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As if to make up for last month's lack of bad martial arts movies, this month I got stuck watching THREE. We really need to keep our Netflix queue a little more mixed up, I think.
First up, we have Cradle 2 The Grave. Now, I knew this movie was going to be bad. I'd had a couple of friends tell me that it was bad. But I watched it anyway. After all, I figured, if it had Jet Li in it, how bad could it be? The recent awesomeness of Unleashed apparently caused me to forget all about the badness of such movies as Black Mask and any Jet Li movie co-starring a little kid.
Right off the bat, Cradle alienated me by having loud rap music playing over the opening scenes. I try not to listen to rap lyrics, but I heard a lot of words that I don't like to use being repeated constantly in these songs. Thankfully, the soundtrack is pretty low-key for the rest of the movie, to the point that I can't remember it at all.
Cradle had two big problems. The first was that they felt the need for a "twist" and they fulfilled that need poorly. Note to Hollywood: we don't go to action movies for unique plots. We go to action movies to see people kick the crap out of each other. Cradle starts out with a diamond heist, and throughout the movie everyone is after these black diamonds, which look more like faceted black glass to me (and not even something cool, like vintage Jet, which would fit for this movie). Anyone with even half a brain will know that these diamonds are something other than gems. But when you find out what they really are, the answer is so ridiculous and scientifically impossible that it ruins the rest of the movie.
The other big problem is that this movie co-stars DMX. No, I have nothing against DMX, I think he did a fine job of acting in this movie (although Gabrielle Union as his friend/partner/love interest is a terrible actress and was probably only hired for her admittedly shapely figure and willingness to strip down to her panties for one scene). But the problem is, you'll be watching Jet Li do his usual impressive casually kicking the crap out of people, and then you'll cut to DMX (or one of his buddies) fighting someone else. I did not rent this movie to watch musicians or actors fight. I rented this movie to watch Jet Li fight, and anyone else is a poor substitute.
There were many other small problems, such as the fact that the villain was totally outclassed by Jet Li, making the final fight kind of anti-climactic (on the other hand, it takes place in the middle of a ring of burning helicopter fuel... mmmm.... fire), the attempts at humor weren't that funny, there was no real attempt at developing characters, especially Jet Li's (apparently the fact that he is an Asian cop who kicks butt is all we need to know about him), etc etc. Oh, and the use of the number 2 instead of the word 'to' in the title. I hate that.
On the other hand, Cradle does do a couple of things right. DMX's character doesn't believe in using guns (and apparently neither does Jet Li's, though he never says as much), so the action here is firmly settled into martial arts like it should be. Also, in the middle of the movie we get the traditional "hero vs. lots of opponents" fight scene, mixed with the "underground fight club" fight scene, resulting in Jet Li in a cage match with like 8 wrestlers and boxers. Honestly, if you get the DVD, you should just skip to this scene, watch it, then watch the awesome feature on the making of the scene, where they interview Jet Li, a few of the other fighters, the action choreographer, and more. The entire movie itself isn't worth watching.
Neither was Another Meltdown, for that matter. I don't know why we rented this movie. The only person I recognized in it is Qi Shu, who usually plays annoying, squeaky-voiced girlfriend characters. Her role here was not any sort of stretch. Looking at the cast list, I don't even know who else was who, as the names in the subtitles are totally different than the names listed on IMDB.
Ah yes, the subtitles. Because my husband is learning Mandarin, and recently convinced me to join him (and because most dubs suck, especially on minor martial arts movies like this), we watch all of our martial arts movies in Mandarin with English subtitles, when given the option. Unfortunately, the action in this movie takes place in a fictitious European country, where they apparently speak English. Many characters in this movie are seen speaking English. Atrocious English. Atrocious English which doesn't match up with the equally atrocious English subtitles. Oh, and the English is dubbed in. By totally different voice actors. Who sound nothing like what you would expect from the person talking, even if you hadn't heard them using a totally different voice to speak Mandarian. Oy. This was also one of those movies where they add extra dialog in the subtitles - characters will be standing there silently, while subtitles have them saying something of little consequence.
But wait, it gets worse! The main villain here is some Japanese terrorist leader with a Messiah complex. Well, I guess he shares the main villain honors with some corrupt government official in the fictional European country, but he's the villain who actually gets to fight. Oh yes, and the two main characters are two buddy cops, one who kicks butt and one who provides so-called comic relief. And then there's the squeaky-voiced girlfriend who exists only to get kidnapped. Remember the most important rule of martial arts movies: ALL Chinese people know martial arts, except for squeaky voiced girlfriends, because if the darn bimbos could actually defend themselves, who could the villains kidnap?
