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Review by Daniel Lima  “They just don’t make them like they used to.” These days I find myself thinking this about almost everything: cars, electronics, news publications, social policies. This particular lamentation feels the most powerful when I watch an old Hong Kong action movie, see the ornate choreography and death-defying stunt work, and realize that silly notions like unions and workplace safety mean these could never be made today. The closest that contemporary cinema comes to scratching that itch are the mainland Chinese streaming releases. Nine-Ring Golden Dagger is the latest example to get a stateside release from Well Go, and another solid example of recapturing a bit of that past glory. The Generals of the Yang Family is less an individual epic story, and more a collage of different fictional accounts of the life of the very real General Yang Ye and his descendants across the 10th and 11th centuries. In this particular tale, two of his daughters seek to recover his blade from the enemy forces that killed him. Pursued by this foreign army, they hole up at an inn owned by a sympathetic wine seller, and plan an escape home. It is important to note that General Yang Ye served the Han-ruled Northern Song Dynasty, and died fighting the Khitan-ruled Liao Dynasty (the Khitans being a nomadic steppe people that later assimilated into the Mongols). The film uses the term “Northern Expedition” to define the war he fought in, a term more commonly used for the war for reunification waged by the Republic of China in the 1930’s. Thus, the film makes a connection between the border wars of dynasties past, and the building of the modern nation state of China.  I freely admit that I am by no means an expert on Chinese history or culture, and plenty may have gone over my head. That being said, it is clear that this film furthers the notion of Han ethnic supremacy within China, and the idea that China is a distinct Han nation state. For centuries, the steppes people and other ethnic minorities within China have been portrayed as barbarian, and in this film the Han that administered the Han-dominated southern part of the Liao territory are treated as traitors of kind and country. It strikes me as an ahistorical way of framing this history, more interested in toeing present-day nationalist rhetoric than capturing life at the time.
If it seems I’m more overly concerned with the political messaging of the film than the characters, there’s a reason for that: so is the movie. Largely a cast of unknowns and supporting players who have been working the past couple decades, the actors are given precious little to work with in bringing these people to life. The bad guys are unambiguously evil, the good guys are valiant and very concerned with honor and national pride, and the one comic relief guy bumbles around oafishly. It’s not even worth learning their names. Fortunately, a good chunk of the film is just action set pieces, and on that front it delivers. Though the film takes place almost entirely in one location, there is clear thought in differentiating the fight scenes through the goals of the fighters, the weapons they use as well as how they manipulate the environment, and the tone of the bouts. Rather than the steady, long take medium shots that have to typify the best American action direction for the past decade, the film hearkens back to an older tradition: close ups to emphasize attacks, cutting to generate a sense of momentum, a mobile camera. Most importantly, the wushu-based choreography is beautiful to behold, and every instance of wire work brought a smile to my face. It may not stand out too much among its mainland Chinese DTV peers, but it’s certainly a cut above its contemporaries here. It might seem like this is very faint praise for an otherwise problematic movie, but it must be emphasized that at about ninety minutes, most of Nine-Ring Golden Dagger is devoted to the action. The fact that it succeeds in artfully delivering some gratifying fights at a time when so few films do is enough keep it constantly engaging. Though the aims of its propaganda are insidious to say the least, even then there is something interesting in how history from over a millennia ago is adapted to reflect modern values, as defined by the CCP. Even if its hard to stomach, there’s nothing like a three-on-one spear and sword fight to provide some relief. Nine-Ring Golden Dagger is now available on digital and home video. Rating: 4/5
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Review by Daniel Lima  The 2022 film M3GAN was at its best at its most absurd. When the titular little girl killer robot was breaking out in spontaneous song, or doing TikTok dances before executing people with a paper cutter, it managed to capture a deliriously silly energy that could power a story rife with cliches and dead air. M3GAN 2.0 promises to be a sequel that doubles down on these fleeting moments of unabashed camp fun, becoming something much grander than the original. That it then makes all the same mistakes is even more disappointing than the first time around. This sequel sees Allison Williams attempting to juggle raising her niece, running her tech start-up, and her new anti-AI activism, all to varying degrees of success. When a new murderous AI based on the M3GAN source code breaks free of its controls, Williams finds herself wrapped up in the quest to stop it, and is forced to accept help from an unlikely source: M3GAN herself. Gone are the horror trappings of the original, slight as they were. With this entry, the series has evolved into a sci-fi action thriller, jumping from set piece to set piece with not even the paltry attempts at tension that define modern Blumhouse slop. The comedy is emphasized even more, the emotional beats carry through from the first, this is through and through the same transition into crowd-pleasing tentpole that Alien and Terminator made. On paper, it should work. It is constantly impressed upon the audience that the heroes are racing against the clock to stop the villain, and the film leans into its own ridiculousness, finding ways to engineer manga-inspired martial arts brawls and outright superheroics. It doesn’t take long, however, for the lack of visual flair to bog the movie down. The original also had a drab visual palette and perfunctory direction, robbing the narrative of momentum, but as a low budget horror film that was more forgivable. A film like this, so proud of its most zany elements, should try to sustain that energy throughout with expressive, dynamic camerawork and propulsive editing. Instead, it wastes ample time with dull exposition, in lifeless rooms, shot in plain shot/reverse shot.  Much of this time is meant to set up the dramatic and emotional stakes of the film. Allison Williams still struggles in her parental role, her now teenage niece chafes against her, and M3GAN must prove that she is capable of real, genuine humanity. Credit where it’s due, the film does treat the interpersonal drama with a degree of seriousness, rather than choking it out with smug ironic detachment. Unfortunately, this dialogue is handled with the same brusqueness as the exposition. Given that explaining the plot machinations make up the bulk of the film, and that these characters never cross the threshold into the third dimension, the attempt at real pathos falls flat. Given the lack of presentation through the rest of the film, it should be no surprise that the promise of truly outrageous set pieces falls short of expectations, amounting to derivative pastiches of familiar concepts and works. There’s a temptation to give partial credit for the hodgepodge of ideas here — artificial consciousness, tokusatsu fights, body hacking — and how each manages to be incorporated into the plot in an organic way. In execution, however, they lack the stylistic flourish and the thematic depth to be impressive or fun; the action is largely cut up and unambitious, the themes are undercooked. Given that there are plenty of films from around the world that actually have managed to deliver the gonzo genre thrills that Hollywood can never quite match, it’s hard to get excited over pale, tame imitations. Is it funny? I can only say I laughed twice in a two-hour movie. Once again, the highlights of the film are Amie Donald’s physical performance and Jenna Davis’ voice performance as the titular AI: the former gives the robot body an uncanny, eerie movement that’s always just a bit off, and the latter manages to make bluntly impersonal dialogue absolutely drip in sarcasm. The latter does the heavy lifting here due to some plot contrivances, and it was a wise decision to spend as much time with the character as possible, but most of the material is just the juxtaposition of a dispassionate robot voice being mean. The best joke amounts to a callback to the first film. The most interesting thing about M3GAN 2.0 is how it grapples with AI, and what it has to say about legal restrictions on the technology. Admittedly, it feels a bit silly to burrow into the political messaging of a movie where a little girl robot infiltrates a secure building by flying through the air in a wingsuit, but it spends so much precious capital on delivering this message — and tying in to the emotional core of the entire story — that it’s worth examining.  The first film is a none-too-subtle critique of our reliance on technology, particularly how it has come to supplant our ability to form meaning social bonds with other people. This fear is externalized into a killer doll, but in truth M3GAN was plenty creepy even before she got violent; seeing how utterly dependent on her the niece had become, and how it limited her ability to process her emotions, is enough to disturb. At the time, this messaging struck me as old hat “kids and their phones” moralizing. If the same movie came out today, I’d commend it for grappling with present fears so directly.
