History Main / UnnecessaryCombatRoll

* Subverted in the film version of ''[[Series/{{SWAT}} S.W.A.T.]]''. In the training exercises, one must tuck, roll, and hit a target as part of the exercise. When it's [[SamuelLJackson Sergeant Hondo's]] turn, he refuses to pull the unnecessary maneuver, stating "They only do that in John Woo movies."

-->-- Advice for a fighting game

* Creator/SethGreen was on ''Punk'd'' where he had been tricked into believing that a craps game he was at was being raided by cops. One of them did a roll on the floor after crashing though a glass door. After learning it was all a prank Green commented about the guy doing the roll which he thought was "completely unnecessary" at the time!

* James Bond is given this ability in ''VideoGames/EverythingOrNothing''. It doesn't protect you from fire, but it can help you get from cover to cover quickly. Doing it ''at'' the enemy mooks however is suicidal.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/MaxPayne''. Max himself usually doesn't roll so much as jump and fall over in slow motion, while firing his guns. By contrast, the gangsters and other enemies Max fights WILL do a gun roll to leap in front of you before shooting... and, since they can't shoot at the same time as they roll, this gives you a few seconds to shoot them. In slow motion. While falling over.

* Subverted in the film version of ''[[Series/{{SWAT}} S.W.A.T.]]''. In the training exercises, one must tuck, roll, and hit a target as part of the exercise. When it's [[SamuelLJackson Sargeant Hondo's]] turn, he refuses to pull the unnecessary maneuver, stating "They only do that in John Woo movies."

* A technique found by the titular character in the first ''SlyCooper'' game is a skill that lets you roll through stages. Lampshaded when Bentley says that the creator of the technique could roll faster than she could run.

* Doing a handspring or a rolling kip-up is a flashy way to get up. A match involving the old Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama) easily could have a dozen of those moves.

* The new ''TombRaider'' games frequently feature this, along with plenty of SheFu. Rolling into an enemy does knock him down, though.

* Parodied, hilariously, in ''TropicThunder''.

* Used to hilarious effect in the film ''BurnAfterReading'' by George Clooney's character, who is ostensibly using this technique on [[spoiler:a guy he killed 5 minutes ago.]] This is justified, since he was diving for a gun that was lying on the floor, and by the fact that the character lacks any proper combat training, in addition to being a moron (like most of the rest of the cast)

* {{Lampshaded}} in ''MrAndMrsSmith'' when John Smith does a dramatic dive roll into the bushes while trying to hide from his wife and rolls right into a tangled pile of branches with an appropriately annoyed hiss of ''"OW!"''

* ''LoadedWeapon1'' parodies Rigg's rolling-gunfire trick.

* Although not strictly a ''combat'' roll, ''SpaceMutiny'' has Reb Brown [[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl screaming like a girl]] before jumping off an incredibly slow-moving floor-polisher-thing and rolling twice. The [[MST3K MSTers]] dub him '[[RunningGag Roll Fizzlebeef]]'.
** In another MST3K episode, ''TheFinalSacrifice'', one of the cultists does a hilariously slow roll. While running through a forest. Approaching a cabin with two unarmed people in it.

* ''PoliceAcademy'' Tackleberry can't help but do one over the hood of a parked cruiser during his LeeroyJenkins charge through the cadet shoot house.

* SoBadItsGood Irish martial arts movie ''FatalDeviation'' has the protagonist roll across the bonnet of a car and back in the middle of a fight for no real reason. It's one of the movie's many ''many'' [[{{Narm}} Narmful]] moments.

* In an episode of ''JukenSentaiGekiranger'', TheStarscream resurrects two monsters to go after the BigBad while he's meditating. To show how sneaky they are, one of them dramatically rolls into place instead of quietly walking. If Rio wasn't so ''completely'' dead to the world while meditating, he'd have vaporized him right then and there [[spoiler: instead of about two seconds after they started attacking.]] The scene is essentially identical (re-reading the paragraph with "Jarrod" instead of "Rio") in ''Series/PowerRangersJungleFury.''
* Seen in ''KamenRiderOOO'', when a bumbling ex-con (the guy is very reminiscent of Creator/AdamSandler in ''LittleNicky'', just to give a notion) who had put himself under Shingo's "protection" (not knowing anything about Ankh) is walking the street with him, Eiji and Hina while relating his story (about how his former partner, who is the host to the [[MonsterOfTheWeek Yummy Of The Fortnight]], is targeting him and Shingo), then he stops and rolls ahead on the ground... To pick up a tack which [[FelonyMisdemeanor someone could step on]]. Cue the protagonists groaning.

