A brilliant film that helped define a genre

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

The bad, bad Dolemite returns in a new adventure that drops any semblance of serious tone and goes right to the proof that, at this point, Rudy Ray Moore had lost his mind. The first movie was a prime example of the "so bad, its good" genre as it walked the erratic line between parody and poorly executed drama. Moore's second film as his iconic character, THE HUMAN TORNADO, is just downright insane. Moore isolated the craziest elements of his first movie, jacked the WTF meter up to 11, and created one of the most absurdly awesome movies of the 70s. The movie finds Dolemite living in the South. I guess. It never really establishes where he is, or why, but all of the white people are hillbillies. When he's caught in bed with the crazy, racist sheriff's wife, Dolemite and his posse hightail it out of town and head to Los Angeles where mob boss Cavaletti has shut down Queen Bee's club and taken two of her girls as prisoners. With the law hot on his trail, Dolemite arrives on the west coast and undertakes his own investigation into Cavaletti and plotting how to rescue the girls and end the gangster's stranglehold over Queen Bee and her girls. Having written that quick summation, I'm pretty sure I've already put more thought into the plot of THE HUMAN TORNADO than screenwriter Jerry Jones (who also returns as Detective Blakely) was ever required to. This is easily Moore's best film ever.As if to warn the audience what they've wandered into, it opens with Rudy Ray Moore in various colorful get-ups and "karate" poses as the opening credits roll. The movie has also acquired a new director, Cliff Roquemore, who seems to have a better grasp on how to shoot a movie than D'Urville Martin. It's still low on production value, but at least you aren't spotting boom microphones in every scene and he tries to move the camera around a bit more. The acting is still horrible, but it aspires for all-new levels of horrible. J.B. Baron is near legendary as Sheriff Beatty, the racist hillbilly with a grudge against Dolemite. Baron is beyond over-the-top, bug-eyed and screeching racial slurs. The filmmakers obviously had a pretty low opinion of the South (although, considering the time this film was release…could you blame 'em?) and it's populated in the film by hate-spewing rednecks ready to drop what they're doing and form a lynch mob. The filmmakers' view on homosexuals isn't much better, with a gay man named Charlie becoming the victim of Dolemite's carjacking. He spends the trip squealing in delight at his captors and spouting entendres. Everything is taken to the extreme here. It more than makes up for the actual low quality of the movie itself with it's usual poor pacing, botched choreography, and failure to understand story structure. THE HUMAN TORNADO can't figure out which plot line is more important: Cavaletti's dirty business or the Sheriff's vendetta. So it crams in both. Also, quick note… Ernie Hudson is in this!There is just so much in this movie that will leave the audience scratching their head in confusion, but in a fun sense. When I first saw this movie, I knew immediately that I had to share the wealth with everyone I could convince to watch it. There are just so many WTF moments. What was the deal with the old woman who loved to torture girls? Why did Dolemite's sex scene with Hurricane Annie cut away to a shot of them eating watermelon? Why did Jimmy get such an unnecessarily long death scene, seeing as how his character was so unimportant that I didn't even know his name until he died? Was the beard on the henchman running the torture chamber painted on with shoe polish? Was Java really a man? How many drugs were consumed when coming up with the dream sequence representing Mrs. Cavaletti's nymphomania? The movie is titled THE HUMAN TORNADO and the cover art depicts Rudy Ray Moore delivering a flurry of punches, but we come to discover that Dolemite's nickname as the Human Tornado has nothing to do with his ability to kick butt. No, no, no…even better. This movie is just so crazy that I can't describe how amazingly bizarre it is. All I can do is recommend that you watch it. I really hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did, but I know the humor might be lost on some. Give it a chance and it'll all be worth it by the time you arrive at the ten minute kung-fu action sequence with Rudy Ray Moore's closest approximation of martial arts as he waves his arms around and grunts as he battles his way into Cavaletti's home. Pure gold. THE HUMAN TORNADO, just as with DOLEMITE before it, is far from a "good" movie, but there is so much wrong with it that it works perfectly.

