#107.5 FP2: Beats of Rage

Movie Ninjas, 

106.5 because we did watch the first episode of the youtube series ‘Wayne’ last week. 
Well we did a thing. We watched the FP again and then watched THE FP 2 : Beats of Rage. I’m probably not going to have a great recap of the FP2 because I had about 6 beers by then and it all kind of flowed together by the end. 

I have to be honest, seeing it with Q did open my eyes a little. Maybe I’d just gotten a little complacent and just really wanted to like the movie based on the concept and craziness. But I guess I glossed over the copious use of ‘nigga’ by white people through out the movie. I’ve tried to research some of the reasons/excuses that Trost has given for the use in the first movie. They all seem to be basically what he told Q. I was trying to say something profound about race relations and I was 21 at the time, so I thought it was a good idea.

The FP2 all references are replaced by ‘Ninja”
I still like the FP, its just more tainted in a 2019 light. We tend to give movies made in the 70’s and 80’s a pass because… that was just what fucking shit was like back then. Q also noticed that the women in the FP are only props for the men, it’s wildly problematic on many levels. My only defense of this movie is that it was trying to parody movies from that era… but I guess it fails because it’s so stupid at times. I’ve supported the film this long, so it’s difficult for me to break that connection. But It does worry me that I didn’t see it though my friends eyes. 

Reviews of the FP from the time. 

The one review that specifically mentions the word, but it has been taken down. Thanks ‘wayback machine

So on to the FP2?

SO… here’s what I remember. BLT is 187’d in the opening beat off. I was a little late, so erskine will have to fill us in. 

The very beginning of the movie is a straight homage to the beginning of Conan.  NTRO? has a young JTRO sitting beside him and basically rattles of a beat beat revelation version of Conan’s father telling Conan about the secret of steel. Only in this case its about beat beat boots.

Then we see BLT in the desert 187’ing chumps in the desert during a beatoff. However, a mysterious stranger with glowing eyes challenges him. He ends up getting 187’d by the “sole stealer”…. also known as AK-47… who becomes *the* villain of the second movie.

Bill

The FP is kind of fine now. They have set up some kind of ‘booze mine’ where they get mouthwash colored stuff from a giant tank. Everyone gets a little, but the booze does not flow. Jtro is obsessed with beat beat still but other people have moved on. Some people hear that there is a tournament in the wastes where the prize is ‘unlimited booze 4eva’. KCDC thinks he is crazy and doesn’t want him to waste his time out there when he should be focusing on the booze mines. 
this next shit may be out of order…. He somehow gets an invitation to the contest. from some weird stilt walkers 
He gets challenged by a new guy… who i totally forget his name (oh it’s AK-47), but he has crazy shoes, horns on his back and a blue handprint on his face. He beats JTRO and steals his boots because he is a ‘soul stealer’ JTRO is at an all time low. 

He meets this Australian chick who is very pretty and does beat beat too. GIRLS CAN BEAT OFF TOO! 
He is visited by the ghost of BTRO and guided to his father who is running some kind of taco truck in the desert. He informs him that his MOMTRO is also a BEAT BEATER and gives him his moms shoes. which is kind of weird because she wears the same size? also this new blue handprint guy is his bio-bro. 

Cue training montage, they keep telling Jtro to ‘Re-Ninj’ which I never caught an explanation to what that means. 
Btro eventually “Reninjes” wins and regains control of the booze mines. There’s probably some finer points in here, but I was pretty bombed on high proof mouthwash.

In the post credit scent a young girl is shown as the next generation of Beaters. 

Thoughts. 

1. not as funny as the first. straight up
2. lots of ‘fan service’, Ivy caught that every extra and competitor seemed to be a paid “indigogo sponsor” they were obvious and not funny. 
3. I didn’t catch at many weird names “mailbox motherfucker” “ham sandwich bitch”, maybe that’s just how LDUBBAE talks?
4. there wasn’t the sense that they also lived in the real world, like in the FP when he steals the beer from a normal store and the guy ‘is going to call the cops’ 
5. the Ninja thing, its actually distracting. If they had just dropped it would have been better. 
6. The female characters are treated way better, they have skills and stuff… but they are not funny. 
7. There are token black people. 
8. My name is in the credits, so at least I have that!

I will have to re-watch it. I didn’t know the references to Mortal Kombat that Shibbs caught. But my initial thought is that Trost has become a better filmmaker and that has actually made the movie worse. The weird cuts are gone, the weird acting isn’t as obvious, the whole story is more complete with a bigger scope. But it just feels like they lost the heart of ‘its a bad movie on purpose’. He also probably got married and had a little girl. That shit will change your outlook on women, at least it should. 

The joke in this one seems to be ‘look how hard we tried on the costumes and global scale of the wastes… how silly is that!” 

gone was the silliness of ‘I think I want to be a stripper, or maybe an astronaut’ 

anyway, what did anyone else think?
Lets get on track next week.

–Mark