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YMMV / Gymkata

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  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The two-faced crazy guy in the village. What the hell was his deal?
  • Cult Classic: The movie has a decent number of fans, but good luck finding one who enjoys it as the serious action film it was intended to be.
  • Fight Scene Failure: The pommel horse scene is all over this, featuring telegraphed kicks, Mook Chivalry, and an attempt to make Kurt Thomas look threatening that absolutely did not work out.
  • Fridge Logic: Any foreigner who enters Parmistan has to play "the Game". No one has won in nine centuries. The princess's mother was Indonesian. How does that work?
    • Her mother is over 900 years old?
    • How does a village entirely populated by insane people, many of the low-functioning and violent type, manage to just get by? Maybe it doesn't but they'd have to constantly send new insane people to keep it populated.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: The entire sequence in the village is so eerily similar to the ganado village in Resident Evil 4, you'll wonder if employees at Capcom are fans of this movie.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Of a sort, specifically in the early days of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Although they (sadly) never actually riffed the film itself, Joel and the Bots would often respond to a particularly acrobatic or sudden on-screen attack by shouting "GYMKATA!"
    • Ever since the film was released on DVD, fans have been clamoring for MST3K successor RiffTrax to handle the film - and in 2020, they finally did. Before then, the meme was used in several Rifftrax, ensuring its survival for years to come.
    • RedLetterMedia's The Best of the Worst had them reviewing the game, and yes, at one point they shout "GYMKATA!" They also dub the protagonist "Gymkata" since his actual name is unmemorable.
  • Narm:
    • "There's just a little anti-American sentiment, running around. Nothing to worry about—" <arrow to the chest>.
    • The Village of the Crazies was building up a nice little head of Nightmare Fuel steam with its creepily discordant woodwind music, disturbing and violent freaks, a gory shot of a hapless competitor impaled to a door while a dog licks up his blood... and promptly loses it when the guy in the white robe appears to beckon Cabot to follow him, and turns around to reveal that his robe has no back, exposing his bare ass to the audience.
  • Narm Charm: The scene where Cabot mocks the Princess' stoicism by holding an imaginary conversation with her and switching roles with a completely gratuitous, if impressive, pivoting backflip.
  • Signature Scene: The Village of the Crazies, especially the part pictured on the main page where Cabot hops on a pommel horse and Gymkatas half the village right in its crazy face.
  • So Bad, It's Good: Oh yeah. Who cares about the plot when you have a man using gymnastics to beat up crazy people?
  • Stock Footage Failure: Made worse by using its own footage. During the infamous pommel horse scene, the movie uses the exact same footage of Cabot kicking two men in rapid fashion four times.
  • Took the Bad Film Seriously: Part of the film's endearing reputation comes from the fact that Kurt Thomas really is trying with the part, even if he's clearly not a trained actor. It's clear that he saw it as a showcase for his gymnastic skill after he missed out on the 1980 Olympics, and consequently he pulls a ton of very impressive stunts. Notably, during his conversation with his love interest, he repeatedly pulls a Thomas Salto: a maneuver that is banned from most gymnastic competitions for being too dangerous. (Incidentally, it's called the "Thomas salto" because it's named after him.)

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