“For many Americans no HBO!”

Justin’s rating: You’ll never be as cool as this baboon

Justin’s review: I can’t ever say that I’ve been that enamored with James Bond as both a movie series and a role model. And while a midlife career switch to becoming an international spy doesn’t seem that likely for me right now, if I do pursue that, I’ll probably be just as much of a klutzy goober as Duncan Jax.

Jax is the slightly balding, always smirking hero of The Order of the Black Eagle — a man of great mystery, endless array of Sharper Image gadgets, and a baboon sidekick. It’s never explained; the dude just carries an emotional support baboon around with him for those odd moments where he needs someone to pilot a plane, flip someone off, or drive a tank. What, you don’t have one? You uncultured swine.

Duncan Jax is called into action against the titular Order, a neo-Nazi group that wants nothing more than to reboot the Fourth Reich, blow up all of the world’s communication satellites with a proton beam, and revive a cryo-frozen Hitler in South America.

Since he looks like he should be teaching community college history and happens to get caught at every turn, Jax forges a mighty alliance of heroes to fight against a portly one-eyed Nazi mastermind and his minions. Each of Jax’s crew are pretty much stand-ins for their singular skill, such as crossbows or throwing knives, but at least they sap some of the screentime away from our heroic loser.

The group of suicidal good guys adventure through the jungle to get to the compound. The very same compound, I should mention, where Jax was discovered and imprisoned earlier on. So it’s a little James Bond, a little Sergio Leone, a little Indiana Jones, and a little Dirty Dozen.

While a lot of this sounds pretty great on paper — Nazis! Hitler! Baboon! Bond! — it’s the execution that can’t live up to these high standards. Black Eagle tries to be a whole lot of things without the skill and budget to do any of them well. This is like the jokier Roger Moore entries in the Bond franchise, with jokes that aren’t and an action camera that’s often right in people’s faces/weapons without showing us the bigger picture.

I won’t lie, I felt really let down by this flick, especially after getting hyped from reading the description. Even the promise of a Hitler return is a let down, as he spends most of his time as a mannequin in a “freezing” capsule. It’s fine for mockery and a few of the more bizarre elements, but it’s clear this movie doesn’t know what it is and how to keep us consistently entertained.

The Order of the Black Eagle is actually the second film in the Duncan Jax franchise, with the first being 1986’s Unmasking the Idol. That’s one I may have to get to at some point, if I can scrub this guy’s smirk out of my memory bank.

Intermission!

• The movie that STARTS with Hitler dying… or did he?
• I want to be the terrorist who gets to flip over a huge conference table just to get at a guy
• The dude getting winched up to a helicopter is such a sad sack
• Double fist punch to the faces behind you never fails to knock two people down at once
• Oh wait, there’s a baboon in this? And it can fly a plane?
• The baboon got a credit line. His name is Boon, if you were curious.
• This musical score is one of the most tedious I’ve heard in a while
• I love how casually Duncan carries this baboon into various scenes
• “Shall I come as I am, or shall I swab myself with disinfectant?”
• Every gadget you’re given must be received with a lame joke
• South America warrants… steel Caribbean drums. Eh, close enough.
• A small knife thrown into a dude’s back will instantly kill him
• The new Nazi symbol is the swastika with a black eagle on top. It’s kind of crowded.
• Our heroes doing the Nazi salute and chant
• Hitler flashback, just in case you forgot what he looked like
• DECAPITATION CABLE
• Just two dudes having a very hard time shooting their weapons
• Maybe don’t throw super-flammable drinks into a fire
• “Special Delivery” “SD will do”
• Everybody is so eager to show off their special skill
• Bras make nice white flags
• Wooden doors just spark when shot, so they make good portable shields
• Crossbow hit to a sniper!
• Don’t touch a bad guy’s huge facial scar
• The exciting “push the bus out of the mud” scene
• And they push it into a ravine because nobody was behind the wheel, what idiots
• Hoverboats really enjoy being on land a lot
• BABOON DRIVING A TANK
• Yeah go ahead and tell him how to disarm the super-weapon since you’re going to shoot him, that never backfires
• A spear is faster than a pistol
• Hitler is a paper mache puppet with red goo inside
• That Western theme is the worst take I’ve ever heard
• “Civilization? That’s tempting, but each back to their own jungle.”
• Yeah let’s just end on a random hot air balloon trip. Where is he going?