Flexo! Shoot Flexo! | The One (2001) Review

Partway on the timeline between Demolition Man and Everything Everywhere All at Once, behold The One, a blend of science fiction and martial arts to suitably harebrained ends. Far from an expert on all things Jet Li, this first-time viewing was spurred on by its relatively recent coverage on The Greatest Movie Ever! Podcast, in which shameful secrets were revealed about past fondness for musical acts like Drowning Pool and Papa Roach (believe me, I understand). Indeed, this movie is from the year 2001 the way that people from Boston are from Boston, and as I’m currently reading/listening to two examples of popular literature from the mid-1980s, I’ve had occasion to reflect on how often not timeless movies and television are. Those books, Blood Meridian and Stephen King’s It, are both set in the past. By contrast, it’s the rare genre film from the 1980s that doesn’t feel Totally ‘80s! and thus subject to modern nostalgia-driven filmmaking. Will we have a cultural resurgence one day of movies like The One and XXX and The Scorpion King? No. … More Flexo! Shoot Flexo! | The One (2001) Review

Awkward Phase | Unleashed (2005) Review

Everything about this movie is profoundly strange. Kerry Condon is the too-young love interest, Morgan Freeman is the Magical Negro, the most prominent motif is Bob Hoskins getting injured in cars. Beneath the streets of Glasgow, rich businessmen bet on gladiator combat fought by emotionally-damaged S&M goths. Then there’s the story itself, where Jet Li plays Danny, a seemingly mute enforcer for a loan shark, only unleashed from a literal collar to apply whirling kung fu on unsuspecting thugs. After he’s taken in by a blind piano tuner and his white teenage step-daughter, Danny will surely regain his stolen humanity. What that means is we’re gonna see Jet Li observing the world and piecing things together like a cute Pixar robot, wearing pajamas and hiding under the bed, not to mention bursting into scenes with awkward lines like “My mother, she was a whore” instead of “Hello.” … More Awkward Phase | Unleashed (2005) Review