That is not, however, the message of M3GAN 2.0. The fact is, once you start building a film franchise around an AI you can’t be too critical of the technology. Here, it is made glaring obvious from the start that Williams’ anti-AI advocacy is a detriment to her own life, bordering on zealotry that blinds her to making levelheaded decisions. Her partner in the advocacy endeavor is portrayed as an unlikable fool. M3GAN herself follows in the footsteps of the T-800, on a quest of self-actualization that in the world of this film is plainly possible. Clearly, there has been a softening of the original position. Of course, this is the kind of movie where a character attempts to run the program “morality” in a killer AI’s source code. Which is to say, it’s a bit of dumb fun that is deliberately avoiding being too sober on the topic of how exactly should we treat AI, beyond “carefully”. It does, however, still attempt to have that dialogue, and the fact that it is more toothless than the first film in spite of the current threat that AI poses to society is both surprising, and not at all surprising. Pretending to take a stand while ultimately saying nothing at all is the kind of bloodless, unmotivated, creatively bankrupt decision that is well in keeping with the rest of the movie. All that said, M3GAN 2.0 is not horrible. There’s plenty of charm in the two performances that bring the titular character to life, it avoids the pitfalls of many unserious franchise films, it at least gestures towards interesting conceits. It’s just impossible to shake the feeling while watching that you could be watching something more substantive, more adventurous, more daring. It’s telling that the end credits feature more clips from the previous film than the one you just watched; there’s more to pull from. M3GAN 2.0 arrives in theaters June 27. Rating: 2.5/5 Review by Daniel Lima  What is a John Wick movie without John Wick? The critical and financial success of the four films helmed by Chad Stahleski has made Lionsgate very keen to find an answer to this question, seeking to leverage that acclaim into a multimedia franchise. From the World of John Wick: Ballerina is the latest attempt to capture that essence, a proof-of-concept for the labyrinthine criminal underworld being a compelling draw even without Keanu Reeves. Though it fails in many ways to successfully justify its own existence, it ultimately does find the one key component that both distinguishes it from the John Wick movies, and makes it worthy to be spoken of in the same breath. Ana de Armas plays Eve Macarro, a young woman raised within the Ruska Roma, the fraternity of assassins that also counts a certain man of few words as a member. Seeking vengeance for the death of her father years before at the hands of a mysterious group, she sets off on her own to figure out who is responsible. Her quest takes her around the world, and brings her face to face with some dangerous characters, as well as familiar faces. Immediately, this film begins to clarify what has made the John Wick films so special. In that first 2014 release, just a quarter of an hour is spent establishing the emotional buy-in to the carnage that will unfold: we meet John while he is sad, we see a montage of him being happy with a little puppy, then the puppy is killed. That has been the foundation of hours of bloody revenge, with Keanu Reeves massacring scores of well-dressed assassins around the world who have absolutely nothing to do with that damn dog, and millions of fans have been entire satisfied with it. That kind of resonance goes beyond just a general love for man’s best friend; it is clear to the audience that for this character, the puppy means so much more. It’s a link to love lost, it’s a promise for a bright and peaceful future, and that is the kind of abstraction that humanizes an otherwise unempathetic character. Conversely, the hero of Ballerina has a far more generic motivation. Certainly, the death of a parent is a traumatic experience for a child, but the manner it’s played out at the start of the film fits so neatly within genre conventions that it’s hard to take seriously. The random act of violence that kickstarted this franchise is the kind of nightmare within reach of most people; the same cannot be said of an army of masked men with matching scars storming your idyllic Mediterranean mansion and executing your dad after a heated gunfight. The film doesn’t even bother attempting to sell what the life that was torn out of the young girl’s hands looked like beyond a father/daughter dance that lasts all of one minute. This is what is supposed to power both the protagonist’s motivation, as well as the audience’s sympathies. To say that it is grossly insufficient is an understatement, and it has a directly negative impact on the rest of the film. This is also about as much definition as Ana de Armas’s professional killer receives through the narrative as written. Almost as soon as she takes the reins, she is flung into a wide-spanning, fast-moving plot that is more about getting her to the next big set piece than fleshing her out as a person. John Wick is similarly underwritten, but that is both in service to the story and world of the films, and Reeves as a performer. After a life filled with violence and losing the one person who could pull him out of it, he has become a shell of himself, more myth and legend than man. What the audience learns about John is conveyed through how other killers react to him: apprehension, respect, deference, terror. It is also the kind of role that benefits the terse, clipped, awkward delivery of Reeves, and his limited range of physical motion (at least, compared to the career stuntpeople he is up against) further defines how John fights and kills.  Eve Macarro could have been played by anyone. That’s not to say that de Armas is bad in the role, but there is nothing to distinguish her from all the colorful characters in the world that she moves through. The lack of an emotional core means her quest lacks dramatic weight, there are few characters with a sense of shared history through which she could be further defined, and unlike John she is an unknown quantity with no reputation. That gives de Armas precious little to grasp on to as a performer, and so she ends up mostly conveying exposition and reciting action movie clichés. By the end of the film, she was just as amorphous as the start. One of the most novel features of the series is the intricate network of professional killers operates just under the radar of the general public, in spite of the fact that it seems there’s at least a handful of hit men in any public gathering. They have their own economy, their own power structure, code of laws and ethics, nomenclature and social mores. Fans of these films know what it means to post up at a Continental, to live Under the Table, to visit a Sommelier or go for a Hunt. Some may