I'm not even going to bother with a plot synopsis; we'll skip straight to the final fight scene. This takes place in some building - was it an embassy? I forget already? - with lots of nice pieces of art that of course get shot, kicked, and otherwise destroyed. Ah yes, because the two battling groups are cops and terrorists, there are far too many guns used in this movie. People shooting each other is not nearly as interesting as people kicking the crap out of each other.
Of course, when you get right down to it, the martial arts here suck. It's not that any of the combatants seem particularly bad at what they're doing. The blame here lies entirely on poor choreography and crappy wire-work. At one point, it's as if the script said "The bad guy is beating the crap out of the good guy, but suddenly the good guy makes a comeback!" That's the only excuse I could find for the fact that the bad guy is pummeling the good guy in the chest repeatedly, when suddenly the good guy hits him with some flying kick to the head. How did he get room to do that?
Another time during this same fight, the two characters are fighting on the stairs and it's as if they said "hey, it'd be really cool if the bad guy threw the good guy through the balustrade!" so the bad guy does so, but he's in such a position that there's no way he could have gotten enough leverage, and the angle that the good guy flies at is all wrong.
Those are only a couple of examples. Towards the end we get a not-so-bad scene when the two characters break into a sword cabinet. Of great amusement to me was the fact that the top sword looks identical to my rapier. I have to wonder if they bought all of their sword props from "Swords Online". It would be in keeping with the rest of the production values. This sword fight unfortunately has a weak ending, and so does the rest of the movie. Since I spent the entirety of this film wondering why I was still watching it, I don't recommend checking it out.
The same can be said for Excessive Force. Actually, this last movie doesn't even really count as much of a martial arts movie, but it sucked, so I'm warning you away from it. Excessive Force has the misfortune of being an American martial arts action movie starring yet another guy who I've never heard of, a Thomas Ian Griffith. Checking the IMDB entry on this movie reveals this amusing tagline for the movie "In the 70's, Chuck Norris. In the 80's, Steven Seagal. In the 90's, action has a whole new name . . . Thomas Ian Griffith." Boy, you can have all kinds of fun like that. I think the common denominator is that they all starred in some lame action movies.
Excessive Force also has the misfortune of being a tough cop movie. This genre has been done to death and there's really nothing about this movie to make it stand out - except maybe the fact that Mr. Griffith here is pretty unbelievable as a tough cop. Although on the job he does whatever he feels necessary to get his man, off the job he's a big softy. He plays piano. He gets a kitten for his birthday. He doesn't even LOOK tough or angry.
Excessive Force falls back on the "framed for a crime he didn't commit" cliche. It has a plot-twist that my husband guessed after 20 minutes in (and which I dismissed because there was no evidence for it. Silly me, thinking about what would make sense instead of what the movie would find clever). It has the usual "cops partners/best friends getting killed, sending him on the path of revenge" plot element, the corrupt cops, the mob ties, the old flame and rekindled romance, etc. It even has James Earl Jones, who is wasted in a small part. Oh yes, it also trots out the whole "Good guy gets shot. Old flame tend to wound. They end up in bed." Nothing new here.
And the martial arts here are LAME. You can't blame this one on the choreographer, it all falls on Mr. Griffith. He seems to have three basic moves: punching repeatedly. Multiple spin kicks. And the flying jump kick. The latter is saved for when he needs to finish people off impressively. Mostly he does spin kicks, punctuated with punches. Actually, watching him fight is like watching me play Soul Calibur 2. I've only ever figured out 2 moves, so I use those a lot, but sometimes I button-mash and do something that involves flying through the air.
Where Another Meltdown at least gave us a final fight between two people who knew what they were doing (even if the choreographer didn't), Excessive Force makes the same mistake that Cradle would make years later and gives us a villain who can't match the hero in unarmed combat. Even injuring the hero doesn't really seem to even the odds, and we're left with an anticlimactic final fight to go with a generally ho-hum movie.
Before I wrap this up, I'd like to point out that the main character in Excessive Force is painfully stupid. There's a city-wide manhunt for him, so he's hiding out in the country with his ex-wife - in their old house! Hey, there's a great idea. Hide out in your former residence, with your old flame, putting her in danger. But wait, there's more! He finds himself needing to return to town a few times, and each time he drives his original car back in!
Do yourself a favor and don't watch any of these movies. Go rent Samurai Fiction instead, if you haven't already. Or, since Kung Fu Hustle just hit DVD, check it out. Even if you already saw it in the theater, watching it again will be worth three times the entertainment of seeing any of these movies for the first time.
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