Forest Warrior is a 1996 Chuck Norris movie featuring Norris as the spirit of a mountain man murdered for trying to stop the logging of a mountain. Now, generations later, his spirit -with the power to turn into a wolf, eagle or bear- joins forces with some local kids to protect the mountain.
It is arguably Norris’s most family friendly film and is intended largely for younger audiences.
Tropes:
- The Baby of the Bunch: Logan is the youngest of the five kids (being the younger brother of one of the others) and is being taken up to the mountains and the tree house for the first time at the beginning of the film.
- Badass Boast: At the very end, just when McKenna morphs into a bear.McKenna: The only dreams you believe in are the ones that you can buy.Thorne: That's the only kind there are.
- Bare-Handed Blade Block: The film's most famous scene (to
Memetic Mutation levels) is McKenna stopping a chainsaw with his hand. - Broken Ace: Arlen is described by the sheriff as the best deputy he had until he started drinking.
- Butt-Monkey: Thorne's lawyers don't really accomplish much besides being insulted by their boss and doing a blundering job of trying to run from the cops.
- Chekhov's Gun: The single walkie talkie Logan picks up after the surveyors leave it behind is initially disregarded due to needing a mate to talk to, but later they use it to eavesdrop on the loggers and play music to distract them.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Ruthless logging boss Travis Thorne, who will do anything to drive people off the land and has already started logging before getting permission to. He also tries to rally support among the locals while promising jobs, all the while fully intending to import out of town loggers just out of spite.
- Friend to All Living Things: Austene, who befriends a bear cub, knows a nearby snake and seems to love animals in general.
- Ignored Epiphany: Thorne has a brief moment of softness, recalling how he used to play in the old treehouse as a kid and showing surprise it’s still there with a smile. Barely a second later, he orders his men to blow it up to give the kids less reason to hang around there and give him trouble.
- Initiation Ceremony: The pleasant and jolly version. Logan is formally inducted into his older brother's group of tree fort-using friends when the others disappear right before reaching the fort, leaving him to wander down the rest of the trail to the fort, at which point his friends leap out to surprise him. They also spin him around several times on the tire swing as another initiation step.
- Left Hanging: The nineteenth century gunmen (who kill John) and their corrupt logger bosses are never mentioned after the opening flashback. They did succeed in killing their adversary, but he returned to life with supernatural powers and the forest they wanted to cut down is still standing over a century later.
- The Meddling Kids Are Useless: Downplayed. The sheriff and his deputies (with Austene's father tagging along) get both a court order to stop the logging operation and an arrest warrant for the crooked bosses. They would have been able to enforce them even without the kids setting out to sabotage and delay the loggers. However, Thorne and his men had a couple hours' head start and were going to start cutting down trees right away, so the kid's actions are necessary to prevent any environmental harm from happening, but the villains still would have been stopped before accomplishing much.
- Missing Mom: Austene’s mother left her husband and daughter (possibly causing Arlen’s drinking, or possibly because of it) and never shows up again.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: Thorne's bumbling attorneys get him a temporary permit to clear cut the forest before the townspeople can vote on the lumber project.
- One-Man Army: In true Chuck Norris fashion, McKenna is good at pummeling large numbers of henchmen without trouble.
- The Omniscient: McKenna knows quite a bit about the people around him and their secrets and troubles. Mostly he keeps this to himself, or shows it in subtle ways, but Travis Throne is frightened to hear McKenna recall all the details about a fire Throne carelessly set on the mountain as a boy and avoided punishment for while feeling no remorse.
- Pet the Dog: The lawyers helping Thorne with his shady lumber project stop him from trying to strangle a Bearer of Bad News.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Many of Thorne’s loggers, who pause logging to dance to rock music blaring over their walkie talkies.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- Thorne’s surveyors quit off screen after being beaten up.
- Thorne’s lawyers and the loggers who are personally accompanying him flee when the police show up, with mixed results.
- Together in Death: McKenna and his wife are spirits together according to the final scene.
- Villainous Breakdown: Thorne at the end, after his plans are shot and he sees McKenna turn into a bear, is left babbling nervously and erratically.
