Kite

Seeing a 4.3 rating on IMDb, I did expect that something must be wrong with Kite, but found it to be an overall good movie.

Story, Acting, Camera and Setting are without major flaws, and within the genre the story is quite believable and has no obvious holes.

The ending even holds some surprises, and there are a number of memorable scenes.

So why the low rating? My theory is that there are a number of factors:

• The mainstream audience may have a problem with the soundtrack which can be annoying if are not at least a little into dubstep (I found it a prefect fit for this movie)

• To purists the characters may be not cool enough; they are too vulnerable, too human and fail too often be bad-ass uberheroes

• The mainstream may find the setting too dark, while purist may not like the brightening elements in the story

It might have been a masterpiece if the film makers would not have tried to please the mainstream. It almost seems as if there was a struggle between those forces who wanted to appeal to a wide audience and those who wanted to go to the extreme. The mixed result seems to keep many people unsatisfied, although I regard it as well above average.

I can recommend to watch it and make up your own mind. I believe that "Kite" will be more appreciated over time and find its audience.

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.

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.

As the saying goes, not many surprises to be found here, but still a somewhat decent low budget effort. Formula is well known and with an added gravitas such as Samuel L. Jackson, you give the movie some weight (it's not like he can help all the flaws this has, but he's always mesmerizing to watch).

The other actors are mixed bunch. The action (choreography) though is pretty good. Always taking into account what movie that is. There is also a lot of blood and drug use fyi, though I'm sure you can read that in the rating explanation too. There are not many shades of gray character wise, you do get them in color scheme of the picture though. For some it might be a bit too dark of course.

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.