Jiu Jitsu

From the dialogue to the fight choreography, I can't believe they make movies this bad these days, especially with what should be a pretty decent cast. Watch it for comedy value if you're bored enough.

A comet falls from space. In Burma, Jake Barnes is running from flying weapons from an unseen enemy. He falls off a cliff into the ocean. He is rescued by fishermen and brought to the western military but there is bad translation. He's suffering from amnesia. He is a part of a group of Jiu Jitsu fighters battling an alien creature for 2000 years with the fate of the world in the balance.

This is a sci-fi B-movie. The story feels like a high school writing assignment. There are a few real actors here. They are of varying qualities. They have Nicolas Cage. It's obvious that most of the expertise lies in the fight choreography. It's Tony Jaa and Frank Grillo and all the stuntmen they can fit. Oh year, they have a Predator slash Halloween costume bad guy and it's an alien. This is bad with good fights that get repetitive. It's bad but not so bad that it's good.

This movie is laughably bad in every way possible... end of review?

Eh. I'll say some more. I could tell it was poor filmmaking almost immediately. Bad everything (acting, dialogue, music, and cartoon cgi). The movie makes zero sense. There are a thousand dumb moments or things to make fun of.

But i figured, if it has good fighting, i could enjoy it. And i saw tony jaa in the opening credits so i thought we might get that.

What do i even say. The fight scenes were TERRIBLE. And it's very odd that it's not because of the usually suspects: quick cuts, shaky cam and close up shots. In most of the fights, none of that was present. And in many, there were extremely long takes with wide shots.

So why were they so bad? I'm not really sure. One of the best compliments i can say about fight scenes is that i could feel every hit, like with john wick and the accountant. This movie was the exact opposite, i couldn't feel the hits at all. And i don't know why.

Maybe it has to do with sound mixing. There was almost no noise with the hits, and sometimes the noise seemed off by a half second. Could also be that they didn't focus on the moment of the hit. I can't figure it out.

But what i do know is, the fight scenes gave me zero pleasure. Combine that with every other movie attribute being terrible and this is just a straight-garbage movie. Damn you nick cage!

... i wonder what movie of his i'll watch next (1 viewing, 5/7/2021)

For me this movie was like a train wreck, even though it's terrible you just can't look away! Watching this was an internal battle for me. The greatest fight sequence in this film will not be on the actual screen, but will be fought internally. Between your higher self wanting to stop wasting your own time, and your lower self wanting to laugh and see if it could possibly get any worse!

Nicholas Cage I love many of your films. But this, like quite a few of the unfortunate choices of movies you've been in, I have to ask, what were you thinking? I guess money is money? Lol, of course, it's easy for me to be making comments from the sidelines I suppose, so what do I know? But oof! This was so bad! But heck, it was fun to have a few drinks and make fun of this! So, I give it 5 stars for entertainment quality! Lol

With all the high caliber flicks Cage has been flooding the market with lately I was chomping at the bit for this one... and boy did it not disappoint. It was so bad even Zeus's butthole was shocked into submission. You deserve to get arm barred for this turd Nicolas... wow. Matter of fact you would get more enjoyment out of watching a stray dog drop a deuce than sit through this again...