Average
Summary
The movie knows what it is, but hopes that you won’t notice its “Made in Greece, by Greeks for peanuts” quality. If you’re good with that, the movie will be more than halfway entertaining to you.
Plot: A secret agent on assignment in Greece must find and disarm a hydrogen bomb before it detonates.
Review: Debonair secret agent Dan Holland (Nicholas Kirk, a.k.a. Nikos Kourkoulos) arrives in Athens to undertake his most dangerous assignment yet: To find a stolen hydrogen bomb! A fellow agent was killed, and Holland must do some recon by meeting up with some of the last people to have associated with him, namely a couple of strippers and nightclub singers, whom Holland is only too happy to wine and dine … and take to bed. Turns out that one of the women is a villain in disguise, and Holland ends up bamboozled and taken captive. He has to escape in time to find the bomb (and rescue a young girl held hostage), disarm it, and save Greece!
A riff on the 007 movies, but with a distinctly Greek flavor, Assignment Skybolt is a hoot if you’re in the right mood for it. It takes itself mostly seriously and pushes the limits a little harder than the Bond films with some kinky scenes that almost made me raise my eyebrows a little. The film is obviously a knock-off in the way I used to remember coming across knock-off toys when I was a kid. One time in the ’80s, I was at a Boys supermarket in Los Angeles and I came across a ninja action figure that I absolutely had to have, but I knew it was one of those “made in China” or “made in Mexico” rip offs of the Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos toys that flooded the junk market, but I wanted it anyway because I thought it looked cool. I still have that piece of junk toy today! That’s the kind of movie Assignment Skybolt is. It’s crap, but it’s sort of fun crap. The plot and the action are goofy (fight scenes consist of heroes and villains using weird karate chops and judo throws), and it one-ups the Bond films with its misogyny (before sex, Holland uses a belt to whip a woman across the face and breasts until she submits to him, and then later, she does it to him), and so the movie has its cock-eyed merits, especially if you’re a fan of 007-styled movies. There’s even a throwaway gag about James Bond if you pay attention. The movie knows what it is, but hopes that you won’t notice its “Made in Greece, by Greeks for peanuts” quality. If you’re good with that, the movie will be more than halfway entertaining to you. From director Gregg G. Tallas.
Dark Force Entertainment has just released a Blu-ray of Assignment Skybolt, and it comes in a nice 4K scan, but the soundtrack at the beginning and at the end has a strangely warped quality to it. I suspect that’s the elements themselves that are to blame, and not the transfer on the disc. There are some bonus trailers, and a slipcover.