Cinematical

It sounds like a pretty basic (yet can't-miss) project: Take two of the biggest international action stars, plunk them down into a basic plot framework, and just wait for the mayhem to start mounting. I'll admit that the idea of seeing Jason Statham and Jet Li reign War on one another sounded like a pretty amusing way to waste 90-some minutes. And then the lights went down. And the movie started. And then for another 90-some minutes, I began wondering why I ever switched my major from education to film studies.

It's amazing how many things the all-first-timer team of (director) Philip Atwell, (screenwriters) Lee Smith and Greg Bradley get wrong here, so I'll just get this ridiculously obvious joke out of the way and then get onto the review: War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Whether you're there for Statham's cool blend of wit and toughness or for Li's amazing martial arts skills -- you'll walk away from War disappointed. This is a movie that has two actors who are more than capable of delivering solid action scenes, and yet the duo are constantly undone by Atwell's ham-fisted directing, a screenplay full of ideas that were old-hat about 25 years ago, and an editorial approach best described as "hyper-spasmodic, with extra strobe lights."

The plot is about as compelling as a Christmas card: A burnt-out FBI agents wages "WAR" on a legendary assassin who killed his partner, his family, and about 1,900 random stuntmen. That's literally it. Pick any stray cop show of the last fifteen years and you're likely to find a more compelling 'procedural' piece -- which is fine, really, since we all bought tickets for action and not for brilliant writing -- but here's the most annoying part: Not only are the action scenes annoyingly few and far between, but when they do bother showing up they look like half-hearted music videos that were edited with a rusty blender. Plus the flick is mired knee-deep in a "Triads vs. Yakuza" concept that's outdated at best, frequently offensive at worst.

On top of all that, the movie is intent on implying that its own audience is stupid. For example, for the first hour of the movie we're offered precisely one (1) plot point: That this legendarily unstoppable assassin -- one who surgically alters his face to thwart his pursuers -- uses a very specific and very rare type of bullet. We're shown this in the prologue, it comes up as an "important" plot point early in ... and then (less than 10 minutes into the movie) we're offered a flashback that illustrates, yep, this killer sure loves these particular bullets. It's not just sloppy writing and clumsy storytelling; it's actually kind of insulting. And I haven't even gotten to the endless series of cliches, stereotypes, and mindless "twists" that pass for plot developments. Familiar faces belonging to Luis Guzman, Devon Aoki and Saul Rubinek flit by once in a while, but these folks are components of the deadly-dull "filler" plot that exists only to kill time between the action stuff.

So while I walked into War hoping for a broad and mindless piece of hyper-kinetic escapism, what I actually got was a very dry, very empty and aggressively non-sensical series of dialog scenes that sometimes FEEL like they're leading up to something exciting -- but instead peter out like a very expensive flashlight that's got very spotty batteries. For your $9.50 you'll get about 3.5 action scenes, none of which are even remotely fresh, exciting or creative enough to earn your hard-earned cash. Plus -- and I know this is a common complaint these days -- the action bits are cut together in such indecipherably haphazard fashion that you really can't tell who just shot who and which screaming idiot just fell down the elevator shaft.

Had the movie amped up the pace, jettisoned all its endlessly conventional wheel-spinning, and just delivered some high-octane action lunacy ... I would have been perfectly satisfied. But the truth is that there's just enough action here to fill a half-decent trailer. If you've seen that trailer, then you've already seen a much more entertaining version of War.