The 5 Least Manly Sports Movies

5

The Next Karate Kid

Let's get the facts out in the open right now--the first Karate Kid movie was fucking genius. It had it all: The good guys (Ralph Macchio and the late, great Pat Morita), the bad guys (Billy Zabka and his Cobra Kai Sensei, Martin Kove), a cute Elisabeth Shue. It was like someone crossed Rocky with a Chuck Norris movie and decided to set the whole thing in the surreal, cheesy universe of Saved by the Bell.

Unfortunately by the fourth installment, the movie had been watered down from a fun cheesy high school take on the sacred kick-ass martial arts genre into a harmless Lifetime Original Movie about strong women that vaguely touches on karate. Gone is Daniel-san, in his place is Hillary Swank as Julie--a busty teen who pisses all over her grandmother due to unresolved daddy issues. Luckily, Mr. Miyagi is there to teach her something called the Praying Mantis karate chop, which comes in handy after the bad guy in the film nearly rapes her at her high school. Because after all, when every other element of your movie seems to be aimed squarely at 12-year-old girls, what's more appropriate than an attempted rape?

A deadlock between Mr. Miyagi shopping for a fucking prom dress--a prom dress!--and the dancing monks in the monastery. We don't know what research the filmmakers did that would suggest that "dress-shopping and extended-dance sequences" were the two things the original Karate Kid movies desperately needed. All of the polls we took point to "more karate" and "boobs" as the best answers.

Julie: "I wish I had courage like you."

Mr. Miyagi: "I wish I had chocolate bar with almonds."

Mr. Miyagi teaches his pupil an important lesson about self defense by getting a bunch of kids to throw NERF toys at her. While it's unclear how this is supposed to teach her to fight off any but the most idiosyncratic rapist, it does provide one of the longest uninterrupted toy commercials ever inserted into a major motion picture.

If you really need to get the taste of shitty kung fu out of your mouth, (and after that clip, you'll pretty much have to), rent The Octagon with Chuck Norris from 1980. When Norris spits out the line, "That's an insult to both of us-it makes me stupid and you a whore," you'll be far too busy fist-pumping to wonder whether or not that statement actually means anything.

4

Field of Dreams

Most people call it a "sports movie." There's a baseball diamond on the movie poster and there's "field" right there in the title. So why the hell did we waste two hours watching some sort of half-assed fairy tale about a schizophrenic farmer? We haven't felt this betrayed by a movie title since Naked Lunch (it's about a fucking exterminator).

3

Jerry Maguire

Cameron Crowe does to the football movie genre what he did to the grunge movement with Singles: completely misses the point in order to focus on whiny self-involved people instead.

2

Slam Dunk Ernest

After 10 films in the Ernest cannon, Jim Varney couldn't leave well enough alone--he had to go piss all over the basketball movie genre and brought one of our boyhood idols, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, along for the ride.

In this one, Ernest rides the pine on a local basketball team. Naturally, this goofy dipshit sucks at hoops so Kareem, the archangel of basketball, gives him a pair of magic kicks that turn him into a Michael Jordan overnight. Here's the rub: With all of his success on the court, Ernest becomes an arrogant fuck. Are you still actually interested in where this movie is going? Wow, get outta town. Alright, somewhere down the line a lesson is learned, though that lesson isn't "Stop putting Jim Varney in front of the camera," so did anyone really learn anything?

1

Days of Thunder

It's no accident that Tom Cruise is on this list twice. When it comes to Cruise and sports movies (this just in: driving cars in circles is a sport), he can't help but turn the genre into a pussified vanity project.

So here's the patented Cruise sports-movie (and really every movie where he's not playing against type) script formula ...

1) Cruise: An overcompensating young hothead with nominal talent and something to prove.

2) Grizzled Old Fucker: He's the mentor--he's done it all and sees something in Cruise.

3) Lead Beard: Always smarter, soft-spoken and small-chested. Usually wearing glasses and often times taller than Cruise (so over 5-foot-6).

4) The Worthy Foe: This guy stymies Cruise every step of the way.

5) The Sport: Cruise will ultimately win at this sport while learning two lifelong lessons: His gruff old mentor was right about whatever he was blabbering about in Act 2 and his female lead really does love him for the self-serving egomaniac he is.

6) Hungry man-sized dollops of homoeroticism from Cruise and Worthy Foe.

There you have it--the plot to this and every other sports movie Cruise overacts his way through.

A visible (and highly questionable) Tom Cruise erection. Graphic description below.

[Cruise's Cole is being searched by a female cop who notices his visible erection which we're sure is a dildo from the props department.]

Female Cop: Looks like we found something.

Male Cop: What's that?

Female Cop: A concealed weapon.

Ten dollars on which cop gave Cruise the erection.

If you don't believe us that Cruise's movies conform to a strict formula, check out the climax.

Remind you of anything? Cruise piloting a speeding vehicle, almost losing his mind, having his mentor plead with him over the radio and receive nothing but silence for two interminable minutes only to have Cruise suddenly and inexplicably come back from the brink and start kicking ass? Let's just say it's not dissimilar from Top Gun.