Fox Movie Channel

Who's Ready for Some Serious Face Kicking?

Recently I found myself in a familiar dilemma: which prized piece of Fox Movie Channel cinema should I review next? When there are so many seriously good and seriously bad movies deserving the Unvaulted touch, how can I decide? But then I turned on our channel just in time to see Wayne Newton, in a shiny shiny jacket, emceeing some sort of mortal combat cage fight in which some dude (some dude I later learned is Chris Penn!) gets kicked in the face. And instantly my problem was solved.

A lot of people get kicked in the face in Best of the Best 2. So many. And people get shot at, and Eric Roberts punches a lot of dudes, and Phillip Rhee throws at least seven guys over his shoulder (I tried to count) and breaks a lot of dudes' bones. Sometimes he even throws a bad dude over his shoulder and follows that up with breaking one of his bones and punching him repeatedly in the face! But wait, Liz, you ask, what is this movie actually about? Well, it's about bro love and doing the right thing and the importance of family and courage and Native American wisdom. But, above all that, it really is about people getting punched and kicked in the face and thrown over one another's shoulders. (Seriously, if there was an Oscar for foley, this movie would have to win it. So many punches - I can't help but thinking of all the piles and piles of broken celery that made it all possible.)

Wayne Newton runs an underground modern coliseum - hidden beneath a Vegas nightclub where girls dance in bedazzled leather bikinis, naturally - in which bad guys wearing strangely ethnic outfits fight to the death gladiator style. Spectators donning what was considered attractive formal wear in the 90s rabidly watch from above, betting on the fights and generally encouraging neck breaking. One superlatively evil dude reigns supreme in the ring and is badder than all the others, which we know because he has an accent and is the most enormous, muscled-out person ever to live. Formidable gigantic bad guy with the accent and Wayne Newton do some super shitty things that leave our dear morally righteous martial arts heroes, Eric Roberts and Phillip Rhee, with no choice but to take them down.

How do you prepare for an ultimate, epic fight against a gigantic bad guy with an accent and Wayne Newton? First of all, go get some Native American wisdom. Then follow that with a montage. Start with running, lifting heavy things, doing pushups, doing crunches while hanging from chains in a garage, doing walking squats with giant logs on your shoulders, sparring with big sticks, practicing martial arts moves against a scenic desert background, and then run some more - uphill and in slow motion if possible. Work up a sweat and take off your shirt so we can see your muscles. Fight each other. Do any of the above activities again in the sweet low light of the desert sunset. And if you are really serious, follow this with more Native American wisdom and another montage. Cause you better believe that enormous accented bad guy is engaging in a villain style workout montage of his own.

In the definitive, climactic fighting showdown of this movie, Phillip Rhee - who's looking pretty Kung Fu hot at this point - must at last battle the colossal bad guy with the accent in the cage. (Leading up to this, he of course had to take out several other less challenging fighters, one of which he KO'd with an AMAZING cartwheel double kick to the face.) Meanwhile, he has been tragically separated from his bros, so Eric Roberts has to FIGHT HIS WAY through the night club to try to make it down to the illegal death coliseum in time. Sometimes you just have to get bad guy blood on a rented tux. This sequence makes me want to fight inept goons in a nightclub real bad. If only there was a posse of bad guys with 90s haircuts and coordinating goldenrod blazers for me to punch in the face and toss around! A girl can dream.

You know, I could write forever on Best of the Best 2. It's magic. It's like a shot of pure awesome straight into the twelve year old boy part of all of our brains. Is it bad that I laugh whenever people get shot or get emotional or get punched out in this movie? No, I think it's okay. In fact, I think I recommend it for everyone.