AllMovie

Perhaps best known for a quartet of '70s action-comedies -- Dolemite, The Devil's Son-in-Law, The Human Tornado and Disco Godfather -- Rudy Ray Moore is back on-screen for the first time in two decades. But if Shaolin Dolemite proves anything at all, it's that the years have taken their toll. Essentially, the movie is a re-editing of 1986's Ninja: The Final Duel interspersed with very little footage of a wizened Moore acting like Dolemite but referred to as "Monk Ru-Dee" (Ru-dy, get it?), who babbles to an old Asian man and watches fight scenes while saying things like "That mutha is baddd." The majority of the film is traditional martial arts fodder, with a young fighter learning the Shaolin method, the defection of the master's jealous son, and so on. Unfortunately, the dialogue dubbed in by Moore and his cohorts is scarcely funnier than a "real" movie might have been, and even less coherent. A big disappointment, especially at a time when Moore was just beginning to capture a new generation of young fans.