stars. The guy takes a hit in the back, and falls off of a cliff into the ocean. 

Guy gets rescued by a Burmese fisherman and Wylie (Nicolas Cage) who pulls him out of the water and take him wounded to the local English-speaking military militia for care. When the guy awakens, he realizes he’s really good at martial arts and has no memory of who he is or how he got there. 

A bunch of other martial arts experts in loose fitting monk’s apparel attack the military base and free the amnesiac whom they know as Jake (Alain Moussi). There’s about an hour of screen time where soldiers fight with the kung fu fighters. Jake learns that he used to be part of this kung fu militia (but can’t remember) even though his girlfriend and the other salty guys in his gang try to remind him. 

A story unfolds in which we discover that every six years, a comet passes the earth, and there is a dimensional portal that gets opened up. The alien fighter, Brax, comes from millions of light years away, looking to fight the chosen Jiu-Jitsu. 

If the Jiu-Jitsu fights Brax, he is happy and leaves, going back into his own dimension, but if he doesn’t fight the Jiu-Jitsu or is not defeated, then when the comet passes he stays in our dimension and “kills everybody.” For some reason Brax also must fight nine fighters and if he doesn’t he stays in this dimension and “devours” anything that walks, flies, or crawls. 

Why, you may already be asking yourself? We have no idea. Brax likes to fight evidently and teaches people in other dimensions his craft because he gets lonely. It’s a working theory. 

We then discover Brax has a special attachment to Jake because Jake is one of the Jiu-Jitsu who backed out of the scheduled fight most recently. As he ran away in fear, Jake was hit in the back with one of the alien throwing stars. Remember that? 

We know all of this because Wylie is Jake’s father and he has been pretending to be “crazy” in order to find a way to somehow preserve his son, so that Jake could fulfill his destiny and fight the alien predator as the ninth warrior (or whatever). 

It’s sure as dumb as it sounds. After Brax kills most of the kung fu militia, Wylie fights the predator and gets his ass kicked. But father points at his son–mid fight right before he gets his back cracked–signaling that Jake must take up the fight to save himself and their world. Jake sees this and then has the courage to finally fight the creature and he successfully sends him back to his own dimension / destroys him. 

I’ve purposefully omitted many of the plot details here because they are really stupid and unnecessary. You’ll thank me for it some day.

Gonzo Horrible

As a study of the absurd, this film hits on all cylinders. Here’s some of the absurdities that kept this film from being completely a worthless waste of time:

• The laughable special effects. The whizzing cartoon throwing stars looked like they are overlaid over the film using an old school projector and a dry-erase pen. It’s one thing to miss, but it’s another to make it look like a stylistic artform that isn’t.  
• When hit with a throwing star, Jake falls off a 100-foot-tall cliff like he is trying to win a belly flop contest. People don’t fall like that unless they are trying to.
• After his plummet, Jake hits his head against a rock under the water and blood flows, and YET somehow he survives this. OK. Because of this, I assume he must be superhuman or alien himself and since he was an amnesiac it took me probably 45-60 min to realize he was just a guy who knew martial arts. Huh? 
• Also, no head wound later at all? Is he Wolverine–super healing?
• Brax has an LED style mask that clouds over and sometimes shows a facial image. The image looks lot like the trip hop artist Tricky crossed with one of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Goofy. 
• One of Jake’s crew fights with handheld “weapons” that look like L-shaped PVC pipes. 

• The military fight scenes that look like they were played by about 3 different actors who kept coming after the martial artists
• Most sequences are shot like a live action video game. Sometimes the camera shows the perspective of the main character, Jake, sometimes the camera is shown from the perspective of his assailant. There are a few times where they use a fish-eye lens and it makes the entire scene seem comedic. If you’ve seen Army of Darkness, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  
• At one point, Brax knocks down all the kung fu militia and drags some of them around a field, but doesn’t keep attacking them or trying to kill them when it is invisible? I guess he is toying with them, but it seems a bit like the chase scenes in Scooby Doo–non-progressive action to go with the soundtrack.
• According to his backstory, Wylie begged for his life when he was supposed to fight Brax, and since Brax thought Wylie was crazy he spared his life. Jake’s cowardice, however, was perceived as much worse because he just ran away from the fight. OK; makes tOTaL SeNse. 
• All of Jake’s crew seem surprised throughout the whole movie he can’t remember things. He’s an amnescia but they can’t believe he isn’t just faking it. “You really don’t know?” 

