Missing in Action
I’ve finally gotten around to watch the first movie in the trilogy, and the fact that I watched them in reverse order might have helped. MIA3 had Braddock rescue his long lost son and wife and MIA2 had Braddock back in Vietnam as a POW.
In Missing in Action, Braddock (played by Chuck Norris obv) goes back to Vietnam after the war is over to rescue forgotten POWs. To do so, he must use the help of old colleagues that will turn up in the later movies.
Unfortunately, MIA doesn’t have nearly the over-the-top dialogue as the later two movies; it focused much more on plot than ridiculous action too. And, as any avid Norris fan would know: we don’t watch Chuck Norris movies for the plot.
Missing in Action must have been made during the time in Norris’ career where he didn’t consider himself a complete acting joke, where he actually tried to create good cinema. Little did he know that all he had to do to create all star movies was to not worry about the plot, but focus solely on dialogue and action.
In the movie itself, I wasn’t that interested in most of it; in fact it took nearly 2/3rds of the movie before Braddock even went to go rescue the hostages themselves. The first 90 minutes had him research the POWs’ whereabouts, barter for help and acquire the necessary equipment all while fending off some Vietcong hitmen. I guess that was interesting, but I really wanted to see gun slinging in the jungle! Not car chases and shitty bar fights (and, again, no dialogue).
Braddock’s rescuing of the hostages started out boringly slow with little to no build up of any ensuing danger. Maybe the fact that I know he lives through it all decreases my excitement? My lack of entertainment might have developed from the fact that I’ve seen it all so many times before in future Chuck Norris movies, and Missing in Action was just the start of them all.
Obviously though this was all written before the huge boat and machine gun scene that had the best visual effects and offensive attacking scenes in MIA by far. You can’t deny the fact that, after getting their motor boat blown up by an RPG, Braddock and Co. were able to swim underwater to a group of Vietcong and come up to kill them all. The best part: it was all in slow motion.
Unfortunately that one scene couldn’t make the rest of the movie interesting to watch and I found it all pretty boring. Good thing I saw the last two movies first, as otherwise I might not be as into the Missing in Action trilogy as I am today.