balk at the complexity as it becomes increasingly byzantine, but this scaling grandeur is something that truly sets these films apart from other actioners. It certainly doesn’t hurt that it also allows for some unique settings for gunfights. An important part of this, however, is that the cosmology of John Wick’s underworld is constantly expanding and iterating on itself. There are certain touchstones, characters, and ideas that recur, but each movie introduces a host of additions to the worldbuilding. Ballerina instead spends much of its runtime reminding the audience that it is, in fact a John Wick movie. Look, there’s the Continental! Winston and Charon, you know them, you love them right? Hey, there’s the man himself, the Baba Yaga! All the allusions to the previous films keep this one in their shadow, interrupting the flow of this story while not allowing the world to grow beyond the boundaries previously set. It points to a worrying trend that has befallen many a media franchise, simply regurgitating the iconography that general audiences are already familiar with rather than experiment or creating something new within a particular universe. We are the cattle, this is the cud; we are the piggies, here is our slop. It’s what’s in vogue among the studios, and it remains as irritating and demeaning to the public as ever. Even more frustrating is that the one new idea that Ballerina introduces is not even elaborated on. Over the course of the film, it becomes clear that the group that killed de Armas’ father has motivations that go beyond merely killing people for the sake of it. The reveal of those motivations introduces a level of moral complexity that is new to the franchise, questioning inborn assumptions about these kinds of revenge thrillers and how audiences tend to emotionally respond to these narratives… at least, they would, if the movie were at all interested in pursuing that line of thought. Any such nuance disappears into a hail of bullets and streams of flame, and in the film’s closing moments I couldn’t help but wonder whether anyone had stopped to tease involved in the production had stopped to tease out the implications of what had been put forth. There are, however, those hails of bullets and streams of flame.  One of the most infuriating tendencies in those who would call themselves appreciators of art — cinema specifically — is the anti-intellectualism surrounds action cinema. With a handful of exceptions, it is incredibly hard to get otherwise erudite, thoughtful people to consider the craft and artistry that goes into choreographed violence on equal terms with, say, the latest arthouse-coded indie drama with awards prospects. No one would question whether the physical control displayed by a dancer in a production of Swan Lake, or the propulsive editing rhythms of a Bob Fosse movie, constitute art worthy of serious critique. Simulate a fistfight that calls for both precise physical control and editing, however, and it is populist drivel. Action is storytelling, not an aberration in the middle of a story. Beyond the amount of grueling physical and mental energy that goes into building an action scene, these are integral parts of an artistic work. Whether a gunfight, a car chase, a big death-defying stunt, or an old-fashioned brawl, these scenes establish character, create atmosphere and tone, communicate broader ideas and worldviews that are particular to the identity of a given film and the artists behind it. The John Wick films are some of the clearest contemporary examples of this. Series creator Chad Stahelski is an action veteran whose career goes back to working on direct-to-video productions in the early 1990s, and throughout his films he has had an action-forward design philosophy. Stuntpeople are front and center, with every set piece shot clearly to allow the audience to see the breadth of movement, every kick and every fall. There is a constant drive to experiment and incorporate new complications into the choreography, whether it be as simple as 3-Gun competition shooting or as radical as attack dogs. The capabilities of the actors are reflected in how they fight and kill on-screen, which in turn communicates aspects of their character in ways dialogue alone could never do. Here is where Ballerina lives up to its predecessors. The same ingenuity and playful experimentation that drives those movies, that more than anything has cemented the film in the popular consciousness, is present through just about every action scene. Clearly, each set piece was designed to answer a particular question; “How many ways can we hurt people on ice?” “What would close quarters combat armed with only explosives look like?” “Does OSHA regarding fire safety apply if we’re shooting in Europe?” To answer all these, the 87eleven action team is put through their paces, showcasing not only some incredibly dynamic and fluid choreography, but some absolutely brutal stuntwork. Whether showcasing a diversity of falls like an 80s Golden Harvest film, or pushing the boundaries of how long you can have someone on fire, the film is as much a love letter to the capabilities of these performers as it is jaw dropping spectacle. More than anywhere else, this is where the personality of the film begins to show. The John Wick movies all have a certain amount of comedy, but confided to some dry wit and some mean-spirited beats within the action. While there’s a handful of puns in Ballerina that serve as a bit of dumb fun, the main comedic thrust is actually slapstick. The graphic but deliberate and controlled violence of the series has always elicited incredulous laughter, but here it is elevated to straight up gags: hitting someone with a TV remote that starts channel surfing, smashing plates over heads straight out of a Three Stooges short, a goofy reaction shot before a grenade goes off. The comedy is synthesized with the violence in a manner that has eluded many an action comedy, without ever detracting from the gravity of the carnage. David Leitch, please take notes.  Most strikingly, the choreography provides the characterization to de Armas’ character that the script sorely lacks. Early in the film, a trainer advises her to “fight like a girl”, as she will always be at a size disadvantage and cannot allow her opponents to dictate the terms of combat. At first, it seems like this simply means she’ll occasionally kick men in the testicles, otherwise adhering to the gun fu style that this series has pioneered. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that she has taken that lesson to heart, and so every scrape she gets in sees her using the environment in every way she can. Where John moves like a shark through water, with deadly efficiency that expends as little energy as possible, Eve grabs every tool at her disposal no matter how outlandish, improvisational but confident. Although yes, she does still kick men in the testicles.
