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Jet Lag: 2 Reviews Of "The One"
These last few years have been good for lovers of martial arts movies, until recently a fringe cinematic genre, and for a new generation of stars like Jet Li. But The One (even the title is a ripoff from The Matrix) will bore even die-hard teen lovers of the form. It's slow, dull and humorless. Maybe it's time for this era to end. Jackie Chan does it a lot better, and with a lot more personality. John Wayne did the square-jaw resolute look a lot better. Li just looks ticked off all the time.
In this movie, the exotic and surprising spirituality of The Matrix is reduced to much incomprehensible gibberish about parallel universes --- the "multiverse" and the efforts of parallel figures -- in this case the two Jet Li's -- to seize control of all the different dimensions and become God of us all. Even the good Jet Li, who plays an LA County Sheriff and family man who is just doing his job and hanging around with his muscle-head buddies, and wants no part of this multi-universe politicking, doesn't exactly exude warmth. The bad Jet Li -- a monster from the parallel dimensions who transports himself through dimensions killing off competitors and look-alikes and agents from Galactic Central -- just glowers a bit more. Watching these Jet Li's square off in a noisy environment of Delta-force clad LAPD officers blasting away in their dark suits and racing unsuccessfully back and forth, traveling via Star Trek-ish time transporters, it's not only impossible to tell the good and bad guy apart at times, but pretty soon, you won't even care.
There are some nice special effects in this movie, and a super sound track that runs from jazz to hip hop to rock and rap, but there is absolutely no plot at all, and 90 percent of the battle scenes seem to take place in parking garages and sewers. They aren't nearly good enough to overcome this Jet Lag. I suppose this is all meant to be dark, but the primary impressions are just "low-budget" and "dull."
Review #2 from the second victim: chrisd
I really like Jet Li and I like science fiction, so *poof* -- a SF movie with Jet Li? A sure winner, right? Well, no. Now, I should point out that I don't expect Fellini from a Jet Li movie. I don't expect good writing, acting, casting, costumes, or even dialogue. I do expect a few things from a good fight movie, mostly good fighting, handy camera work and good lighting, and in an SF movie decent effects.
Unfortunately, "The One" disappoints. If you've seen the trailer or commercial (my way of saying spoiler warning ), there are some very cool things going on here: Jet Li kicking Jet Li's ass, Jet Li whapping people with Harleys, Jet Li flying through the air, walking the walls, jumping tenements in a single bound ... There is a lot of cool stuff going on. I assure you that must be the case, the problem is, they didn't do a good job of letting us see much of it. I don't know what specifically was wrong with the camera or editing work, but it just made you want to crane your head around to see what might actually be happening. Camerawork was one of the great things about "The Matrix." You could see and appreciate what was happening.
As Jon noted, the plot isn't really worth talking about, as there isn't much of one, and ieven that is very familiar. It's lsomething ike this: There are a bunch of universes, see, and so the bad Jet Li has traveled through 123 of the 125 universes killing the other versions of himself, becoming more powerful with every kill. As the parallel Jet Lis are killed, the Jet Lis who survive get more powerful, as the total Jet Liness is spread around into fewer Jet Lis. And so bad Jet Li, now very powerful, must kill good Jet Li (in our universe) to gain ultimate power. (Something Jamie calls the Law of Conservation of Jetliosity) Sound familiar? It should. It has been the plot of a number of science fiction franchises. In a scene near the end Jet Li even says "There can only be one of us."
But really, who cares about the story? This is a fight movie, after all. It should be judged accordingly. Can you picture watching a Jackie Chan movie and saying "gosh, this is really nothing like Sense and Sensibility"? Of course you wouldn't.
But you would want to see Jackie flipping ladders around while downing tequila shots and beating up neo-nazis. And Jackie delivers partly because you can see what he is doing. Jet Li is there, he's working, but the camera work stinks so you can't appreciate what he or his pals in Special Effects are doing. It's too bad -- "The one" could have been a lot more dumb, silly fun.
In short, if you really like Jet Li, go see it, but try to sneak in. One thing you can say about it is that it doesn't suck as much as "Romeo Must Die" did. (which isn't saying much, I know) and the effects when you can see them are kind of fun.
Who *really* sees Jet Li / Jackie Chan / etc movies with any intention of good screen writing, a plot, or any sense of meaning? just enjoy the gags and the moves. if you're poor buy it 3 years later from walmart or steal it or something.
I see every jet li flick I can, even if I know it's going to "suck", because the man is amazing. then again I guess I have low standards, since I don't even pretend to care about the existence of a plot line. bah.
EOM
How old are you, 15? So if a movie is really not worth paying for, but you want to see it, someone should sneak in? This just reinforces the view that open-source types want everything without paying for it.
Do you feel this way about shoplifting too?
Please cut this crap out..
I now know that Katz lives in some alternate dimension unto his own
So do you. All of us do. You don't really expect everybody to just accept YOUR opinion about things as the only valid one, do you? Then what's your point? Katz and other people saw something in the Matrix. You saw something else. That's how art works. Deal with it.
It's really a shame that Jet Li has gone hollywood.
The chinese movies he has made are all, with few exceptions, excellent. The fighting is astonishing and Jet Li is truly one of the absolute best martial arts actors out there. Just watch Fist of Legend and you'll see. That movie made me into a Jet Li-fan, and the choreographer is the same who did choreography for The Matrix.
