“Billy?! Billy, wake up!”

Drake’s rating: I don’t think this is what a quarterback means when he audibles “Kill kill!”

Drake’s review: The “secret underground fight club” movie genre seemed to be a real thing in the ‘90s. Granted, it’s a fairly simple movie structure that goes back at least to Enter the Dragon, in which one or more heroes are invited/conscripted/lured into the brutal world of martial mayhem and must fight their way to freedom. A few of these movies trickled into the ‘80s, but it was 1988’s Bloodsport that opened the floodgates, and soon similar titles were filling the shelves of video stores across the country. Granted, most of these movies were pretty bad, but they often had the benefit of showcasing some interesting martial arts styles to make up for the lack of plot and acting talent.

Legion of Iron, however, decides to forego martial arts in addition to those other elements, deciding instead to have the erstwhile gladiators slowly swing swords at each other as they battle in front of at least a dozen bloodthirsty fans.

It starts off with high school quarterback Billy winning the big game and then going up to Lover’s Leap with his girlfriend Alison. But within minutes the pair are kidnapped by two men and then flown on a helicopter out into the desert. This makes one immediately come to the conclusion that Billy’s been drafted by the Arizona Cardinals, and this is the only way they can get him to show up for training camp.

But no, it’s not the basement dwellers of the NFC West who have come calling, it’s a woman named Queen Diana who has abducted the pair because she runs her very own fight club and has decided that she needs more competition. Which is weird, because Billy really doesn’t know anything about fighting. In fact, even his football skills are suspect since he was never even shown throwing the ball during his big win, and had to scramble for a good sixty yards to get the TD.

Like I said, he’s a fit for the Cardinals, right?

Billy’s not really a natural at swordplay, though to be fair no one in this movie really is. Thus the extended training montages of Billy learning that the pointy end of the sword is for stabbing and to always cut away from himself when opening packages. The training montages are occasionally broken up by an actual fight here and a short-lived escape attempt there, but then resume again so the movie can pretend Billy is getting character development. Still, he’s better off than Alison, whose only purpose is to be eventually saved by Billy once he figures out how to fight with a sword.

Alison better not be holding her breath, because that’s going to take most of the movie.

Legion of Iron unfortunately is a rather weak entry in the admittedly rather shallow depths of the underground fighting genre. While Erika Nann does her exuberant best to make Queen Diana a worthwhile villain, the rest of the cast is just not up to either the dramatic side of their roles nor the more physical side. There’s no Jean-Claude Van Damme here to bring the martial arts excitement this flick desperately needs, so it relies on Billy’s grimacing to propel the movie forward instead. And that wears out its welcome within the first ten minutes.

So if you’re looking for some Friday night underground fighting movie fun, just skip right on by Legion of Iron. I recommend sticking with the B section of the film library, since Bloodsport spawned four sequels as well as scads of imitators with titles that sound like a Rob Liefeld comic book from 1992.

And let’s face it, there has to be a winner somewhere among flicks like Bloodfist, Bloodmatch, and Blood Ring, right?

Now why do I have the sneaking suspicion I’m going to be finding out the answer to that question one way or another…?

Intermission!

• Billy rushes for a TD to win the game! He’s already better than 90% of Jets QBs.
• “Sweat saves blood.” What does that even mean?
• Billy’s put into a cinderblock cell. Now I’m really convinced this is Arizona’s training camp.
• Queen Diana is his new owner. Eh, better than being in the Cleveland Browns.
• Why is everyone dressed like an extra from Deathstalker?
• It’s “Army Man vs. Barbarian,” which is probably something like Cave Man versus Astronaut.
• Breaking up the tedium of sword training montages with an axe training montage.
• The movie is 50% montage, 25% escape planning and 25% expository dialogue.
• Silver lipstick and eye shadow? Someone’s trying to channel the ‘70s. And for once it isn’t me.
• A truck chase through the desert, because we need to rip off The Road Warrior now.
• Aaaand Diana shows up in a powered hang glider. This movie’s gone nuts.