Invincible

This movie wasn't as good as it could have been. The potential was there, with a decent plot and a few good actors, but it was just not done well.

The idea of a group of different individuals putting their differences aside and coming together to achieve a common goal is not new, but it can be done well. Here it was not. I didn't watch the movie for the story, which was good as it was not real good. The whole "love will overcome all" is a good idea, but Os runs it into the ground to the point that he comes across as one of those fake happy lovely-dovey Mormon missionary types that makes most people nauseous.

Judging from the commercials and the packaging, I expected this to be more of a martial arts movie. Sadly, where most martial arts movies use the story to connect the fight scenes, this movie apparently forgot that it was a martial arts flick and concentrated on a really weak story at the expense of the fighting. One could count the number of fight scenes in this movie on the fingers of one hand and still have plenty of fingers left. The fights that it did have weren't all that great, either. The fighting relied a lot on wires, which is okay for a fairy-tale or a wuxia movie, but it just looked silly here. Also, it wasn't hard to tell that the actors trained just long enough to pull this movie's few fight scenes off. The actions weren't crisp or particularly fast, and they tried to hide all of this via flickering lighting, jerky camera shots and slow-motion. It was just not good from a martial arts perspective.

Unfortunately, most of this 90 minute snoozer is only worth fast-forwarding through, which I did for most of the last thirty minutes, and I'm kicking myself for not fast-forwarding earlier through the totally inane temptation scene. Fast-forwarding through a movie is something I almost never do, but I couldn't take it after an hour of drivel. This movie may have worked as a children's cartoon or some sort of kids live-action movie, but not as a movie aimed at a post-adolescent audience. Mel Gibson I can forgive for being involved in this silly movie, but Jet Li ought to know better. Hopefully he did it as a favor or lost a bet or something.

Bottom line - avoid this one.

OK, if you've got the chops to put "matrix-like action" on your movie poster then you either have a really incredible martial arts film or you have "Invincible". Now my college roommate and I got such a kick out of this movie, we did our best to put it into out monthly movie line-up just so we could make fun of it. Billy Zane is classic Billy Zane in this movie. He has the quality of making dialogue that is incredibly inane seem incredibly important. At no point during this movie was there anything that even remotely resembled "matrix-like action" and the actors who play the martial arts studs all look like Ralph Macchio could probably stuff them in a locker. Like most "martial arts" movies the plot is stodgy at best but this is hidden by the fact that the special effects were created by hamsters. If you are a fan of train wrecks and mine cave-ins, this is a movie for you.

This movie does not seem to be perfect because it requires to be set in more locations so this movie should be given 4 marks out of 10.

Okay, just one question to start off : what in gods name is going on on zane's head in the beginning of the movie? I'm thinking Mels cat died and they put it on zane's head to cut expenses. Thank God he shaved it for the rest of the film.

Luckily, that wasn't the worst thing about this film, although luck may have very little to do with this.

So, you walk into a video-store and see "executive produced by Mel Gibson and Jet Li". On first glance your thinking "COOL!". Then you start thinking. Why would a movie, executive produced ( which i believe is not proper english, but this is how it is printed on the box, so i could be daft) by two of the biggest stars in Hollywood produce a movie that goes straight into the video-store? No media-attention, no nothing?

But you forgive this little error, blaming the critics and take it anyway, because you loved lethal weapon en Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and believing a movie by these guys must be at least watchable. Not the mention the fact that the director Jeffrey Levy has a long standing record of doing episodes on some great shows ( Dark Angel, CSI, Roswell and Profiler and the list goes on ) which aren't all that bad. But i'll get back to that.

You stick it in your DVD or video and low and behold : you're thinking : "WTF is going on up in here?"

Granted the fight scenes are nicely done, although the slo-mo actions gets old after the fifth fight and you can actually see a little Jet-Li style stuffed in there ( dudes walking on walls and stuff). Maybe ol' Jet had a day off and gave the choreographer a few pointers.

Other then that, the scenario writer should have the first victim of Slate and his merry band of shadowmen, as should the wardrobe-person which should be have been tortured first so Versace won't turn in his grave.

The plot is a little shaky to, to say the least. In all, i found it quite like a very..very long BAD episode of The Immortal, with that long haired freak Lamas. I kinda expected him to turn up to whoop some demon ass somewhere in the middle of the film. But Zane seems to be filling his shoes nicely, giving the worst acting-performance since he pranced around in his ninny purple tights in The Phantom. Not that he's a bad actor, cause he's done some nice flicks. This just isn't one of them. TIP : when you're really trying to be funny : your not..

I'm gonna spare you my thoughts about the other actors, cause my post may be deleted for foul language. In short : the casting director should be shot as well. Well..slapped with a big trout in any case.

Getting back to Levy, it felt like an above average tv-pilot episode, not surprisingly since Levy got most of his directing experience with doing tv-shows. Maybe he should stick with it.

So we get to the bottom line. Obviously Gibson and Li had little to do with this movie and their name got stuck on the box because the studio gave them money for it, it is NOT the best Martial-Arts Action Movie Ever like the box claims it to be, Billy should pick his projects better, Levy should stick with Dark Angel and all the other staff should get jobs at Mickey D's.

On second thought, maybe Zane's haircut in the beginning of this film was the best bit..

The critics were right. This movie should be in the videostore. In the back. Alongside The Phantom. Sorry, billy.

I love critics.

NEXT!!

This charming telemovie (co-pro'ed by Mel Gibson & Jet Li!) features all the stereotypical trappings of a "Good v. Evil" movie, replete with characters you know virtually nothing about, Eastern philosophy & mysticism, & a healthy dose of (admittedly stunning) martial artistry & SPFX, yet for some reason, it works in spite of itself.

That reason is BILLY ZANE.

Zane portrays "Os", a "Shadowman" who renounces his Immortal life of Darkness & Evil when he is shown The Way. He gathers together the four Chosen Ones (there WERE five, but Os killed the fifth immediately before his redemption), all rough-n-tough misfits in one way or another, to train them to battle the evil "Slate", Os' former Shadowman boss & running buddy. Slate's desire is to gain possession of an ancient tablet, which will allow him to (dare I say it?) rule the world!! The main point of conflict comes in when the two former friends must face-off against one another in mortal combat.

As I stated earlier, despite the fact that this film is filled with cliches & either over-the-top or forced performances, Zane's gentle portrayal of Os somehow makes everything gel rather nicely, holding any absurdities together like a well-woven garment. I honestly don't think this guy's capable of turning in a bad performance, regardless of the material he's given.

Not necessarily a "must-see" movie, but an entertaining popcorn-muncher for a cold night in.