But the hollywood effect on Jet Li's movies is terrible. Firstly because Jet Li is taken out of his habitat; he only speaks little English, let him speak Chinese in the movies damnit. Secondly because the fighting scenes are created into some strange blur, and it's freakin' impossible to see anything! Jet Li is incredible, but the fighting scenes are made into some camera-frenzy. If you watch Fist of Legend there are lengthy fighting scenes that are so good you want to see them over and over again, provided you are a kung fu-fan of course, and it's actually possible to appreciate their skills.
The camera effects were necessary on actors in The Matrix, since they need them. Jet Li does not.
One of the main issures that nagged me while watching The One:
/end nitpick
Jet Li's power increases because he kills the Jet Lis from other dimensions. Eventually there will be only one Jet Li left and he is supposed to have god-like power. But why is this so special? Unless all the copies of a person in all the dufferent universes simultaneously die, there will be exactly one copy at some point. Natural\accidental\other types of death will pick off the copies one by one. So, there should be god-like people popping up all over the place.
Oh Jon, Jonny Jonboy, stop trying to impress people with your over-analysis and mis-facts. "The One" is a quick & dirty Jet Li movie, and like all Jet Li movies, it's all about less plot and more action, of which there is plenty in this flick. Slow-motion scenes, wall-jumping and anti-gravity stunts are Jet Li's trademark. That's how it was in Black Mask & Romeo Must Die, The One is no different. He still kicks ass and he still looks like a kung fu heroin addict, and that just happens to look pretty darned cool on a big screen.
Give it a break.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
The Matrix plot, such as it was, was a paper-thin claptrap to frame the fusion of high technology and chop-socky, and chop socky still has better fight scenes. I honestly don't know why people like the Matrix so much. It was a bad, bad movie with some okay fight scenes.
The problem with movies today is that every great plot has been done already. Shakespeare pretty much used them all up about 400 years ago. And even his pieces were just rehashes of older stories. As far as basic underlying plot lines go (everything else is just details, after all) there is no plot that hasn't been done before. Any plot you summarize in one sentence will sound familiar, because it has been done already, again and again and again.
But the beauty of the Matrix lies in the details. Matrix is a work of cinematographic beauty; not only is the camera work amazing, but the way the special effects blend with the real footage. A lot of people I've talked to (film professors, movie buffs, Joe Sixpacks) agree that if we could do these things in the real world, this is how it would look. The way things were visually concieved for The Matrix made it beautiful.
What The Matrix did, really, was show us the same old story in such a way as to fool us into thinking we hadn't seen it before. It took something old and tired and made it look good again. The fight choreography was perfect, the cinematography was superb, and the special effects were on a level we've never seen before.
Admittedly, Katz is milking The Matrix for all its worth, but it really was a valuable movie. Of course, that's just my opinion.
~Forager
student of animation and the fine arts
Heh... with most hollywood production, plot discussing IS the spoilage, everybody knows the endings are either predictable (80%) or scrap the entire movie (K-pax) (15%) in some rare cases you have a good ending that doesn't make you feel raped off your 9$ entrance fee (well here in canada anyways :) ).
:) , I'd be so freakin PLEASED to pay more just to filter out the garbage and not was my time and gas for that matter.
Example of a good balance of storyline, action, effects and ending for Sci-fi movies: Terminator II. You can have an hollywood ending without spoiling the entire movie, I almost cried when I saw him going down... I don't recall any movies that got my full attention and even got me right into it to the point that I was all messed up when I got out, not THAT'S entertaining, that's worth the price ticket, that's worth not being copied and BOUGHT on DVD, that I can have all respect from the MPAA or any other organisation behind it trying to protect their trademark and all.
Maybe if hollywood would start pumping more good productions like these (T2, 2001, heck, remember ET when you were a kid?, etc), people wouldn't download them off the internet and actually go see them in a big theatre with super dooper sound and popcorn, that would be worth it. Watching that on a monitor, or 25 inch tv would spoil most of it... Face it, it's far from being every pirate that owns a projection system or a 60" TV to enjoy a movie almost like if he was in a theatre. So maybe by making quality stuff and not taking their customers (audience) for complete retards, they would bring in more people.
My reasonning works when we look at almost every classics. Anything that is unbalanced, sucks or flop. (battlefield earth is a nice example of unbalanced).
Ask yourself what were the biggest success in the last 25 years... aside from tron that flopped because the people weren't ready for that kind of stuff, they all had something in common: Amazing or simple but good storyline, Excellent effects, good acting, good ambiance, all of this balanced.
I'd pay 20$ per movie if I was sure that I wouldn't be pissed or left on my appetite at the end, of course it's a matter of taste also, that being noted, there's also a baseline if you don't like scifi movies, you don't want to go see one just to get pissed afterwards
I'm sure I am not the only one.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Fuck that. I'm sick of people saying everything that can be done has been done, and trying to make themselves seem like intellectuals in the process.
I'm not sure how many plays Shakespeare wrote, but I'll be safe and say it's less than a thousand. And you're saying all the stories than can possibly be told were used up telling them? Bullshit. By that logic by the time you're a little over 2 1/2 years old (1000 days) you've probably seen everything that's going to happen in your life.
If you say that there's a finite amount of story lines, list them, damn it! You can't make a grand claim like that and not back it up. Saying "Any plot you summarize in one sentence will sound familiar, because it has been done already, again and again and again" is stupid, because compressing anything to one sentence robs it of its nuances and trivializes it. Observe: "WWII was a war in which we dropped an atomic bomb (two, actually) and won the war; also: many people died."
Perhaps every story that can be told in 100 words has been told, but that doesn't mean the rest of human creation is redundant.
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