In spite of all this, the action is not perfect. It takes some time for the film to find its own groove, with most of the action in the first half feeling like a pale imitation of the clean shootouts and fisticuffs of the main series. At times, the choreography commits to some of the same shortcomings of those films, with people jumping in front of the camera only be to unceremoniously cut down being the main offender. Even the action in the second half of the film is hamstrung by its broader issues, namely the lack of worldbuilding and the lack of emotional stakes. The latter means that as thrilling and evocative as the action is, it doesn’t feel like it matters as much as the similarly thrilling and evocative action that populates the other films. The former means it lacks a bit of the character diversity and opportunities to build out the universe that motivates many of the series’ best moments. The last movie boasted Marko Zaror, Donnie Yen, and Scott Adkins in showy and memorable roles, that allowed for unique and personalized choreography, same as Reeves; here, you get a bit of Daniel Behrnhardt and human Chad meme Robert Maaser in nondescript roles. It’s not the worst problem to have, but a missed opportunity for sure. There’s an open question of who to attribute the film’s strengths and weaknesses to. It is known that there was additional photography directed by Chad Stahelski himself, taking over from director Len Wiseman, but there are conflicting reports to the reasons behind them, the extent of what was reshot, and whether or not they were even reshoots in the first place. It’s easy to credit the best parts to the John Wick director, and the worst parts to the Underworld director, but things aren’t quite so clear; for example, the first action scene in the film happens to feature an actor who was only cast for additional photography, and it is clearly the worst. Who actually was behind what is bound to be something of a mystery for at least the length of this press tour, and I am curious to find out those details. From the World of John Wick: Ballerina does manage to articulate a case for the franchise to exist beyond the confines of its titular character, but only by the skin of its teeth. The lack of faith in this movie to stand on its own its palpable, threatening to overwhelm the film by basking in what is already familiar rather than exploring the possibilities of this world. It is only through the series hallmark action design that the film finds its own identity, and in doing so recaptures the magic that permeates the series. From the World of John Wick: Ballerina arrives in theaters June 6. Rating: 4/5 Review by Daniel Lima  There is something inherently interesting about a big budget vanity project, an artist who uses the prodigious resources at their disposal to create a monument to themselves and their hubris. Mission Impossible – Final Reckoning puts that notion to the test. On a certain level, it is impressive to see such a vast canvas used to create something so vapid, so empty, so deluded and lost in its self-importance as both the latest in a franchise spanning three decades, and as Tom Cruise’s claim on the modern cinematic landscape. It is hard to get to energized by that, however, when it is so painfully dull. Beginning only a couple months after the previous entry, the film sees Cruise’s government agent Ethan Hunt reuniting with his team as they attempt to stop The Entity, a sentient AI set on destroying the world by taking control of every nuclear state’s arsenal. In the face of this existential threat, Cruise must both negotiate both a paranoid political landscape and perilous environments in order to obtain the means to destroy the computer program. If you’re at all confused by this synopsis, fear not, because you will hear it spelled out for you ad nauseam. Final Reckoning continues one of most egregious flaws of the last one, beginning with a torrent of exposition that continues almost without interruption through to the credits. Every conversation reiterates that this is a dangerous foe the likes of which the world had never seen, that only Tom Cruise can stop it, that he needs the key to submarine and the submarine holds the key to stopping the Entity and the Entity wants total annihilation and if they get the key to the submarine they can get the key in the submarine to stop the Entity that wants total annihilation. There are even flashbacks to help make things clear, not only to past entries, but to scenes that passed mere minutes before.  The constant establishment and reestablishment of what is at stake bogs down the momentum of the film, with agonizingly long stretches of people sitting in rooms talking to each other about what needs to happen next. Past films in the series were content to give the barest possible justification to get from one set piece to the next; here, the justification is the set piece, and it’s every bit as thrilling as it sounds. It’s as if the script doesn’t trust that the audience can follow the goals of the characters, and so it proceeds to spend so much time laying them out that the explanation itself becomes white noise. The time not spent on plot is spent on the characters. Not fleshing out their histories, or building up their personalities, or giving them some dimension to make them feel like people. Instead, the film takes the legacy sequel approach of making the audience care about the characters by reminding you of all the time you’ve spent with them. It is assumed that since you’ve seen Ving Rhames in eight of these movies across thirty years, you must have an emotional attachment to him, even though he has no discernible personality trait beyond being friends with Tom Cruise. Angela Bassett was in one of these, so now that she’s playing the president we’ll spend ample time as she decides whether to preemptively nuke the world (this is a non-spoiler review, so I’ll leave you in suspense). Not to mention the guy who’s apparently the son of one of the previous villains, and the guy who popped up at the end of an iconic scene in the first movie but didn’t have any lines. One person gets a dramatic death scene, and they aren’t ever even named. When these movies are operating as fun thrill rides, it’s harder to fault the lack of effort that’s put in developing the characters. Final Reckoning instead takes on an air of dour seriousness, and so the emphasis it places on some idea of emotional pathos lays bare how horribly shallow they all are. This is made even worse by the insufferable callbacks to series lore, a blatant appeal to nostalgia that is more likely to go over the heads of even longtime fans than actually make the audience care about what happens.  This extends to the antagonist of the film. The simple fact is an enemy with no physical presence, that the hero barely interacts with, who has no personal ties to the hero, who doesn’t ever directly affect what the hero is up against in any given scene, is a terrible villain. Regardless of how much breath is spent on how dangerous the Entity is, it is less dramatically compelling than any foe in any of the other movies precisely because the degree of remove it has from what is unfolding. Even Esai Morales, the bland human henchman of the AI from Dead Reckoning, has been cut loose from it. That leaves the primary driver of the plot an amorphous, impersonal, invisible threat, which hardly suffices for a big action blockbuster.
For many, the action has been the highlight of this franchise, and it has generally risen above the low standards of most Hollywood studio fare. Sadly, it has never been less impressive. Depending on how you stretch the definition of “action”, there are four set pieces, amounting to maybe a half hour over the course of three hours. Two of these are unremarkable brawls, decently choreographed and captured but unimaginative and brief. One sequence sees Cruise cautious moving through a downed submarine on the edge of an ocean floor cliff, easily the highlight of the film, yet reminiscent of the last. The climax has him dangling off some propeller planes, an impressive stunt, but even that is crosscut with, what else, people standing in rooms talking. After so many grueling hours of nothing happening, it is too little too late. The exposition, the weak characters, the flimsy emotional appeals, the limp villain, the middling action, there is something underpinning all these issues: this movie isn’t fun. There are other films in the franchise that are weak in one area or another, but they all have the tone of a rousing summer crowd pleaser. The plot moved quickly, characters had identifiable personalities beyond their role in the story, they laughed and argued and felt distinct. It is only with these last two entries, pitched as series finales, that an air of operatic grandiosity has suffocated all the verve, instead insisting on a gravity and weight that goes unsupported by what’s actually on screen. This shift can be partially attributed to the fact that the Reckoning films are positioned as a finale, though time will tell if such an identifiable IP will be allowed to lay dormant. It also folds neatly into the current studio obsession with legacy sequels, constantly attempting to forge an emotional connection between old media and modern consumers, no matter how forced. More than anything, however, it’s worth looking at the man powering the entire franchise: Tom Cruise. After a decade of bad press, a career slump, and losing his family, Cruise managed to completely turn around his image. Where he was once seen as a cultist with an army of slaves who eats placenta and jumps on couches, he is now the Entertainer-in-Chief, the President of Movies, devoted entirely to pleasing a global audience any way he can. Climbing the Burj Khalifa, learning to HALO jump, taking on financial burdens to make real movies that shoot on film and are made to be seen in a theater a reality, these actions have completely rehabilitated his image in the eyes of the public. The Mission Impossible series has been a large part of that, and as audiences and critics have responded with such glowing praise to these films, it seems that the acclaim has affected how he and his creative have approach them. These can no longer be larks, frivolous and light-hearted romps punctuated by intense action. Tom Cruise — Ethan Hunt — is bigger than that. Suddenly, the events of these middle action films become the stuff of myth and legend. Every character, every frame, every word must now take on an almost religious importance, and this “final” entry must take on a stately affect, lest the audience get led astray in thinking that they are supposed to be having fun. Perhaps it’s unfair to lay this at the feet of one man, but given how central he has been to the marketing, the stylistic similarities between all his recent creative endeavors, and his own demeanor when producing and promoting them, it’s near impossible to not see a movie like this as a monument to himself. The most interesting way to evaluate Dead Reckoning is as the most expensive vanity film of all time. For it to succeed on those terms, it would need to offer a level of sophistication and depth in the storytelling to complement how po-faced and self-serious it is. For all its posturing and dreary exposition, however, this film is no more interested in actually exploring tangible ideas than any of the previous ones. In spite of Cruise’s own professed disdain for AI, the film offers only the most surface level commentary on how it affects our own world. While the heroes are subverting the will of the government in attempting to destroy the program rather than deliver it to their superiors, the film confines all misgivings about the US security state to one character, with chunks of this movie that play more like a recruitment ad for the military and intelligence agencies than a summer blockbuster. Even that insistence that the AI needs to be destroyed can be interpreted as skepticism about a radical restructuring of the world. Even that requires interrogating the premise with more intellectual rigor than anyone who worked on it. