Gymkata in a Nutshell

Gymkata is about a champion gymnast named Johnathan Cabot. In the tiny, yet savage, country of Parmistan, there is a perfect spot for a “star wars” site. For the US to get this site, they must compete in the brutal “Game”. The government calls on Cabot, the son of a former operative, to win the game. Cabot must combine his gymnastics skills of the west with fighting secrets of the east and form GYMKATA!

The Gymkata Movie Trailer

The Gymkata Movie Review Breakdown

Who is in it? Kurt Thomas
Genre: Action/Drama/Martial Arts
Was it action packed? Yes.
Would this movie be for every Action or Martial Arts fan? Hell yes.
Should you see it? Yes!
Run Time: 90 mins.
Rating: R

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The Verdict

This movie looks ridiculous because it is. An Olympic Gymnast with Martial Arts training is approached by the US Government to go to a small country and kick a small army’s ass is the recipe for greatness. Think about it he can do flips on a mat AND roundhouse kick well, HOW CAN HE LOSE?! Trick question… He never loses. Gymkata is a form of lethal combat that can only be done by a world class athlete like Kurt Thomas. Who else has the ability to be chased by an angry mob, find the only pommel horse in town and kick a bunch of ass then out run two dogs and scale a wall? Ill save you hours of Google searches, and tell you the answer is Nobody.

We start off watching Kurt Thomas on the parallel bars in his white tights. Little do we know they will be stained with the blood of his enemies later in the film. The U.S. government approaches him to propose a suicide mission… yeah, for anyone else… The mission is to go to a small country named Parmistan. Sounds simple right? Wrong. Anyone that enters Parmistan has to play ‘The Game’. We aren’t talking Super Mario Brothers here, we’re talking men on horses with bows and arrows and bad ninja suits chasing you down and killing you. The reason the mission is proposed is because anyone that wins the game gets not only his life, but also gets to make request. The only problem is that no outsider has won in over 900 years… That is until we send a killing machine with Olympic Gold medals.

The Government wants to set up a ‘Star Wars’ early warning station in Parmistan which would potentially save a bunch of lives. But in order to save a bunch of lives, Kurt Thomas has to take a bunch of lives! You might be asking what a Star Wars early warning station is… and that would be a valid question. The answer is “Who cares”, this guy knows gymnastics AND karate… and they just unleashed him! So he arrives in Parmistan and meets the King… that looks like Geraldo Rivera with a daughter that looks Asian, and gets set up to play the game. He is but one of around 5 contestants playing the game. Other countries sent their best man to compete because the prize of “your life and a request” is pretty valuable I guess, the only thing they didn’t think about was… their best men don’t know Gymkata and will therefore die.

So they’re hunting Kurt Thomas and his mullet all over the country side and through town and hes kicking every ass thats dumb enough to cross his path and he has a fairly funny epic fight with this blonde guy that I can only assume is the general of the Parmistan army, and *spoiler alert* Kurt Wins, because the general didn’t know gymkata and Kurt did. Kurt wins the game and the king’s Asian daughter. The End. This movie is so bad it’s great. I have to admit when I heard about this movie from @mrletmeknow on Twitter I had my reservations but after watching it I have to admit that this movie has a charm that only a bad movie can bring. I rate this movie a 4/10 for it’s lame yet original story and laughable fight sequences, but on the ‘So Bad its good’ scale I rate this a 9/10. You NEED see this movie.

What kind of other combinations would work for a martial arts movie? Here are my ideas:

1. Half Chiropractor – Half Professional Wrestler.  Movie Title “Wrestlpractor”
2. Half Masseur – Half Ninja. Movie Title “Masseur-acre”
3. Half Yo-Yo Champion – Half Mother of  Twins. Movie Title “Yo-Yo Momma”
4. Half Appliance Repairman – Half Assassin.  Movie Tagline “He’ll take your life and fix your fridge”
5. Half Marathon Runner- Half Hide-and-Seek champion. Movie Title “You can’t run. You can’t hide.”

Official Nutshell-Movies Explanation

Gymkata (1985): A gymnastics champion that can do Karate at the same time is sent by the government to a small country to kick ass.