Thanks for checking out our Black Dynamite review. If you’d like to see a video version of the Black Dynamite review, you can watch it at the bottom of this post.
Since the trailer first emerged with the classic line – BLACK DYNAMITE: “I’m going to declare war on anyone who sells drugs in our community”. PIMP: “But Black Dynamite, I sell drugs to the community”, my anticipation level for Black Dynamite was through the roof. However, my anticipation was tempered by the fact that the movie looked like it would be better served as a set of Saturday Night Live skits rather than a full length feature film and would ultimately not live up to the trailer. I was invited to the premiere of the film last night and off I went, excited but not holding my breath. Did Black Dynamite deliver? You bet your jive turkey ass it did!
THE GENERAL IDEA
The synopsis for Black Dynamite reads something like this: “This is the story of 1970s African-American action legend Black Dynamite. The Man killed his brother, pumped heroin into local orphanages, and flooded the ghetto with adulterated malt liquor. Black Dynamite was the one hero willing to fight The Man all the way from the blood-soaked city streets to the hallowed halls of the Honky House.”
THE GOOD
I always say the most important thing a comedy must accomplish is making the audience laugh. Almost everything else can be forgiven if you make the audience laugh. Well… Black Dynamite may not accomplish much else as a feature film, but dear heavens IT MAKES YOU LAUGH. This movie is flat out hilarious. I literally lost count how many time it made me burst out… and when I wasn’t laughing hysterically I was grinning from ear to ear most of the time.
This is the most quotable movie I’ve seen since “Army of Darkness”. Every single scene holds at least one immortal line. The only problem is that there are so many of these fantastic one liners, you forget most of them. As a matter of fact that’s essentially what this movie is… a big container for all these magnificent one liners. If you see this movie with a group of friends, I guarantee you you’ll be quoting lines from this movie to each other for a LONG time.
Michael Jai White was magnificent. No seriously, this guy throws the movie on his back (that he also co-wrote) and single handedly makes it work. Not only from the way he delivered the incredibly funny dialog, but also for his kung-fu (as it’s called in the movie). White is a legitimate pure action star in the making. I can easily see him transitioning out of this film into legit mainstream action films.
THE BAD
This is not a long film, but it really should have been about 10-12 minutes shorter. As I feared, the movie starts to feel played out by a certain point, and goes from hilarious parody, into just plain silliness that I think it honestly could have done without. By the time you get to the end and they reveal who the BIG bad guy is, it lost me. Oh there are still some solid one liners in the last 10 minutes, but even they lost a little of their effectiveness as the film started to feel a little more like “Disaster Movie” than anything else. But do keep in mind, that’s only once you get into the last 10-15 minutes.
OVERALL
Black Dynamite is a hilarious parody of the 70’s blacksploitation films filled with fantastic one liners and impressive martial arts that you and your friends will be quoting for a long time. It starts to lose a lot of its steam near the end of the film, but by then you’ve already had a great time. Michael Jai White will be a star, you can quote me on that. Overall I give Black Dynamite an 8.5 out of 10.
You can see the video version of our Black Dynamite review below:
