dt10111

One has to wonder what the point of making a movie based on a nearly twenty year old video game is, especially in light of the fact that this movie doesn't seem to have anything to do with the video game excepting the names of a few characters. Is this a video game franchise that even has any real fans anymore?

I'm old enough to remember spending time playing Street Fighter and the various sequels at the local arcade, playing in tournaments, etc. There wasn't any plot in these games, just stylish characters and a fight tournament. Perhaps a dull premise that has been done, but it seems if the cartoonish style were translated into a campy action film, it could have been somewhat entertaining.

Instead, we have a movie with a serious yet dull plot, horrible overacting, no real mythology, embarrassingly inappropriate music, visible boom mics, bad makeup and a terrible script. Even the fight scenes and choreography are bad, making this movie pointless and unwatchable. Really, there isn't anything very good to say about this movie and I really wonder what inspires someone to make a film like this. This is definitely not recommended.

I write this review as a guy that was a kid during the Star Wars hype in the late 70's and early 80's. I can quote all of the Star Wars movies and understood all of the references to them in Fanboys. The bottom line is that, while this movie has some fun moments, overall it is pretty boring. This is largely because the humor isn't inventive, and outside of some cameo appearances, the performances are entirely uninspired.

The main approach to humor here is essentially showing a group of awkward nerds injecting uncomfortable displays of Star Wars fandom into nearly any social situation imaginable. This bit has been achieved to greater effect with many other movies in the past, the only new thing in this movie is the All Star Wars, All The Time bit. Sure, they got in a lot of obscure original trilogy references, but citing pop culture for its own sake is only so funny. Note the miserable failure of movies like Epic Movie. You just require more than these references.

The various plot points are completely uninspired and unoriginal. We've seen the awkward internet girlfriend meet-up before, but it was funnier in Napoleon Dynamite. We've seen the nerd that is too dense to notice the girl right in front of him, but is blowing it, but it was funnier in Sex Drive. And not only are all these plot conventions unoriginal, but they are executed so poorly in this movie, they hard seemed worth including in the script.

The best parts of the movie are some of the clever cameos. William Shatner steals the stage with his 2 minutes of screen time, though the funniest moment in the whole movie is a super brief appearance of Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes (and the punch line had nothing to do with Star Wars, incidentally). A notable appearance by Seth Rogen is also amusing, mostly because he gives his little cameo everything he has, and seems to have a lot of fun with it. But the cameo appearances aren't frequent enough to float the movie and leaves a lot of dry periods where the film simply crawls.

And perhaps another small grievance is that the only nerd girl in the movie happens to be super hot, while all the guys are doofs. Why couldn't the nerd girl be a doof too? What do they really achieve making this super hot girl fall for Poindexter just because he's a nerd? It just seems like an awkward casting decision in the middle of a movie full of awkward direction choices.

I guess if you identify with Star Wars nerds, you will at least enjoy parts of this movie. If you just want to see an awkward comedy about nerds making fools of themselves, you can do a whole lot better than this.

I cannot claim to be any sort of serious historian when it comes to Yip Man's life, but all evidence leads me to believe the story of his life in the new biopic from China, "Ip Man", is largely fabricated or romanticized. Never the less, the end result is an entertaining film with some serious Wing Chun fight scenes, a martial art that gets far too little screen time considering the copious amount of martial arts films that are produced. This is significant to me, since I study Wing Chun in a lineage that comes directly from Yip Man.

This film is sort of in the style of biopic similar to Jet Li's "Fearless", a movie about a Chinese folk hero, Huo Yuanjia. I think it is more important for a film like this to be entertaining than it is for it to be historically accurate, and "Ip Man" does succeed in this regard. My main point of criticism, particularly in regards to "Ip Man", is how events are twisted in a way to rally national pride in China. It always reminds me of a sort of Mel Gibson type of thing to do, and puts me off a little. "Ip Man" is not as obnoxious in this regard as Zhang Yimou's "Hero" or "Curse of the Golden Flower", however. Those movies seem to have a message of obedience. You know, "Trust your ruler even though they do terrible things to you sometimes. In the end, they know what's best for you". In the case of "Ip Man", the title character is plunged into the middle of the Japanese-Chinese conflicts of World war II, probably playing a much larger roll than he did in real life, and they show him as a sort of folk hero along the lines of Huo Yuanjie or Wong Fei Hong.

Never the less, the film flows well. All of these elements make enough dramatic tension between the excellent combat sequences to keep the movie engaging. Some of the plot twists are extremely predictable, which doesn't interfere too much. This is a martial arts movie, after all. There is probably a bit too much dramatic tension, particularly towards the end of the film, with epic music pushing the mood of the movie, along with various camera effects. Besides, turning Yip Man into a legendary folk hero does make for an interesting dramatic character.

I couldn't complain about Donnie Yen's overall performance. His acting job was good enough to be convincing. His martial arts performance was visually striking. The choreographer, who I understand to be Sammo Hung, did a great job making Yip Man seem like an untouchable bad ass. In a lot of recent movies, particularly Jet Li films, a lot of the martial arts sequences show big, long, epic combat scenes where the hero narrowly overcomes and triumphs. In this movie, Donnie Yen gets to simply brutalize his opponents. I mean, he seriously comes out with the chain punches. This is not done without being poignant, but they definitely make a point of showing Yip Man as being somewhat untouchable and peerless. It seemed more Clint Eastwood than Jet Li, which I totally dig.

My other concern was whether this would be a sort of "Brucesploitation" film, since among Yip Man's other notable accomplishments, he was the teacher of Bruce Lee. It would seem natural to want to capitalize on this given Lee's popularity. Fortunately, there wasn't too much "Brucesploitation" going on, but it did seem there was a bit. There is one combat scene where Yip Man is facing off ten Japanese karate guys. The sequences are filmed in a very strikingly similar way to a famous scene in "Fist Of Fury", where Lee dispatches a whole dojo of Japanese karate students after they dishonored Lee's kung fu school. There is also a combat sequence in a factory that is strikingly similar to a scene in "The Big Boss" where Lee fights in an ice factory, protecting the workers. However, my guess is that these are nods of respect or tribute rather than exploitation, so seem harmless. There was some mention in the end titles of Lee, but the copy I watched did not have that translated, so I am not sure what was even mentioned.

All that said, if you enjoy martial arts movies, this is definitely a good film. I have my share of complaints, particularly in the department of historical accuracy. However, the overall production is top notch, and the martial arts performances are a nice change of pace. I'd recommend giving it a look if you are any sort of fan of martial arts movies.