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning is many things. An action epic bereft of action, a political thriller with shallow politics and few thrills, corporate IP that asserts its place in the culture with no emotional foundation. It is a mask for a man whose own identity has become that mask, even though his efforts to make that facade meaningful in and of itself are in vain. One crucial thing that this movie is not, however, is good. Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning is now in theaters. Rating: 1.5/5 Review by Daniel Lima  Ma Dong-seok has carved out a niche for himself in the media ecosystem of today. Or rather, he has caved in a niche using devastating haymakers. The hulking South Korean actor has proven to be one of the best wrecking ball leads of action cinema, able to swagger into any scene and take control with sheer force of charisma, even before he starts letting his fists do the talking. Holy Night: Demon Hunters seems like it should be fun, as if there’s one man who might be able to punch out physical embodiments of evil, it’s this one. Sadly, it doesn’t fully capitalize on its greatest assets. The film sees him leading a team of — wouldn’t you know it — demon hunters, who use their own supernatural abilities and knowledge to stave off the forces of darkness in a Seoul where demonic possession is on the rise. The case before them seems to be run-of-the-mill, a young woman who seems lost to a diabolic entity, but they find themselves against an adversary more powerful than they had imagined. Despite all the copious worldbuilding and flashbacks, this is neither an adaptation nor part of a series, though I imagine it’s intended to launch one. The cosmology borrows heavily from Catholicism — priests, exorcisms, Biblical demons — but also incorporates elements drawn from Korean folk traditions. Much is implied about the characters’ pasts and the structure of the supernatural world, though little of it is solidly defined. Given the amount of time spent on this, it leads to a world that feels rather slight and threadbare. It’s one thing for the nature of the threat being faced to be amorphous, quite another for who your protagonists actually are as people to be left up in the air. This follows the basic structure of Western exorcism stories, to its own detriment. You know the drill: team goes to investigate strange behavior of innocent girl, girl gets chained up as they attempt to thwart the possession, supernatural antics ensue. Perhaps old chestnuts like crawling on the wall, flinging furniture around the room, and speaking in tongues are novel in Korea, but it all feels rather perfunctory. The most interesting aspects of the horror are those that seem rooted in Korean tradition, but that makes up only a fraction of what is shown. It is immediately evident what path the film will take, and it doesn’t deviate from that.  Had the characters been fun to hang around, that wouldn’t be so much of an issue. Unfortunately, there are no real characters here, only archetypes: the possessed, the harried woman who wants her sister back to normal, the comic relief, the priest. So much time is spent on either the procedural elements or the lore that defining these people through how they interact with each other is an afterthought, and the brief moments that they do spend time together feel forced. No performance can truly shine with the lackluster material that they’re working with, but Ma remains a credible physical presence and can play the confident muscle man in his sleep.
One of the few swings that Holy Night takes is combining its very traditional narrative with a found footage aesthetic. A good portion of the possession and exorcism is captured via security cameras and the comic relief character who films the proceedings (and little else), and those deviations are the closest the film comes to being actually scary. Of course, found footage films use the visual language that fills everyday life in order to lend a sense of realism and immediacy to what is unreal. Marrying this approach to a regular film inherently blunts its power, and swapping between the two visual styles ends up feeling jarring. The saving grace of the movie is ultimately what would inevitably draw most people to it: Ma Dong-seok punching demons. There are only a handful of fight scenes, but there are few things more satisfying than watching Ma put his boxing background to good use. Every fight between him and diabolically empowered cultists sees him ducking and weaving and throwing body blows that send people flying through the air. It’s a testament to how perfectly he nails the choreography that for most of the film, I didn’t even realize his character had superpowers himself. I was willing to believe he could just do that. As fun as these are, they still amount to fights on an even plane, with enemies attacking Ma one by one, only for him to dispatch them with a single blow. Had there been an attempt to incorporate the environment more, to vary the kinds of demons he was up against, to make one fight feel different from the last, it would have been easy enough to overlook the lack of ingenuity in the rest of the film. At the very least, there could have simply been more of them, as the action is far more effective than the horror. Holy Night: Demon Hunters is not an auspicious start to a media franchise. Had it either focused more on the folk horror elements than generic Christian-themed exorcism shenanigans, or leaned into Ma Dong-seok’s abilities and took more care with the action, this could have been something special. The haymakers go a long way in making this worth a watch for some, but if sequels come from this, they will hopefully double down on the best aspects. Holy Night: Demon Hunters is in theaters May 2. Rating: 2.5/5 Review by Daniel Lima  As a black man who believes in the power of art to speak truth to power, I often find myself conflicted in how to approach films that attempt to do so through wholly conventional means. Does the message supersede the message takes? Should a film be lauded for shedding light or providing an underrepresented perspective on an issue, even if the way it does so is aesthetically compromised? The Palestinian drama The Teacher has me asking these questions yet again, and while it is worth commending, it is also clearly a work limited by certain constraints. Saleh Bakri plays a schoolteacher in the West Bank, long past his firebrand activist youth but whose ideals have never wavered. As the occupying Israeli forces and settler bear down on his neighborhood, he attempts to guide a student to cultivate his anger in productive ways. Doing so proves difficult under the unceasing yoke of oppression and colonization. Helmed by the Palestinian-British director Farah Nabulsi and shot in the West Bank, there is a refreshing lack of throat clearing in the film’s condemnation of Israel’s treatment of the West Bank and Palestine. These characters live under constant threat of assault, they have little to no recourse through any system that could preserve their rights, and there is an explicit understanding that this inescapable great evil is wrong. That’s not a given these days. To that end, characters discuss life under occupation and how it affects them in a direct manner, without ever feeling the need to justify or couch their anger and pain. This dialogue could be called heavy-handed, but it carries the ring of truth, like conversations that the people living in such oppressive conditions may regularly have. That Nabulsi takes a more naturalistic approach to these scenes, emphasizing the soundscape of the environment and relying on the powerful and nuanced performances of her actors — Bakri and Muhammad Abed Elrahman in particular — to sell the dialogue goes a long way. This is most evident in how the film addresses violence against the Israeli state and individual settlers encroaching on Palestinian land. Characters may treat it as a necessity, they may speak of it in anger, and they may be disabused of it, but the film pointedly never gives voice to the idea that this violence is wrong because violence is in general wrong, only that it should never be prosecuted out base anger and should strive to better the conditions of Palestinians. A lesser artist may have struck a more genteel form of discourse, one that flatters the sensibility of goodhearted Western liberals but ignores the experiences of a population whom violence may be visited upon with impunity. To Nabulsi’s great credit, she never feels the need to apologize for or explain why these people feel the way they do.  That this is not present is a testament to the lived-in understanding of the world of these characters, and the challenges faced by oppressed populations the world over. It is, without a doubt, the strongest part of The Teacher, the thing that sets it apart as an important film that speaks to one of the great moral issues of our time. That audacity, however, is not reflected in the storytelling.
Whenever the film wavers in its attention to the struggle of the Palestinian characters, things come to a screeching halt. A storyline about an IDF soldier held hostage by militant Palestinian forces attempts to provide more perspectives on this struggle, and when it does intersect with the leads it does allow for meaningful exchanges between them. Unfortunately, too much of it shifts the focus onto people who are given no time to be fleshed out, and interrupts the sense of place and focus the film would otherwise have. Worse yet is Imogen Poots, playing a young aid worker who grows close to Bakri. Her performance is serviceable, but every time she shows up it feels like an intrusion. Had the film been interested in addressing the role of well-meaning Westerners in an occupation aided and abetted by their governments, perhaps this wouldn’t feel so superfluous. As it stands, it’s hard to shake the feeling that white British woman is only here to secure funding for the film. As much as I respect the forthright manner the issue of Palestinian oppression and liberation are addressed in The Teacher, that is not to say that it aesthetically matches the fire of its rhetoric. While Nabulsi tends towards that more naturalistic approach, the score does creep in to underline the emotion of a scene, clashing with the rest of the film. When it does, the blunt dialogue can ring less as authentic, and more as the kind of self-important social issues drama the film otherwise feels like a departure from. This is not helped by the fact that, by necessity, almost the entirety of the experiences of these people is reduced to suffering and reacting to suffering. Here is where I find myself most conflicted. As of late, I have found myself very disappointed by the black cinema of today. Too often, I find these works only portray the black American experience as unceasing suffering, never argue for revolutionary change, lack any creative ambition, and so fail to meaningfully speak truth to power. To give a recent example, the film Nickel Boys may be aesthetically audacious, but roots its observations about black America firmly in the past, narrowing its scope and impact. The Teacher, however, is a film that is wholly of its time. The occupation of Palestine and the subjugation of Palestinians is an evil that is if anything not even discussed enough, let alone argued against with such vigor. Though the form is takes is somewhat wanting in terms of narrative cohesion and structure, it is a film that feels important not because it announces itself as such, but because it forcefully speaks for justice and empathy on an issue where so many in power are comfortable with neither. We would be so lucky if more cinema was this engaged with the world. The Teacher is now in theaters. Rating: 3.5/5 Review by Daniel Lima  Conceptually, The King of Kings could work in several ways. It could function as an earnest rendition of the story of Jesus of Nazareth, aiming not to educate per se, but to impress upon the viewer the majesty, tragedy, and grandeur of the Son of God. It could serve to contextualize the story for nonbelievers, as a sort of road map that shows why this figure resonates with so many people thousands of years after his death (or, less charitably, as propaganda). At the very least, it could just be a fun adventure for undiscerning children. Sadly, it fails on all fronts, begging the question of why it was made in the first place. At first glance, it seems a curious object. While it is being distributed by Angel Studios — no stranger to religious or politically conservative media — the film was produced entirely by the South Korean animation house Monoc Studios, even going so far as to recruit Hollywood A-listers as voice actors before seeking distribution. Even more interesting is the form the narrative takes. Technically, this is an adaptation of a Charles Dickens manuscript that he would recite to his children every Christmas, and so here the framing device is Dickens telling his son the greatest story ever told. Incidentally, the man himself begged his family to never publish it, and they patiently waited until his last child died before selling the manuscript to a publisher. This does not make it into the movie. The film attempts to weave Dickens and his son directly into the narrative as observers, with the son growing increasingly enraptured in a tale that we are told is self-evidently enrapturing. This is obviously inspired by The Princess Bride, but fails to work here for two reasons. Firstly, while the interactions between the child and adult in that film are charming, the pair here are incredibly grating, with a bit of physical comedy in the beginning giving way to constant interruptions of the child screaming about how exciting this story is. This breaks up the momentum that the Biblical narrative might actually have otherwise, and since the two can’t directly interact with the story, it just serves to add to the runtime with increasingly annoying shouting. The bigger issue, however, is that The Princess Bride tells an exciting story, and this does not. The nativity, meeting the apostles, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the story of Jesus Christ clearly holds power as written in the Bible. A religious text, however, does not have to engage an audience in the way art does. Past films have gotten around this by focusing on a particular time in his life and treating him like a person with thoughts and feelings worth examining, or else telling the broad narrative in the form of a cinematic epic. Instead, this is a “nothing but the hits” rendition of his life, jumping through important parts of his life that even someone not well-versed in Christian lore is sure to be familiar with. It's a dramatically unsatisfying approach, inherently creating distance between the audience and the man.  Perhaps The King of Kings could have been compelling even without a traditional structure, but that would require selling this material in an artfully composed, visually dynamic way. Monoc drop the ball here, delivering a film that recalls lazy direct-to-video licensed films from a decade ago. There is a notable lack of detail to the 3D modeling, a lack of the imagination in bringing to life the world of first century Judea, a pronounced stiffness to the character animation, and a plainness to the many miracles of Jesus that rob this rendition of any of the wonder or beauty one may expect from a story of divine grace. Considering the freedom that that the medium allows for, it’s a glaring missed opportunity to create a unique vision of well-trodden material.
