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Jet Li, the star of The One, seems to have found a larger niche in American than most HK action hero imports. He seems able to open films based solely on his name, which seems to prove that the kung-fu genre’s success here in the states is not just limited to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Still, his latest film, which he turned down a role in The Matrix 2 to do, doesn’t nearly qualify as one of his best. It’s a harmless enough action/sci-fi film (with a kid-friendly PG-13 rating), but it’s fairly unambitious. Li’s fight scenes are exciting, as always, but they are accentuated by a Matrix-style bullet time here. Li’s character, who teleports through a multiverse to eliminate his equivalents in each world, has superhuman powers, so when he bashes an enemy, they fly across the screen even faster than usual. There is a pair of space and time-cops that are on his tail, trying to stop him from killing his final counterpart. Apparently, if he manages to kill all 125 of his clones (why 125? I have no clue either) the universe will collapse upon itself, or some such disaster. Sadly, we get only glimpses of most of the alternate universes. One, humorously, features a blonde Jet Li, named Sven. It’s unfortunate that the film doesn’t escalate into the dimension-hopping extravaganza that the similarly themed Waxwork 2: Lost in Time or Monsters Inc.

Even though most of the action is bound to our world, it’s not a realistic movie by any means. Li picks up motorcycles like they’re made of Styrofoam, and tosses people like they’re featherweight. The inevitable Li versus Li battle isn’t quite as entertaining or well-choreographed as one might hope, but its abundance of particle effects and warehouse setting make it feel like a videogame. At the end of the film, Jet Li yells, “I’m no one’s bitch!” That seems true enough. He kicks a good amount of ass in the film, but he’s certainly no Oscar contender. He seldom speaks more than one or two lines consecutively. His costars (Carla Gugino, Delroy Lindo, and Jason Statham minus a British accent) are made to pick up the slack, but none of them are particularly great actors. It’s not that I expect great dramatic moments in a picture like this, but I at least enjoy acting that’s solid enough to cut down the level of phoniness in the film a tad. Here, it’s never less than fully exposed as an arcade game. Still, it doesn’t really pretend to be anything more, and there’s something comforting in that.

11/05/01

Jeremy Heilman