'Black Dynamite' review

Michael Jai White (Credit: Apparition)

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'70s action hero Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White) is the man, but when he learns The Man may have killed his brother, the smooth, tough-talking ladykiller unleashes kung fu and a whole lot of whupass on any drug-dealing, jive-ass sucka who gets in his way. Meanwhile, we see shots of the boom mic, editing mistakes and other deliberately awful filmmaking techniques.

The buzz: "Snakes on a Plane" also tried to be a bad movie that knew how stupid it was, and we all know how that turned out. Maybe "Black Dynamite" takes its irony to a place that makes being bad oh so good.

The verdict: One reason the movies "Black Dynamite" references are fun is because they don't know how ridiculous they are. It doesn't work if a movie knows it's stupid and doesn't have anything to say about its genre. There's a good line here and there, and White's enough of a testosterone-charged presence that when he yells, "Freeze, turkeys!," you best believe everyone in the room freezes. Still, I'll stick with "Undercover Brother" to take out the city's dirty laundry.

Did you know? Before hopping on the pairing of chicken and waffles, a local restaurant owner (Jimmy Walker Jr.) opens Roscoe's Chili and Donuts. Why dip a donut in coffee when you can plunge it into a bowl of ground beef?

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