Brick Mansions

"Banlieue 13" was one of the best surprises I had in 2004. This movie is pure adrenaline; actually one of the best action movies that I have recently seen. The greatest attractions are the performances of David Belle and Cyril Raffaelli. David Belle is co-inventor of the sport known as Parkour, "which consists of moving freely in a natural area, including climbing on buildings and taking on whatever is in the way". Cyril Raffaelli is also stunt coordinator and stunt. Together, they are awesome, with amazing choreography that recalls Jackie Chan when he was young. The direction and the story are also good, hooking the attention until the very last scene.

"Brick Mansions" is a bad remake or "copy-paste" and a poor legacy of Paul Walker's filmography. He did not deserve this turkey as his last (and least) movie. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "13° Distrito" ("13th District")

I like the good cinematography, even the opening credits alone already made me liked it. David Belle is still very cool with his spins, back-flips, jumps and other stunts. It has been 10 years but I don't see any degradation of his parkour skills.

Paul Walker did good as Belle's partner-in-crime, even though he can't do parkour, he still kicked-ass. Catalina Dennis who plays Belle's girlfriend is consistent with her character, a tough girl who doesn't stand still with unfair treatments. The lousy one is RZA who plays the drug lord Tremain. Well, in my opinion he can't act, his face expression just doesn't make it.

For those who like parkour but haven't watched Banlieue 13, this might as well be in your watchlist. It's still okay even if you have watched Banlieue 13 (like me), because it was in French and it felt quite weird, even with subtitles.

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.

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.

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.