Whenever he is caught in bed with the wife of the local sheriff and events turn into a bloodbath, Dolemite decides it is time to head west, out to California. Once there he sets himself up with Queen Bee only to find that her primarily black nightclub is under threat from white criminal types. The success of Queen's club has robbed business from a mafia owned premises and they are keen to drive her out of business by whatever means necessary. Dolemite of course has other ideas.In a bit of a blaxploitation mood I watched this film after I watched Truck Turner – which I found to be an enjoyable film, being good for the genre. The Human Tornado immediately let me know that it was probably at the other end of the pack as the child-like credits roll over Rudy Ray Moore dressing "sexy" and performing the type of martial arts moves that can only be pulled off by someone who has learnt all their skills from watching it on TV and never having done a minute's training in their whole podgy life. This then gives way to only slightly amusing stand-up routine from Moore/Dolemite in which the audience loves every second of it. After a while we get into the "proper" film – and I use that word with inverted commas simply because there is almost nothing proper about this. While blaxploitation films always show the cool black characters putting one over on the (predominately racist, dumb or both) white characters, this film does it with even less class and effort than the previous Dolemite (itself not that great a film). What this means is that the plot rapidly becomes one of Dolemite beating up rednecks or sleeping with voluptuous and up-for-it white women. There is a vague story here but it is essentially just one scene after another of this and after a while you stop caring about the fact that it makes no sense and has no narrative flow to it.Indeed very quickly I stopped caring about the whole film and it was about this time that I started to realise it was a very poor film indeed. It lacks any real humour or likable characters. Dolemite is a real jerk throughout – and not even in a "look at him being cruel and cool" way – he just genuinely is an ass. Of course a massive part of this is Moore's performance which can only aspire to be as good as the dialogue bits in cheesy 1970's porn movies – he literally is not even that good. He has no charisma and no delivery – were it not for his bulk he would not really register in the film. The only thing he brings is unintentional laughter as he shows off his "awesome body" (awesome body meaning something different in the 70's it seems) and his amazing martial arts skills (which are laughably poor). If it was just this then maybe but the rest of the film is made up of lazy caricatures and cruel humour that isn't actually funny – all of it looking like it was made up on the spot by a cast who are awful at ad-libbing, shot on knackered cameras and lit by the crew putting their lighters up. Even the soundtrack is pretty weak considering this is normally a selling point of the genre. The various girls all flash flesh for the viewer but not even in a way that is able to make this film work as some sort of soft-porn titillation.Overall, whatever forgiveness I had for the first Dolemite film has clearly expired because I found the Human Tornado to be an awful film – even by the standards of a genre where "bad" can still be enjoyed as part of the experience. It is lacking in discipline, has no story worth following and is essentially one daft scene of excess after another, with no real respect for the viewer or the internal logic of the film. If it were trashy fun then perhaps it would work but it is such a selfish and indulgent mess that it is hard to even enjoy how bad it is. Truck Turner provided me with an entertaining example of the genre – this film only served to remind me how cheap and nasty that same genre could be.

Human Tornado (1976) is in many ways a better film than it's predecessor. The director knew what he had to work with and catered towards Rudy Ray Moore's limitations as an actor. It's a fun movie that's more technically sound and acted. The performers don't take themselves too seriously and it seems that this time around everyone is on the joke and goes with the flow. Rudy Ray Moore seems more relaxed in front of the camera and not as stiff like he was in Dolemite.I enjoyed the film very much and I highly recommend it. Just like his first film, it's catered towards a certain audience (I highly doubt that Mr. Moore was trying to broaden his audience at this point in his career). Check it out!Highjly recommended.

Having just seen Dolemite, I can easily attest that this one is purely funnier. I will watch Disco Godfather soon, which is argued by some to be better still, while many claim Tornado to be the best. The racist cop cliches - GOLD. Dolemite leaping off an ivy covered hill, actually stopping the film, reversing it twice w/ a voiceover to "prove" that he really did it - GOLD. All the hallmarks of a GOOD bad movie. Really over the top, ridiculous fun. My only complaint is one too many shots of Rudy Ray's ass. And Caveletti's main squeeze, who is gratuitously nude more often than any other woman in the film, is a 40 plus white woman who is sagging in all the wrong places - couldn't a straight up pimp like Rudy Ray get something a little less 'local?' Oh, wait, he really isn't a pimp or for that matter, anything he claims to be in this movie. His interpretation of Kung Fu is hilarious.