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!!
