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Dystopian Detroit. Criminal exploits. No name thugs. Guns and drugs. These are probably words, phrases, and tags seen before in other movies, and apt descriptors of Brick Mansions. The movie is a remake of 2004′s french title District B13 and stars the late Paul Walker as police officer Damien Collier. For about a year, Damien has been undercover looking to take down Tremaine (RZA), a kingpin who also killed Damien's father while he was in the line of duty.

Tremaine and crew reside in Brick Mansions, a place so dangerous they built a wall around it to protect the rest of the city. Brick Mansions, once a place of great prosperity, is now a hellhole no man or woman should venture into.

To take down Tremaine though, Damien will need help. Lino Dupree is an in and out con who isn't really a bad guy, but more of a victim of circumstance. As a resident, he knows Brick Mansions like the back of his hand. For Lino, it becomes personal when his girlfriend is taken hostage by Tremaine. To save Detroit and exact revenge, the reluctant duo must come together for a common cause.

Brick Mansions is not going to blow anyone away, which should not be appalling looking at the trailers. It really does possess a straight to home media vibe, from the cast to the direction. But you know what? I did not think it was completely terrible and dare I say I was still kind of entertained, all because I knew what I was getting into. In no way does this absolve the film's problems, and it was not worth 11 dollars, but I have felt much worse spending my hard earned cash on other cinema films.

Let's get right down to the acting, specifically Paul Walker's in his last full role. It is not controversial to call Mr. Walker an average actor, and many of the roles and movies he starred in were never that acclaimed. He knew his limitations, and there is no fault in that. One thing he often had in most roles though was screen presence and silent charisma, which is evident here. It may sound politically correct, but he really is the best thing about Brick Mansions. Likable, endearing, and just a good guy to pull for.

As for the rest of the acting, it is downright abysmal. Maybe a quarter of this is due to the dreadful dialogue, which falls into the typical hard sounding thug talk that is supposed to be realistic and fear- invoking, but comes off as dated and hilarious. David Belle, one of the founders of Parkour, brings amazing physical feats to the silver screen, but his acting chops are nonexistent. To add insult to injury, he clearly struggles with the English language which ends up resulting in horribly dubbed dialogue.

Still, he is not the worst actor in this movie. That title indisputably belongs to RZA. His Tremaine is supposed to be menacing and unflinching, but time and time again he brings the same facial expression to the character, and the dialogue delivered by him may be the worst heard all year. He has no thespian talent, plain and simple, and it is time that Hollywood stop giving this man so many chances. Honestly, there are worse actors present, especially RZA's main henchman who is just as offensive, but none have the billing that RZA does in this.

The plot itself is nothing to write home about, and is somewhat absurd and slightly predictable. Just take it for what it is. There are times late when the movie makes thinly veiled allusions to present day Detroit and the Occupy Wall Street movement, but it basically is a popcorn movie existing to showcase guns, stunts, and fisticuffs. The only big issue had is that everything wraps up too nicely given that the movie was a full on war moments before. As a whole, it is nothing that hasn't been done or seen previously (and better at that), but at least it only last 90 minutes.

There really are some well done set pieces from time to time. Parkour may be a passing fad now, but when done right, it is still a treat to witness, and David Belle moves effortlessly between chasms and rooftops seamlessly. Paul Walker provides more hand to hand and firearm combat, and he looks right at home in this element. Problem is, director Camille Delamarre (Taken 2, Transporter 3, Columbiana) uses terrible framing and janky editing during a lot of these scenes. It is quite sad, as Belle and Walker are clearly doing some good things. For some asinine reason though, this man insists that wobbly framing, needless zooms and archaic Matrix-like slow motion is needed. Not all looked bad, but a more consistent steady hand could have worked wonders.

Brick Mansions is unimpressive, but crazy to say, also enjoyable. Heavily flawed, but entertaining (in a bad way half of the time) and fast paced enough to check out through rental or Netflix. Non action fans should avoid at all costs. With tempered expectations though, Walker fans and action fans may find enough here for mild satisfaction. A perfect film to throw on in the background and not think too much.

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This film tells the story of a undercover police who infiltrates the most feared criminal world of the city, called Brick Mansions.