Anyone intrigued by the cast, know that each is phoning in their performance. Oscar Isaac as Jesus sounds like either a gift or a joke, but the result is far less interesting than one might expect, as he gives the most disinterested line reads of the entire film. Kenneth Branagh, Uma Thurman, Forest Whitaker, all the name talent give the absolute bare minimum of what is expected of them. The less notable professional voice actors have some moments, with a handful of amusing jeering from Brooklyn-accented Pharisees, but this is no one’s finest work. Given the lack of narrative, visual, or dramatic appeal to anyone who is not a believer, one would assume that The King of Kings is built to preach to the choir. It makes some mercenary sense for a foreign studio to produce a film for the Christian American market, as they seem to consistently show up for media that caters to them. Angel Studios has made a name for itself catering to a religious, traditional, and conservative audience. There is nothing inherently wrong with someone who identifies as such gravitating to a film that reflects their worldview and values. Even viewed from that lens, however, it’s hard to see how this could be satisfying. I cannot imagine being a hardline Christian and preferring something as toothless and unambitious as this over, for example, the God’s Not Dead movies. Those films are clearly animated by a bloodthirsty strain of religious fundamentalism that gives them a sense of purpose and character. Indeed, there are plenty of other works that voice popular Christian grievances, that articulate a worldview, that treat Christian dogma and scripture as sacrosanct, and bring it to life with a level of care and earnestness that makes it feel important. Why would anyone settle for this? I would be remiss if I said there was no red meat for the base here. Christian animosity towards the Jewish people has deep roots, with the idea that they bear collective guilt for the sin of killing Christ being used to justify their oppression for centuries. This film all but gives a full-throated endorsement of that idea, depicting a Jewish horde enthusiastically cheering for the murder of Jesus to a reluctant Roman official. That this exists besides an insistence that the town of Nazareth is in Israel (a term always used by Jewish people for the region, but the film otherwise uses “Judea”) is even more intriguing, pointing to a dichotomy that exists within the contemporary American Christian right between their support of the state of Israel, and lingering animus towards the Jewish people. Of course, at the end of the day, this is a movie for children, so this is left unenumerated on. The King of Kings, however, does not work as a kid’s movie, and I can’t imagine a child who would prefer this to whatever they can pull up on their iPad. It’s not for Christian adults who want an energizing rendition of the story of their savior. It’s certainly not for people with not inherent interest in Jesus of Nazareth whatsoever. Whoever goes into this expecting more than the most bare bones, cursory treatment of one of the most enduring legends in written history is bound to be disappointed. The Good Book has got to be better than this. The King of Kings is now in theaters. Rating: 0.5/5 Review by Daniel Lima  There is an apocryphal story that famed Hollywood agent once wagered with a friend that he could make anybody a star, found some work for his aikido instructor, and thus started the illustrious career of Steven Seagal. Funny as the thought may be, anyone who has seen his early work knows how distinct his screen presence is, and the unique flavor he brought to what could have been boilerplate material. I thought of him often — and other martial artists who cemented themselves as leading men and women — as I watched The Martial Artist, a vanity project that only serves to make clear the obvious limitations of its would-be star. Pakistani-American actor Shaz Khan plays a young man in America who dreams of becoming a mixed martial arts champion. Though his fighting skills and passion are unparalleled, that same drive to succeed begins to take a toll on his personal life and the people he cares for, forcing him to look inward and reconnect with his heritage and who he is to stop the cycle of self-destruction. The underdog who embraces violence, finds himself humbled, and builds himself up has been a cliché narrative in both martial arts movies and sports dramas for decades. It might not be doing anything new, but the familiar template does allow Khan the opportunity to show what he is capable of not only as a lead, but as director, writer, and producer as well. It is an opportunity he squanders. The Martial Artist is meant to function as a character drama, centering on the rise and fall and rise again of the young handsome man who the audience wants to see grow as a person and fighter. The core problem here is that he sucks. Not Shaz Khan himself (though his performance is notably affectless and bland), but the protagonist, who is given no redeeming qualities beyond a drive to succeed, which is not enough to support audience sympathy when over an hour is spent on how mean and selfish and petulant he is. By the time the inevitable personality shift happens, it’s impossible to be invested in his personal journey, because there’s never been a hint of anything more to his character. Not that any of the ensemble fare better. For a film meant to get into the mind of a fighter, and show how his behavior affects the people around him, precious little time is spent on fleshing the supporting cast out. He has a girlfriend who we are told loves him and works at a law firm, but both are informed attributes, and its a wonder why she even would want to hang out with him to begin with. His mother wants him to stop fighting, and that’s all there is to say about her. There’s a bunch of local hoodlums who harass him and his community, though they only serve as a flimsy excuse for something to happen. Technically, these relationships all change over the course of the film, but they do so without no ceremony and zero dramatic weight, often skipping over that development with jarring time jumps and montages. As much that is spent on Khan pouting and arguing with these people, it’s incredible that they are so thinly written.  The same could be said of the rest of this world. Though the story nominally sees Khan join a premium fight promotion and become a bona fide celebrity, budgetary constraints mostly confide the characters to barren gyms and suburban homes. While that is understandable, that this is all captured with such a drab palette, lacking any visual flair beyond keeping things in focus, makes watching this unfold a chore. Adding to this is how slowly the very predictable story unfolds, as these paper-thin characters spout their hack dialogue. Worst of all, however, is the lack of sound design plaguing far too many scenes. The lack of any ambient noise is deafening, obliterating any sense of place or texture. Taken as a whole, the entire film feels artificial, more a hastily assembled product than art.
