So I just rented a movie. Guess what it was.
This movie is one of those...action types. Haha. I'm not sure what genre it is, but it belongs with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and stuff like that. This movie was not what I expected. And I don't mean that in a good way. But first, we gotta take a look at the details of the movie.
As you can see from the poster, it stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li. But they don't show up till later. The story goes like this. There is a prophecy that the staff of the Monkey King will be found by a "seeker" and the seeker will return the staff to the petrified remains of the Monkey King to bring him back to life. That's the prophecy in a nutshell. Meanwhile, in Boston, there's this nerdy kid who has a big interest in kung fu related material. However, he just appreciates it and cannot do any himself. He goes to the local pawn shop and finds a staff in the back room. To make a long part short, it somehow ends up in his control and he gets warped to China or something. Damn. Since he is stuck there, the only way he can return home is by returning the staff to the Monkey King.
Now on to editorials. First, let's start with the good things. No matter how many martial arts action movies I see, the fight scenes always entertain me. They're so ridiculously great. It also helps that Jackie Chan and Jet Li take part in a lot of fight scenes.
No joke. That's the only good part I liked. Luckily for me, the fight scenes take up about 40-50% of the movie. Now on to the problems. First of all, what's with the main character? I'm not trying to sound racist or anything...but he's white. It's so out of place. At first I thought I rented the wrong movie, or the discs got swtiched because it was so different from what I expected. Maybe that's what the director was going for: to be different from all other movies. But it just didn't do it for me. I couldn't see it. Another thing that really bothered me was the bad acting. Most of the diologue seems screwed up just because of this. Lastly, the storyline was pretty far fetched, even for a movie of this type.
But one thing could be changed to solve all these problems. Have the actual movie be in Chinese. If that was the case, several things might have changed, probably for the better. First of all, the main character would either have to magically, somehow know how to speak Chinese, or be replaced by a Chinese main character, or get rid of the main character and just shift the story around a bit more to fit the circumstances. Also, if the main character is gone or changed, the story wouldn't have anything to do with the US, and actually be all about fighting in ancient China. Which is what movies like this SHOULD be about. Most of the time. And since the main character is altered, the storyline would have probably been much better. Lastly, if the movie had been in Chinese, the acting would have been much smoother, and I know this for a fact. There were certain parts in the movie where Jackie's character and Jet's character would converse in Chinese. I couldn't sense any awkwardness in their voices. I'm used to Jackie speaking in English, because I have seen many movies where he does so. Other characters though, they sound really awkward and kinda fobby. If they were able to do the movie in Chinese, the acting problem would have been corrected instantly.
Overall, it's not really your basic Asian martial arts movie. It has a bit of a twist, and that can make or break it for you. It didn't do it for me, but everyone has their opinion. I would probably recommend this to casual movie watchers just looking for some brief entertainment. I don't think it would be much, but it's something. I would not recommend this to people who are hardcore fans of things like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. If you are, go watch Hero or House of Flying Daggers. Those are awesome.
Rating: 4.5/10
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