This could have been a much better movie. The initial premise certainly offers possibilities: Jason Statham (aka Turkish in Snatch) is an ex-military type living in the south of France who transports anything (bank robbers, packages, etc.) - no questions asked - for a price. The gimmick is that he plans everything out in advance. On one mission, however, a flat tire causes him to realize that he’s transporting the lovely Qi Shu. He DOES deliver the package - but the bad guys know he peeked and . . . after this the movie becomes all flash. Just mix together some James Bondish car chases involving improbable events; some Jackie Chan type hyper-choreographed martial arts fight scenes where our hero fights an endless supply of villains; a tepid romance with the lovely Qi Shu (whose lips, in my view, look as if her doctor fell asleep for a few seconds during her last round of collagen injections); and a skeletal plot about smuggling Chinese refugees into France. Then add as many opportunities as possible for Statham to take off his shirt and display his muscled torso and voila, you sorta have the movie.
Fans of Statham from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and Snatch will be disappointed. He was a much more interesting character in those movies than he is here.
This is a clever and stylish movie that I enjoyed more than I thought I would. Think: "Reservoir Dogs" meets "Groundhog Day."
Blade (played again by Wesley Snipes), the super-cool
partly-human vampire guy who hunts pure vampires, is back and badder (well,
maybe not BAD-der) than ever. This time, he joins forces with an elite
group of vampires who had been trained to kill HIM in order to wage war
against a vampire-mutation who has the nasty habit of preying on vampires
the way vampires prey on humans. This group includes Reinhardt (Ron Perlman)
and a vampire princess named Nyssa (Lenor Varela), who’s supposed to be
the love interest. Perlman, as always, plays the villain with just
the right comic touch. Varela brings little to role except a few
nice outfits; and there’s certainly no real chemistry between her and Snipes.
Basically, this movie is a mix of Aliens and the Matrix with a dash of
Nosferatu tossed here and there. Flashy with lots of action,
but not much else. Snipes himself is less an actor in this movie than a
well-built guy who says little and jumps around a lot - all the while
looking good in black leather.