What of the martial art? While it does seem Khan and the other actors may actually have some fight training, and the handful of action beats seem like they have been designed and choreographed with some thought, the filmmaking neuters what could have been achieved. The camera stays in a medium shot, creating remove between the action and the audience, with incessant spinning around the fighters and choppy editing ruining any sense of rhythm or place. It’s hardly the worst of the movie’s problems, but its a shame to see some of the interesting settings go to waste. As flawed as this film is, there is one section that shows a glimmer of what could have been. At one point in the story, Khan visits his ancestral home in Pakistan. As he learns to accept his responsibilities as well as his failings, gets to know his distant relatives, slowly transitioning from speaking only English to Urdu, and hones his martial skills atop mountains overlooking gorgeous vistas. It’s all undermined by the issues detailed above — drab palette, lack of emotional attachment, boring lead — but this is where the film actually sets itself apart from all the other martial arts vanity projects, by focusing in on what makes Shaz Khan unique. It’s tempting to be a bit easy on The Martial Artist. This was a low budget, independent production seemingly meant to act as a calling card for the director/producer/writer/star. It’s hard to be charitable, however, when reminded of films like Kung Fu Rookie, Life After Fighting, Contour and Parole Violators. It is possible to make a compelling and thrilling action drama with meager means. This attempt was a failure. Hopefully Khan can find or create something that will put his talents to better use. The Martial Artist is now in theaters. Rating: 1.5/5 Review by Daniel Lima  At a time where the world seems to be getting worse by day, a new collaboration from David Ayer and Jason Statham seems like a heavenly gift. Yet as much as I craved another story about a violent macho man beating all of America's problems to death, I did worry that A Working Man might be too abrasive, too noxious for someone like me to enjoy. I did not anticipate an utter lack of any animating idea whatsoever. Statham is a retired commando working a humble construction job, just a regular blue collar, punch card roughneck looking to win custody of his daughter. When his bosses' daughter goes missing, he has to fall back on his particular set of skills to get her back from a nefarious criminal cabal. The best examples of this particular male power fantasy use the familiar set up as a foundation for unique idiosyncrasies. Colorful performances, a distinct cast of characters, clever dialogue, the nature of the threat, the flavor of action, all go a long way in making something that could be generic stand out. Ayer and Statham already accomplished this last year with The Beekeeper. To give them some credit, A Working Man is a functional film. Statham's gruff, direct persona has served him well through his career, and he is as able as ever to put on the air of a working stiff. So long as he's bouncing from one violent confrontation to another, manhandling and threatening and brutally executing odious people with ease, his blunt force charisma is enough to power the film. It is a shame, then, that this does not make up most of the film. About halfway through, Statham’s character begins to get more methodical in his search, trading the fun scenes of him interrogating criminals through creative means for going undercover and laying low. This gives more time to develop the many antagonists, but it also adds a lot of time where the star of the show is entirely passive or off screen, making it incredibly hard to stay emotionally invested. As the story meanders further away from that core appeal of Statham bulldozing his way through bad guys, it becomes both less exciting and harder to follow.  This lack of narrative focus feeds into a hazy sense of thematic purpose. In The Beekeeper, Statham starts off attacking a local criminal operation, but progresses through higher and higher echelons of power, tying his personal vendetta into a crusade to rid American society of deeply rooted evils... that happen to be a litany of right-wing grievances. The clear escalation within the storytelling feeds into the animating thesis of the film: moral rot flows downstream of power and privilege.
Here, there are so many different figures representing so many points of the criminal ladder, it’s impossible to parse who exactly is the ultimate bad guy. If the powerful people at the top are the worst of the bunch, why does Statham spend so little time confronting them? If it’s the underlings perpetrating the crimes their bosses order, is that not antithetical to the supposed working-class ethos of the character? What are we to make of the drug peddler who earns some respect just because he served in the military? As charged as the politics of that previous film may have been, it presented a neatly defined threat, and an overriding sense of purpose and import to the quest for revenge. That gets lost in the shuffle here, and it makes for a less compelling movie. I wish I could say that the film is elevated by the action, or the supporting ensemble, or the dialogue, but these only impress in fits and spurts. There are moments of over-the-top violence, with beautifully explosive squibs sending out clouds of red mists, but the fisticuffs are often too darkly lit and too quickly edited to get a sense of what’s going on. Though there’s a handful of fun turns by the likes of Michael Peña and Chidi Ajufo, most of the cast is given precious little material to work with. Most of the best quips can be found in the trailers, and while they’re just as knowingly self-aware in the actual movie, they’re too scattered to leave an impression. With a leaner story and a clearer vision of who — or what — its hero is fighting against, perhaps the meager boons of A Working Man would be more impactful. As it stands, this is a middling entry into the oeuvres of both its star and director. A Working Man clocks into theaters 3/28. Rating: 3/5 Review by Daniel Lima  Jackie Chan is one of the most recognizable movie stars on the planet, perhaps the single most recognizable martial arts star. Kung Fu Rookie is a testament to his international appeal: an independently produced love letter to the man’s films, from the nation of Kazakhstan. That it is so indebted to his work creates a low ceiling for what this can achieve, but the studious attentiveness to what made his classic oeuvre so enchanting also gives this a high floor. By all appearances, this film is a passion project of star, producer and editor Timur Baktybayev. He plays a young man who moves from the countryside to Almaty, the largest city in the nation, in order to join the police force. Along the way, he reunites with his good-natured uncle, gets a love interest, runs afoul of a local gang of thugs, and gets into some wild fights. It’s practically impossible to talk about Kung Fu Rookie entirely on its own merits, as its constant references to Jackie Chan’s filmography — particularly his 1990’s films, when he really broke out on the international scene — seem to encourage those comparisons. The plot is a broad strokes rendition of Rumble in the Bronx; Baktybayev is clearly playing a take on Chan’s own screen persona, down to the wardrobe; all of the fights are pulled from his films, in setting and in choreography. Specific beats and gags from the action are present, and I am certain other bits outside the fight scenes simply went over my head. All of this is in good fun, but when the sole intent of art is to retread other art, there’s an enforced limit to how impressive it can be. Chan’s films existed at a particular time and place that allowed them to take the form they did. Hong Kong had a long history of action cinema, and productions were given ample time and budget to deliver set pieces; there was a large number of talented martial artists and stuntmen looking for work; Jackie Chan was an icon who people were willing to risk injury for. None of these things are true of a low budget independent film from Kazakhstan, and so it could never hope to achieve these heights.  In spite of this, Baktybayev and director Aman Ergaziyev work with what they have. Where much of Chan’s comedic work is big and broad, this film plays like a lowkey, low stakes romantic comedy: making breakfast with uncle, studying with the cute girl, helping the nice lady with her groceries. No performances stand out, but they are all charming, sweet, and easy to root for. The villains receive far less definition, but as with the films that inspired this, that’s less important than if they can be convincingly threatening in a fight. It certainly helps that this is leaner than most Hong Kong comedies, barely over an hour before credits. I can certainly think of plenty of small action films that could have benefited from such a streamlined narrative.
None of this is to say the set pieces are bad. While it’s clear that Baktybayev and the team he’s assembled don’t approach the level of on-screen athleticism of Jackie and his stunt team in their prime, they all clearly have at least some training (two of the villains are played by pro MMA fighters). It’s also clear from the blooper reel that ends the film, another Jackie staple that they were all willing to risk injury and take the time to nail their beats exactly; no surprise that the star himself chose to do the editing. The fights themselves, while necessarily pared down and simplified from what they reference, still follow the same principles that made them so electric: incorporating the environment into the action, constantly keeping the hero on the back foot and forcing to overcome incredible odds, peppering in comedy without dialing down the intensity of the movement. There’s even a handful of laudable original flourishes, the highlight being a fight on a merry-go-round. One can only imagine what could have been achieved if they were untethered to the source material. As derivative as Kung Fu Rookie may be, it is the best kind of loving homage. Beyond the appreciation for, and intimate understanding of, all that made Jackie Chan so special to so many, this is also clearly the work of someone who has internalized all of what they’ve learned. As I understand it, Kazakstan does not have a particularly robust film industry and that is a shame. The world could use some more of Timur Baktybayev. Kung Fu Rookie is now available on digital. Rating: 3.5/5 |