Right from the start, the stylish action scenes keep me engrossed. All the seemingly impossible, and almost acrobatic jumps are very impressive. They are quite unbelievable but in a good way, as it astonishes rather than making my eyes roll in disbelief. The plot is great, and there is even an unexpected plot twist which adds to the thrill and urgency to the race to save the city from mass destruction. The late Paul Walker did very well as a dedicated policeman who had his eyes on revenge. I enjoyed this film thoroughly, and I'm entertained throughout.

Considering I had never heard of this film until about a month before it's release and had low expectations for the movie initially, This movie did surprisingly provide a good hour and a half of B - movie entertainment.I hadn't seen the original film either, So I didn't have any biases to compare it to something else. Now seeing the trailer for district B13, it looks awesome and I'll definitely watch it and than compare the two films. "Brick Mansions" may not have had the best acting or original plot/characters , but it does provide on some inventive and cool action sequences. Parkour, martial arts, fights and eye candy for the guys to look at make the movie a watchable popcorn flick. The stunts and action sequences, especially with David Belle is what stood out and made a fun movie. Only one thing would have made the movie better and that was if it had been rated R. A little more blood and gore shown would have definitely made it a more high impact action flick. Overall, If your looking for a simple and not so demanding action film for a quick 90 mins, I'd recommend it. Take it for what it is and keep your expectations appropriate for a movie like this.

6/10

This English-language remake of the excellent DISTRICT 13 was once again made by the French, albeit shot in Canada this time around. It's pretty much a scene-for-scene remake of the original, although inevitably not as good for reasons which we shall come to. It's only as the running time goes on that crucial differences to the original come to light and unfortunately they're not improvements.

First, let's get the good stuff listed. This is a short, snappy, action thriller, with plenty of shoot-outs and fight scenes to recommend it. The framing is often good and there's a fine sense of setting in the grubby, run-down locations. One of the highlights is the return of David Belle, playing the same character as he did in the original; it's just an annoyance that they decided to dub him rather than have him use his French accented English.

Paul Walker is an odd but obvious choice for Cyril Raffaelli's character in the original, but he's no martial artist so the martial arts fights have been replaced by fist fights and a greater emphasis on car chases. Catalina Denis and Ayisha Issa are the requisite scantily-clad women who hang around to show off their bodies and little more is required of them than that.

The problems are slight at first but begin to mount up as the narrative progresses. First off, the editing is horrendous. The early Parkour scenes are ruined by the refusal to shoot the stunts in single, fluid takes; there's always a dodgy edit halfway through, cutting to a different angle and lessening the impact. Sometimes one of Belle's jumps has three or four edits in it which ruins the whole flow of the thing. BRICK MANSIONS does a lot right, but it gets this crucial editing oh so wrong. I remember in the old days of Jackie Chan's 1980s movies that they sometimes wanted to capture a stunt from different angles, so they would just replay it, which was a much better way of doing it.

The second problem is RZA, playing the drug dealer villain of the piece. RZA is one of those guys who really loves himself and the film-makers seem to love him too, so there's an unbelievable twist at the end which has to be seen to be believed. The ending is frankly laughable in this respect, and a far cry from the power of the original movie. It's the epitome of sanitised, PG-13 entertainment, and I could cry. At least the rest of the film is in the right spirit, so it's only the ending where it falls apart.

In case you are wondering, I did see several years ago the French movie "District B13", which is the original movie that lead to this remake. However, I have completely forgotten what it was like - though that fact does make it easier to judge this remake on its own terms instead of comparing it to the original. Despite this perspective, the movie just didn't do it for me. There is a strong whiff of the movie "Escape From New York" here, as well as to a lesser extent "Robocop" and other Hollywood movies, so there isn't a feeling of originality here. The script also suffers from the fact that neither the protagonists or antagonists are that compelling or particularly fleshed out. I know, I know - the script really doesn't matter in a movie like this. What matters is the action and other kinds of eye candy. Well, the movie doesn't do that well on those angles as well. The action (which is so-so at its best) is rapidly edited to try to hide the fact the actors can't pull off multiple moves in the same shot, and obvious stuntmen are used for the few trickier moments. And while the movie was a co-production between two countries (France and Canada), the movie often has a cheap look and feel to it. It's obvious why this movie did unspectacular business at the box office, though why the late Paul Walker apparently saw promise in this project is a question we may never learn the answer to.