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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.
I hear that. I was in Vegas once, and my buddies and I stopped at a gun range. Me, being the wuss of the group, got a
Oh right, the topic of the thread..
I saw The One on Friday night, and I thought it was a really neat concept, just poorly executed. Did the numbers on all the gauges really need to be in that wierd pseudo-Kanji font?
The thing that really rubbed me the wrong way was the amount of violence in the film. Yeah, it was an action movie, and starring Jet Li nonetheless. But most of the fight scenes were brutal, rather than well-choreographed. And almost all the violence was directed at cops.
The Highlander ripoff dialogue at the end made me cringe. And that white multiverse agent was probably the worst actor I've ever seen outside Will Shatner.