Schlock and awe time!

A crazy bad guy, who may or may not be Russian and is or is not a terrorist, decides that it is time for America to fall. He recruits an army of guys ( well they maybe mercenaries or just guys who like berets, ball caps and floppy fishing hats) to invade the United States and at Christmas time to boot. They acquire some cocaine to buy weapons, to arm the guys and then attack America. It really is a simple plan to follow. Then they just have to kill the one man that can stop them, retired agent (of what agency I have no idea) Matt Hunter. Luckily he is living the sweet life in the Florida swamp along with his armadillo and buddy ( who may have actual leather for skin). After a botched attempt that leaves his buddy (seriously his skin is tanned animal hide) dead and his armadillo afraid; Matt Hunter is out to stop this terrorist and his invasion of America.

 

I give you Invasion U.S.A.! Well in actuality this should be called Invasion some part of Florida. The invasion never seems to leave some part of that state. This “army” of guys is like a few hundred strong. How are they going to conquer America? Well they aren’t. See this invasion is more just a bunch of terror attacks somewhere in Florida. These guys blow up a small suburban neighborhood with bazookas, they try to explode a mall, they gun down a random Latino party, a boat of Cuba refugees gets totaled, they destroy a merry-go round at a carnival, there is an attempt at exploding a bus load of kids, attacks on grocery stores and various retail outlets and an office building gets riddled with way too many bullets; but there is no real invasion plan here. The military targets are all safe. Communications are all still operational. The police and fire departments are active. Hell the entire infrastructure is up and running. What kind of invasion is this? I’m no military genius, but it seems they are going about this invasion all wrong.

 

The plot of this is the typical 80’s formula: bad guy + goons + weapons- hero + one-liners/ sum of explosions x bullets= action! action! action!

 

This is more of a series of action vignettes then an actual movie. These strung together sequences are just laughable. There are goons that just run into buildings and randomly fire aimlessly. They make Imperial Stormtroopers look accurate. Seriously a half dozen guys with machine guns cannot hit Chuck Norris or even his truck with guns on full auto. Yet….if they are firing bazookas at residential housing or aiming at refugees on a boat, then look the hell out! They cannot miss. Now, when Matt Hunter unleashes his machine gun fury then you can do nothing but get hit by many many bullets at once. It is laughably bad action.

 

 

What sounds like and should be a great 80’s action movie just isn’t. The story is just terrible and I expected that. Hell, Commando made more sense than this. Commando! The action is just random bullet spray and bazookas which sounds great, but is not. This could have been uber-American patriotic Chuck Norris action. Sadly it is not. I have only seen a few Chuck Norris films and am still not impressed. Sure you have to like his retired agent, Matt Hunter, because how do  you get behind the other guy? He is the villain, and a very unlikeable one at that. You can’t cheer for the guy who blows up homes and busloads of kids. You have to cheer on Chuck as he lays waste to these goons. Invasion U.S.A. isn’t the worst 80’s action movie, but it is dangerously close.

 

If there is anything to gleaned from this is that if Chuck Norris has an armadillo. Then do not upset it!