Kite - Engel der Rache

Reviews on this seem to range between worst ever and careful analysis of the movie compared to real live. Hello? It is an action movie, with futuristic elements to boot. Also, most reviewers have suspiciously only reviewed 1 or 2 movies and an IMDb account for several weeks or months. I call those reviews in doubt.

Is it a great movie. No. But neither are most movies by Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stalone and basically anything by Michael Bay. And still, most of you watch it. Quite frankly I rather watch this than yet another Die Hard franchise movie or something out of the Expandable series which is basically recycling for has-been actors.

So what DO we have here. Just a nice action movie, manga remake such as Aeon Flux or Ultra Violet, while the style is more reminiscent of Leon or Banlieu 13 (both by Luc Besson), but without the quality of either of the latter. Just a nice movie on a Saturday night or a rainy day with friends watching a cute naive girl kicking the crap out of some guys. Don't analyze the characters or the story, as you wouldn't with the majority of these kinds of movies, and you'll be OK.

If you don't watch the movie until the end, you have all rights to give it a bad rating, but if your standard is to rate a movie without knowing all of it, should you share your opinion in the first place?

I wanted to quit during 'Kite', I admit. It seemed like a movie that kids & teens could like in a dystopian Sci-Fi setting, which looked stereotypical - graffitis, smoke, damaged vehicles, walls with bricks coming lose, setting didn't look real enough. Some costumes looked too childish. Literally every actor besides Samuel L. Jackson a no-name. Fighting scenes looked staged, punching sounds included.

But then, the plot has some nice surprises and Samuel L. Jackson played well as always, carrying the movie a lot. The 'child' actors India Eisley and Callan McAuliffe had alright performances.

The anime 'Kite' on which this is based on just has a good story, they just failed on too many levels to make it an even better movie. There are scenes which I will remember that were just plain bad or too standard but also ones that I will have a positive memory of.

For the people who know the anime from 1998 this movie probably is a disappointment, but for people who don't, they get to see a well developing plot.

This was a very mediocre film that did almost nothing right. Nothing really worked well in this movie besides the decent gory action that was choreographed well. The plot was dull and the protagonist was hard to root for. Also the movie was very ugly and it made it hard to watch. Even Samuel Jackson couldn't save this dumpster fire and you can tell the budget mainly went to hiring him. The acting and dialogue were also very poor. It's also hard to believe this was based on a Anime and you could tell they butchered the story and left so much out that fans wouldn't recognize it. Pass on this one.

7.25 of 10. 20-30 years ago this would have been a great film, bordering on academy award winning material. 15 years ago it would be great still but no longer close to being sci-fi.

Now, it's still entertaining and a quality film, just not worthy of being called science fiction. It's more of an alternate reality that seems more real and likely for Detroit than Robocop.

Regardless of its classification, it is manga/hentai-like minus the graphic nudity and sex. It does show that the stories behind those seemingly sex-only comics and cartoons can be made into quality films. What it also shows, however, is the need to update the technology embedded in the story if you don't want it to seem like a lost 1990s indie film.

The story is based on a Japanese manga/anime that I intend to see momentarily. Without seeing it, though, I can hardly compare it with the film, so my review is for the movie as a standalone.

The first feeling I got when I started watching the movie is that it must be a Luc Besson film. It felt the same way: international cast, a very young female killer and the dreary violence that is usually met in European films. I am still amazed that it is a US/Mexico production.

The acting was also particular. I wouldn't call it bad, just different. India Eisley is incredibly cute, but she is playing this kid killer who wants to avenge her parents. She is an addict for a drug that erases the memory, so she doesn't even remember the parents in the name of which she exacts revenge. She is not a perfect killing machine, instead she is always close to death and only luck and sometimes a mysterious boy are keeping her alive in several occasions.

The world is somewhat similar to the first Mad Max movie, only not a desert, but what is left after "the banks fell and the governments collapsed". Slightly more appropriate for the times than an post apocalyptic world or one caused by shortages of oil.

Overall I enjoyed watching it. The action scenes felt very real, and even if the girl had fighting skills, most of the time it was just about surviving or running away and she got her ass handed to her more than once. No fancy wire-fu, no huge explosions, no rain of bullets. The twist at the end was pretty obvious, I practically waited for it since the beginning of the film, and the boy's character was full with inconsistencies, yet these were not enough to make me regret watching.

Bottom line: the imperfections of the film, the way it is always slightly off recipe, made it worth watching. It is not a masterpiece, but certainly one of the (re)new wave of film making, where actors and directors are starting experimenting again and expressing artistic vision. More of this, please! And India... she's only 21, but she looks like jail bait. The contrast of her childish beauty to her character was another great asset of this movie.