Redundant and unnecessary.

People are voting emotionally.

Admirable film.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

The Octagon sees martial arts legend Chuck Norris taking on an organisation of ninjas, which should be awesome, but isn't.Thanks to loads of drawn-out, talkative exposition before the inevitable showdown in the ninjas' South American terrorist training camp (the Octagon of the title?), the majority of this early Norris vehicle is, to put it simply, very boring.As martial artist Scott James, Chuck is given nowhere near enough fighting to do, the character spending most of his time chatting to attractive heiress Justine (Karen Carlson), best pal A.J. (Art Hindle), and mercenary McCarn (Lee Van Cleef), while revealing his innermost thoughts to the viewer as reverberating whispers (a silly gimmick that quickly becomes very irritating).Avid martial arts movie fans will likely get a kick from the sight of genre regular Richard Norton's really bad hair, and the closing moments feature a reasonably choreographed fight between Norris and a hooded, hissing ninja, but the rest of the film is a major disappointment.

It's true that it may not appeal to martial arts movie lovers across the board because it actually has quite an involved, twisty plot and is going to be too slowly paced for some. There's not much in the way of action until the big finish. Still, for an undemanding B action picture, this viewer found the production values to be reasonably good, and there are some fine performances among the supporting cast. What lends "The Octagon" a high amount of unintentional hilarity is Chuck's overdone internal dialogue, all done with an exaggerated echo effect.Chuck stars as Scott James, a former fighter with bad memories, particularly of growing up with a hostile adoptive brother, Seikura (Tadashi Yamashita), who as an adult is now running a training camp for terrorists. A beautiful young heiress, Justine (Karen Carlson), wants revenge against Seikura because her father was one of Seikura's victims, and tries to hire Scott for her purposes. Scott isn't too happy that somebody would try to use him, and doesn't particularly want to get involved, but eventually realizes that he must.This is boosted to a degree by the engaging presence of Lee Van Cleef, who's a gas as an anti-terrorism expert / old friend of Scott's. Art Hindle ("Black Christmas" '74, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" '78) co-stars as Scott's buddy A.J., who makes a mistake in getting interested in a cause and gets in over his head. Sexy Carol Bagdasarian, daughter of composer / songwriter / actor Ross B., plays Aura, a terrorist-in-training who experiences a change of heart. Kim Lankford ("Malibu Beach") is likable during her brief screen time. B movie legend Richard Norton makes his film debut in two credited roles and several uncredited ones as faceless ninjas. (He's joked that he must have died a total of eight times in this movie.) And keep an eye out for people such as Brian Libby (whose next screen role was as Chuck's psycho nemesis in "Silent Rage"), Jack Carter, Ernie Hudson, Chuck's son Mike who plays Scott as a teenager, and an uncredited Tracey Walter.Good production design (by James L. Schoppe), cinematography (by Michel Hugo), and music (by Dick Halligan) help to make this a decent if unexceptional bit of entertainment. Chuck, as always, fares much better when kicking ass than when simply acting, but he still makes for a formidable hero. And the snarling Yamashita is a worthy bad guy. Some viewers may be amused to note how brutal the violence is at times.Overall, this is fun enough to watch.Seven out of 10.

Chuck Norris stars as the only martial artist alive who can take down a ninja clan, (led by his adopted brother) in this very dull ninja movie which earns a couple points for the inspired performance of Lee Van Cleef. Chuck Norris made only one ninja movie in his career (I think because I don't remember any others) but somehow The Octagon is a surprisingly plot driven ninja movie which isn't a very good thing since well ninja movies need to be swift. When it comes to ninja movies, it remains vastly inferior to American Ninja (And it's first sequel) and Revenge Of The Ninja which could quite possibly be the birth of the genre. The Octagon has a few moments but generally Norris' voice-overs and complete lack of action make this for Norris enthusiasts only.*1/2 out of 4-(Poor)

This movie was almost the worst thing since the invention of the fanny pack. I was tripping out whenever Chuck Norris' character started thinking to himself in this movie, the whole whisper with a distorted echo thing."Doggo is not the answer... nswer... swer... wer... er... r..." It was like Chuck Norris was trying to crawl into me through my ear and steal my soul or something. I was scared needless to say.The whole plot goes a little something like: Ninja's have been outlawed for 300 years. Someone is training people who are willing to be ninja assassins, in some undisclosed location outside of the United States. No one wants to believe they exists. some how money is involved, the movie dosn't answer that too well.The only thing I personally think had going on for this movie was Lee Van Cleef was in it.