Metacritic-Rezensionen

Makes everything Hollywood has lately done in the action genre look clumsy, dull and stale. It is a short, nonstop stuntfest that, by going back to basics and placing them on the screen with simple, breathless stylishness, turns what is essentially a lowlife movie form into something one is not embarrassed to call "pure" cinema--all energy, movement and high kinetic wit.

It may be subtitled, and the faces may be unfamiliar, but District B13 is the best buddy action movie around.

Spread the word: This delirious import is the most (maybe the only) fun action movie of the summer.

With backing from the film's producer and co-writer, Luc Besson, the director, Pierre Morel, mounts a breakneck B movie inspired by Hong Kong action extravaganzas, the gritty genre classics of John Carpenter and the Thai neo-kung fu parable "Ong Bak." He hasn't reinvented this particular wheel, but he gets it spinning with delirious savoir-faire.

The big innovation here is that the two nimble leads, stuntmen-turned-stars, are devotees of parkour, a fancy French word for the fluid use of urban environments as jungle gyms.

Fast, dumb fun.

Go for the dazzling, if repetitive, human stunt work. Endure the appallingly simplistic politics.

By most standards, District B13 is a fairly routine summer action movie, albeit one in French. But what makes it unique are the truly amazing and kinetic action scenes featuring Parkour pioneer Belle and co-star Cyril Raffaelli.

Morel tries to keep the energy up for 85 minutes straight, but the film never manages to top itself, and in spite of the political overtones, it doesn't provide much thematic sustenance.

A ridiculous but exciting action movie.