Search - Ricky 1 on DVD

A fair parody let down by picture/sound

C. Marreiros | uk | 12/16/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I saw this on VHS eons ago when I was around twenty (i'm thirty eight), and cracked up at the time.

However, watching films twenty years later never seem as funny as the were at the time. Think Repoman. What a brilliant film - until its watched again, fifteen years later. Having said that, its not that bad.

Ricky 1, unfortunately, really is'nt as good after fifteen years. What makes it even worse, sadly, is picture and sound quality. It was a budget film at the time anyway in the eighties; probably straight to video. Whatever happened, I don't think the master tapes/film were used as the source for transferring to DVD. Repo-man DVD audio/video quality was pretty good. Audio/video quality for Ricky 1 is pretty bad, resulting in an abhorrent watch of what I think is an ok-ish, daft film. Video looks like a vhs tape thats been recorded of TV in 1988, dark, grainy. Doesnt help that, being based on Rocky, the film itself tends to spend alot of time in dark areas. Audio is muffled, small bandwith, little bass, very little treble - terrible. I watched it on PC AND dvd/tv; they were as bad as each other. Such a shame.

The captions on the DVD case are slightly misleading and in some cases, completly wrong. On the front, " ... does to flying what AIRPLANE did to boxing!" Ignoring the obviously intentional mistake, classing these two films as similar is like classing an elephant to an ant. Airplane is one trillion times more funny than this film could ever be. End of. Game over. Also, on the back is a synopsis of the film, which is completely wrong.
"Tonight, he faces the champ, the bolivian bomber." Well, like Rocky, he fights the champ, but the bolivian bomber isnt the champ. Can't really say more, for fear of spoiling.

Right, now for the film itself (ie forgetting sound/video)
OK, no where near as funny as Airplane. Shocking production values, seriously underbudget, badly directed, badly acted, bad story line. Similar in quality/humour to Rod Steele - Balls of Thunder.
So why on earth did I find some of this funny? Just did. A few lines here and there. Some daft scenes, some funny scenes. Some bad scenes. Good to watch with some beers.

Overall an OKish silly film; you'll sort of enjoy it, but will categorize it as one of the worst films you ever saw. (even though you will laugh out loud at parts). However, DVD quality ... dear, oh dear.
"