* SethGreen was on ''Punk'd'' where he had been tricked into believing that a craps game he was at was being raided by cops. One of them did a roll on the floor after crashing though a glass door. After learning it was all a prank Green commented about the guy doing the roll which he thought was "completely unnecessary" at the time!

* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'''s YOUTH ROLL

** ''StreetFighter'': JokeCharacter Dan Hibiki actually teaches people to use {{Unnecessary Combat Roll}}s in his horrid fighting style, Saikyo. In some games (mostly the [[CapcomVsWhatever Versus series]]) Dan can drop all of his limit bars into a super taunt, which is just him rolling around and taunting at super speed with a glowing image trail. Parodying the KOF roll is part of his schtick as a SNK parody.

* Gratuitous somersaults are a trademark to high-flying wrestlers in order to show their agility. A specially popular lucha libre sequence involves two wrestlers charging against each other before one rolls across the ground and the another somersaults over him.

For no apparent reason, the protagonist will tuck into a roll, coming out shooting. If this is during some sneaky activity, rather than outright combat, they may do the roll to cross any open space, for no apparent benefit. In RealLife of course, coming out of a roll into a shooting position puts the person in a less-stable stance, wastes a lot of time and energy, and is likely to be very disorienting. Often parodied, through sheer gratuity, through the rolling individual just being really bad at it, or through {{Lampshading}}.

* In ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'', the player character can throw themselves into a roll to get behind cover or away from an enemy (useful) or diveroll to a aiming crouch from a run (very useful). The player character's AI companions will put the Unnecessary in UnnecessaryCombatRoll.

** Given how painful a lightsaber to the crotch is, you'd think they'd learn to guard low when you crouch or roll. The slash marks left by this attack are somewhat buggy, because no other saber attack actually stabs your enemy. After one successful hit, it's possible for [[MemeticMutation 9001]] slash trails to appear, centered on where you hit them. Averted with later enemies in the game, who will attack you mid-roll or dodge your attack, making [[UnnecessaryCombatRoll Unnecessary Combat Rolls]] unreliable.

* Parodied in ''TheBoondocks'' when Ed Wuncler the III, after a vicious attack on a bookstore, uses an UnnecessaryCombatRoll as he leaves while yelling, "KIIYAAA BITCH!"

* When Chief Wiggum of ''TheSimpsons'' wanted to look cooler while making arrests, he did an UnnecessaryCombatRoll... off a roof. He also does one when he thinks his house is being burgled... and does his back in.

* ''TheBigBangTheory'': Howard does one to Raj when they're "wrestling" (i.e., dancing around each other in a gym wearing spandex) while trying to prove who would be the hero and who would be the sidekick.

[[AC:ProWrestling]]

** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'' goes back-and-forth on this. Ven can use Dodge Roll just like Sora and Roxas (he can even upgrade it with a magic attack), while Terra gets a more reasonable forward charge. [[ActionGirl Aqua]], however, gets a [[SheFu ddge]] ''[[SheFu cartwheel]]''.

* Gratuitous somersaults are a trademark to high-flying wrestlers in order to show their agility. A specially popular lucha libre sequence involves two wrestlers charging against each other before one rolls through the ground and the another somersaults over him.

* Parodied in ''[[{{Yotsubato}} Yotsuba&!]]'' (seen above) when the title character, after watching one too many Japanese gangster movies, decides to take out her neighbors on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge with a water pistol: she kicks open Ena's bedroom door, stops to crouch down, does an awkward somersault, and comes up gun squirting.

* In ''PerfectDarkZero,'' you have the ability in-game to roll at any given moment. The rolls are extremely short and generally ridiculous looking, and would be laughably ineffective, if not for using one causes an enemy's lock on you to break.