• Jake shoves a live hand grenade into Brax’s opened chest cavity then kicks him into the opening portal to banish / destroy him forever. Yeah, that happened.

From a comedy perspective there are a few things that are somewhat redeeming. 

• The elderly no-nonsense Burmese woman who seems smarter than every other character in this film combined. She is the only one to cause immediate damage to Brax by shooting his with a shotgun.

• The hippy ninja version of Nicolas Cage we get in the character of Wylie. I mean he does back and front flips, he talks about eating snacks (i.e. the munchies), and he wears sports these crazy beads, headband, and walking stick. What’s not to love?
• The U.S. military private who supposedly knows how to translate Burmese language into English. He gets most things wrong which adds a little comedic relief to a lot of really dumb fighting scenes.

Firsts for Nicolas Cage as Wylie

• Dressing like a Southeast asian fishermen / rice farmer (large straw hat)
• Making and wearing paper hat out of newspapers
• Doing a full front flip and back flip
• First film Martial arts expert
• Dressing hippie-fied (bandana, sunglasses, and prayer beads)
• First time he has stabbed an alien
• Died by having his spine broken (back breaker move) and cut throat by an alien
• First movie he released during Covid (2020)
• First time named a character appearing in Bugs Bunny cartoon (Wylie as in Coyote)

Recurrences

• In an Asian country (Outcast, Bangkok Dangerous)
• Combatting with swords in a adobe / cave style hideout (Army of One)
• Taking on the Mr. Myagi role with a young protege (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Matchstick Men)
• Grilling some rabbit / squirrels on a spit (Running with the Devil, implied)

Quotables

“I’m you in a few years, if you don’t get your shit together.” 

“I am you.” 

“Nobody ever gets what I mean.”

“Oh-oh-oh, get off my piano.” 

“I make hats out of newspapers.” 

“The poet warrior in the sci-fi sense. The spaceman.” 

“Ball in mit. Game. Set. Match. Checkmate.”

“WOO!” 

“No. His mind’s all messed up. He’s crazy. LIKE ME!” 

“Maybe I could get something to eat. Like a noodle? Or a tickle?” 

“Brax fights nine fighters. Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight.”

“That is alien politics nine through fifteen.” 

“Breathe. You got this!” 

“Do you ever ask yourself the question, ‘Why am I still alive?’”

“He’s playing with his food don’t you think?”

“I know that the spaceman actually likes you.” 

“By running, you allowed him to come here and kill the innocent. That’s on you!” 

“He’s like Manolete, the clownish bullfighter, and you’re the bull.” 

Conclusion:

The producers of Jiu Jitsu spent $5M of their $25M budget to land Nicolas Cage for three days of work. This, in itself, is absurd. This pile of hot garbage cost $25M to make (how?) and Cage earned 20% of it in a 3-day stint (why would he?). Ok, I’d do much worse things for that kind of cash. 

Wylie says it best when he says, ““Are you puzzled? You look puzzled. I get it. I’m puzzled.” 

We’re all puzzled with this dumpster fire of a film, but those are the facts. Without Cage’s gonzo genius, the actual rating would have been 0.9 stars out of 10, vs. the 2.9 stars he helped it earn. So I guess it was worth it for them to spend their money on the Great. 

For me, I promise you, I will never, ever watch this film again. This was the ebb–the low tide in Nicolas Cage’s career. We can only go up from here, and I guess that upcoming The Croods sequel is looking pretty good right about now. (Groan) I guess.