It's a thing with spoofs. If you haven't seen the originals that are being parodied you might end up not getting the overall joke because, funnily enough, the best film parodies in existence often perfectly fit into the genre that's being spoofed. Take out their jokes and movies like Airplane!, The Naked Gun or Blazing Saddles become just generic genre movies, using the same clichés and formulas as the originals.
Tonight I watched a film that falls into this category called Black Dynamite, spoofing blaxpoitation flicks of the 70s, and let me tell you, this is one of the better parodies, not like these horrendous Friedberg-Seltzer abominations Meet the Spartans, Epic Movie, Date Movie, Disaster Movie, Crap Movie, Analbag Movie, and so on, and so on, you get the idea. Honestly, where do they get the money from to keep making these films? Who likes this crap??? Anyways, back to Black Dynamite.
Black Dynamite is the badest of all badasses, he goes around wooing the ladies and kicking everyone's ass. Much like Shaft, remember him? When his brother gets killed he uncovers a ridiculous conspiracy and goes on a rampage to take down the ones behind it all. That's all you need to know, no surprises plotwise. But honestly, do you really care about the story in a parody?
The film shows great attention to detail, clothes, haircuts, everything feels like the 70s, even the editing, goofs, the stock music and cheap production values, this flick is as much homage as it is a spoof. On top of that we get hilarious one liners and totally absurd fight scenes nonstop. There's just one question that I kept asking myself throughout: Who would watch this film nowadays? Black Dynamite was made just two years ago and audiences these days might have a hard time relating to a movie that spoofs something that hasn't been around for more than 30 years. Looking at the shockingly low worldwide box office of less than $300,000 it's rather sad to see a genuinely good movie playing for no one.
But then again, I watched it and it was great fun. Seriously, what is not to like about a film where a big black guy with an afro and a mustache has a kung fu fight with a nunchuck armed Richard Nixon? Give Black Dynamite the chance it deserves!
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