I know I say this on a semi-regular basis, but I wasn't expecting a whole hell of a lot from tonight's movie, The Forbidden Kingdom...Although given the fact that I don't think I read anything about it and there weren't any teevee ads for it, I'm not completely sure how I reached that conclusion (and I do like a good wuxia movie). But, like I said, I wasn't expecting it to be that great.
And while it wasn't the greatest movie ever made, it was pretty good, and a lot better than I expected...
I will freely admit that the plot isn't going to win any awards for originality, you pretty much know what's going to happen in broad terms all the way through, particularly since there's a scene at the beginning where the hero gets harassed by a bully. You just know that after he's learned all his kung fu and is all ass-kickingly-fantastic he has to vanquish that particular foe before the movie is over.
But there are a few genuine surprises... one in particular which makes sense once you see it, but that you never actually see coming. Well, I didn't anyway... which is pretty rare.
The movie itself is very "Crouching Tiger", but with more laughs... lots of wire fu/wuxia action which is pretty impressive for the most part, there was actually only one fight scene where I went "okay, enough with the 'fu already, let's get back to actual plot" and that was when Jet Li and Jackie Chan's characters meet for the first time. I know it's a big thing and all, since this is the first time they've ever co-starred in a movie, but it went maybe a touch too long. There are other fight scenes that probably go on for as long if not longer, but there are more characters involved, so it feels more exciting.
And I want to give the person responsible for Michael Angarano's hairstyle progression a big fat slap (I'm guessing it's Rufus Hearn since he's down as "prosthetic hair technician")... nobody looks good with a ponytail mullet, and it looked very much like it was just a piece stuck on the back of his head. Of course he also did a really good job with a white wig for Bingbing Li so maybe he only gets a small slap.
I also wish they'd spent an extra 30 seconds explaining why Yifei Liu's Golden Sparrow character talks about herself in the third person for the whole movie... I mean, if you think about it once the movie is over it makes some sense, but would it have killed them to throw in a line explaining that it wasn't an affectation?
My only other real problem that I occasionally missed bits of dialogue since 99% of the cast was speaking with an accent and with the music and the sound effects it was sometimes hard to pick up certain lines (like I didn't actually hear Sparrow introduce herself as "Golden Sparrow")...
All in all though it's a pretty enjoyable movie... a little brainless maybe, but good on the butt kicking scale...
yani's rating: 3 Monkey Kings out of 5
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