4. Warriors of Virtue (1997)
That title for the film refers to a race of humanoid kangaroos that inhabit a fantasy world and know martial arts for some reason, but the main character is a young outcast water boy who is sidelined by a leg-brace. Of all of the cliches in Warriors of Virtue the most fun is the tense, final play of the football game and worthy climax to any sports movie. It's complete with near tackles, the most triumphant of music, and individual victory cheers of all the important characters. All these components are augmented by slow-motion. Did I mention this is in the first ten minutes of the film? Really. It's almost as though the director took the end of another movie and put it at the beginning of this one. Let's back-track a little bit. Our main character's home life leaves much to be desired. Similar to the pre-teen protagonist of 1993's Last Action Hero, his mother is a single parent who's too consumed with her work to notice the social challenges her outsider child faces everyday. Thankfully, and again in similar fashion to Last Action Hero, the kid has found an adult to look up to in his specialized interest. In Last Action Hero, it was the old projectionist at a forgotten movie theater. Here, young Ryan finds confidence in a chef who behaves in his kitchen the way a ninja does at a dojo. After the exhibition of his karate-cooking (Seriously, at the very least watch the cooking scene), he explains to Ryan the virtues of being a master in nothing specific with echoes of Obi-Wan explaining The Force to Luke. Other cliches include: "The Bait and Switch" (cue Admiral Ackbar: "It's a Trap!"), An everyday object that is actually a magical portal, a chronic injury that is magically cured somehow, good guys dressed in white, bad guys dressed in black, and dead parents and/or troubled past. The movie also includes an exceptionally talented warrior who has vowed never to fight again as a result of his (again) troubled past. This plot element is so trite even Trey Parkers' Orgazmo, released the same year as Warriors of Virtue, lampoons this cliche ("Dad. I don't think I'm gonna do Hamster Style anymore...") Oh, and someone actually utters the phrase, "Houston, we have a problem."