FOREST WARRIOR (1996) **

A lot of the same people responsible for Top Dog were also behind Forest Warrior.  They must’ve thought that the only way they could top pairing Chuck Norris with a dog was to have him share the screen with bears, wolves, and eagles.  Like Top Dog, it’s pretty much a dumb kid’s movie, but at least it’s consistently corny and doesn’t have a weird mean streak. 

 

Norris plays a mountain man who was killed by some dastardly villains in his beloved forest in the nineteenth century.  His spirit then became one with nature and has spent over a century guarding the forest from harm.  When a greedy lumber tycoon (Terry Kiser from Weekend at Bernie’s) wants to strip the woods for profit, it’s up to Chuck to make him see the forest for the trees.   

 

Like a lot of Chuck’s movies, Forest Warrior has way too many characters and subplots that get in the way of Chuck kicking ass.  All the sub-Goonies shit with the kid characters camping in the extreme treehouse and stumbling upon the tycoon’s plot feels like some real Disney Channel type crap.  The flashbacks to townsfolk’s encounters with the forest spirit also eat up precious screen time, and the mini-musical number is completely gratuitous.  You also have to put up with some lame Home Alone-inspired gags where the kids plant booby traps in the woods to deter the loggers.   

 

I will admit that I admire the film’s earnestness.  It’s not very good, but it wears its heart on its sleeve.  If anything, it plays better as a throwback to the days of environmentally conscious fare like Billy Jack and Grizzly Adams than as a traditional Chuck Norris actioner. 

 

The supporting cast is solid too.  While Kiser gamely chews the scenery as the villain, Roscoe Lee Browne lends the proceedings a touch of class as the owner of the old timey general store who knows the legend of the Forest Warrior.  We also have Loretta Swit as one of the kid’s moms, Michael Beck as a drunk dad, and William Sanderson as a sniveling lawyer.   

 

Unfortunately, Norris doesn’t get a lot of screen time in this one as much of the focus is on the kids and their misadventures.  On the plus side, he gives a good performance as he is clearly invested in the role.  Much of Forest Warrior is kiddie fodder, but where else are you going to get to see Chuck Norris transforming into wolves and eagles, karate kicking loggers, and resurrecting dead kids using forest magic?  I mean, any movie that ends with Chuck Norris morphing into a grizzly bear can’t be all bad.  In fact, more movies should end that way, in my opinion.    

 

As far as environmental themed action movies from the ‘90s go, Forest Warrior is a lot better than On Deadly Ground, that’s for sure.   

 

AKA:  Action Warrior.