HoopTober 8: Mosquito Takes Mandragon

Movie 19
2nd of 6 films with a person of color as director or lead. (excluding Asian)

This movie was immediately disqualified from getting a five star rating by its use of "the" in the title, instead of "da". Egregious.

Are we allowed to call this blaxploitation? Or does that have to refer to films from the 1970's only? Because this feels like modern (well, 20 years ago now, shit!) blaxploitation and for me that's a good thing?

Anyway, this is my first ever Leprechaun film and I was mainly relieved that it was at least quite watchable. It won't set the horror world on fire, and it's overall a little lacklustre compared to, you know, an actual good horror movie. But I found this to be reasonably entertaining.

I was a little distracted by Warwick Davis' accent because, although to an American this might sound genuinely Irish, the fact is he has a bit of a well-educated English accent which he can't quite disguise here, and that makes the "fiddle-dee-dee potaters!" Irish accent feel a little bit queasy. And yes, I know I am complaining about regional accuracy from a Leprechaun movie and I accept that I have a problem. And while we're being pedantic, many reviews on here led me to believe that the Leprechaun speaks entirely in Limericks, when in actual fact it's just rhyming couplets, which by my calculations are 60% easier to write and so now I feel ripped off. Thanks for nothing.

In all seriousness, and I can't believe I'm saying this, the reason this movie works as well as it does is the characters. OK, Ice-T is just a cartoon villain, but this plays to his strengths as an actor. But our three main protagonists in this aspiring hip hop act are genuinely likeable and I could actually maintain an interest in what sort of ridiculous shit was going on simply because I felt some stakes with these guys.

Look, obviously this is pretty much trash, but it's entirely watchable trash at least.