My brain is having a rough day today, so we are going back to some classic action cinema. It’s one I know I’ve watched before, and could have sworn that I in fact would have done a review on, and yet here we are with all my records saying that I did not. Common reoccurrence in these parts really, not that it stops me though. Get your nicest jeans out, it’s time to hang out with some more Chuck - tonight’s it’s time for Invasion U.S.A.

There’s a fellow out catching some gators, hanging around home with his little armadillo. Meanwhile, nefarious activities are going down. A suspicious man apparently is trading drugs for guns - and he seems to have a whole lot of friends with him picking up those guns. Unfortunately for him, his nightmare scenario of the gator-grabber coming to kill him is assured when he decides to kill the man and screws it up. Now he’s on the case to get the bad guy and stop the terrorists from their plot. What plot? To invade the USA! It’s pretty straight forward, it’s not filled with tons of twist and turns - but it doesn’t need to either.

Acting is pretty par for the course for the mid 80s. I’m a fan of Chuck, always have been if we are being totally transparent. Acting will kind of gravitate around - sometimes you’ll get some over the top acting especially on the terror front, and other times you’ll have some pretty decent emoting out of common civilians and the likes. It’s a mix, so I imagine there would be conflicting opinions as it waves back and forth between campy and serious. It is somewhat funny that some of the mostly irrelevant side characters can outshine some of the main villains and the likes at times when it comes to the acting, but if I’m being blunt about my normal action expectations for the 80’s it’s usually one liners and scene chewing, so I wouldn’t call anything in this disappointing as much as I’d call it funny or amusing.

Characters could probably just be written off from the start if you really wanted to. Sure, there’s some history between the lead and the lead villain, but I wouldn’t go as far as to label anything in the movie a substantial character arc. I guess in that regard the story itself would be more of the character arc as it puts forth the idea of terror coming to the states and flipping the invasion narrative - but even then, calling that a character would be a pretty big stretch, so I’m really grasping at straws with that. The baddies are bad because they want to take over America with an elaborate plan that involves taking out innocent folks, the good guys are there to stop them.

The setting gets to do some pretty decent variance thanks to the traveling around. We get some wetlands action, some city stuff, inside and outside of various buildings including a pretty destructible mall, and of course some car chase action. Plenty of spots to use for action set pieces and not feel too stagnant or boring. When it comes to the costumes, it does a pretty good job with just pulling the believable “of it’s time” clothing options. Chuck is sporting his iconic jeans and sometimes sassily opened button up, and the villains tend to blend in with anyone they are imitating to sew destruction and mistrust. It isn’t anything that stands out as exceptional because it all just blends in a feels like you’d expect it to. Props are generally in a fittingly similar situation, with plenty of guns and vehicles that all won’t really feel out of place.

Saying that though, it is an old action flick where ammo counts don’t matter - so although that rocket launcher looks in place, the fact it shoots a seemingly unlimited amount of shots without reloading could be pretty fantastical and drive the more real-counting types insane. The action is spread throughout the movie, with plenty of different explosive acts from the terror group. Probably the least explosive thing they do is just shoot some folks, and yeah most the gun fights are pretty “nobody but the hero can aim to save their lives” situations - but the energy is there. I could see some folks expecting a lot more martial arts out of a Norris movie - which is a fair thought I would say - and it does feel far more shooting related then it does any kind of roundhouse kicks. On the one hand, it does feel a bit more fitting, but at the same time it probably bear’s pointing out that although you’ll get stuff like a missile launcher boss duel, most the fist fights will be swiftly over with only a kick or two.

Audio balance is good, music is there. I don’t remember anything of the music outside of the bass notes a few times, but this also isn’t something that’s outside the normal for me. Line deliveries can waggle back and forth as mentioned about the acting, but the more aggravating part is that there’s no subtitles at any point a terrorist decides to not use english. I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense or add to the theoretical immersion of disconnect you would get for not knowing the language - but I had hope it would have at least had subtitles when the captioning was turned on since there is quite a bit of times where they’ll be talking back and forth and you are left in the dark about what’s being said. For the thinking person, you mostly get the terrorist supplied angles of thinking. For example - just how easy would it be for terrorists to turn the country against itself by doing simple things like pretending they are the cops or blowing up suburbs and malls with no real rhyme or reason? You could kind of pick out some stuff from that like racial and class tensions, or international tensions even - but all of that also feels a bit like it’s on you to really want to dig into it to really pull something instead of cleanly presenting deep subjects in sly ways.

I feel like this movie would be a great guilty pleasure kind of movie - if I ever actually felt guilt while watching and enjoying a Norris movie. It’s got a bunch of cheese on it’s semi-serious concept, and some of the scenese can be pretty dark while at the same time the overarching wildness of the entire situation somehow turns it into this dark comedy whether intentional or not. Acting is good at times and corny at others, effects work is pretty good (and it’s a bit unfortunate that I know at least a few of those ended with injuries), and there’s a constant promise of action of some sort to keep one invested. It might not be a masterpiece, but it’s not boring and can be a great watch with friends where you don’t need to full on pay attention.

@IMDB

Invasion U.S.A. (1985)