8/10
Author: Kevin Kurtz Date: 1/6/08 Time: 4:57PM
Movie reviews are difficult to tackle. You want explain how good a movie is, without ruining it. I'm going to try to tiptoe around what to tell and what to leave out, this being my first review and all. Eventually though, I hope to just instinctively know what I should give away and what I shouldn't. I'm going to try and review something new at least every week and maybe more often if I get bored. That's really all this site is, a when I'm bored production. The movie I'm reviewing is one that came out on DVD Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 (I hope by now you have noticed that DVDs are always ALWAYS released on Tuesdays, not entirely sure why that is, but they are.) It is titled simply "War". Main characters are played by Jason Statham and Jet Li.
Now, normally, I'm not a huge Jet Li fan. I did like The One, and there have been a few others that got on my good side, but all in all I don't like his style of movie. I'm not much into the martial arts movies. I'm more of a Die Hard fan, if sh*t's exploding and people are being shot at, then the movie is doing what it was made to do. But in the case of War, there was just enough martial arts. The gun play was everywhere, but all the characters had their chance to do some kicking and real fighting. You also have to love that there was fire, explosives, and plenty of car crashes as well. It seems that this action movie has everything that one needs to be a Man's Classic. (Not that women can't enjoy that stuff too, I'm just stereotyping like I usually do) I can't remember if there was a lot of foul language or if that was me screaming it at the television, but I assure you, this is an action movie by everyone's definition.
On the other hand, (going back to my statement way at the beginning of the last paragraph) I am a rather large Jason Statham fan. I thought CRANK was pretty crappy, but Lock Stock and Snatch were both glorious in my opinion. So, going into this film I was already on the fence. I didn't know what to expect. The previews had shown a great deal of shooting and fighting, but you can't live with just that. You need a real story line to drive off of, if you don't feel emotionally connected with your characters then your not going to care about the fighting. You won't care which side wins which, in turn, means you don't care that you are even witnessing it. Well, I can promise you that you will remain emotionally connected to a character the whole way through. I will leave it to you to decide who, and you are welcome to change part way through the movie, I did. There is a story to this film, mostly just fighting, the whole of the story could be summarized in about 10 minutes or so, but once you finally reach the conclusion of that story, the whole ride was worth it. I'm used to some strange twists in films, but believe me when I say that the writers of this movie truly are geniuses.
This is where it is difficult for me. I'm very much trying not to give anything away, but it is hard for you to believe the reasons for my love of the story, without actually knowing about the story. There will be occasions, I'm sure, where I will give up some of the story to a film, but this is not one of them. I would be doing the world a horrible injustice if I broke this for anyone. Just go to your nearest RedBox, pop in a dollar, and get this DVD. Well, I would actually rather suggest BUYING it! Because these guys deserve the money, but I will leave it at rent unless you truly love it because the average watcher will not pop it in again. Don't get me wrong, it's a great movie, but this goes with the same reason I can't tell you anything. Once you know the plot, it will take away from the rest of the movie. So, if you were reading this to find out something about the story. DON'T! Just go watch it. Now, if you were reading this to find out about the effects or the casting, then please continue on.
The special effects during this film were not the most spectacular ever witnessed, but with this kind of fighting, if you have two people, a room, and a couple of prop guns, you really have all you need. There was no real reason for anything great. There was some fire, some explosions, and some car damage like I mentioned earlier, but it's no revolutionary. Also, there is the small annoyance of it being mostly filled with Japanese gang members, so about 10% of the dialog is in Japanese. There are subtitles, but those usually piss me off in a film so I thought I would let you know before hand. All in all the effects were mediocre, but unnecessary for the plot so I can live with them.
I'll move onto the actors. There are only a few you're going to recognize. Nobody really important. Some old Japanese dudes, some young Japanese dudes, and then our two main characters. I never saw Jet Li as a good actor, by any means. He has no emotions. Maybe that's why he is good in his films is because they don't require emotions. That's why I don't see him as a good character in a story driven movie, luckily for us, this isn't a story driven movie. It's action driven with a lot of story thrown in at the end (Good story, so don't let that sentence deter you). Jason Statham, however, was the same as he is in every roll. I don't know why I like him. He's not much of an actor either. He plays pretty much the same character in ever movie he's ever been in. This was the second time I believe that these two have been pitted against each other on screen, so they already had good chemistry (I'm speaking of the movie The One again). They were good choices for the rolls. They go well together, and apart, during this film. I think it flowed very well and nothing seemed exceptionally out of place.
I'm going to wrap this up now, simply out of the fact that my foot itches and I want to finish this before I scratch, and that I might possibly be boring someone with my rambling. War was a great movie and I think that everyone, whether they like gunfights or not, should see it. It's worth the buck to rent, or even the five if you goto block buster (who would go there anymore?) You will not regret seeing this film. It does kinda make you wonder through the midsection. I have a short attention span. But you'll catch right back up, even if you were not paying a lot of attention, and you will still get the full effect from the film. Watch it! Love it! and don't be late on returning it.
