War
Jason Statham is San Francisco FBI agent John Crawford seeking revenge on the infamous assassin Rogue (Jet Li) who killed his partner and family. Now filled with guilt and betrayal his world crumbles as his obsession of catching Rogue grows. Three years later, Rogue emerges and sparks a crime war between the Yakuza and Triad gangs. Somewhere in the midst of all the bloodshed Crawford hopes to locate Rogue, so he can exact revenge.
With a lazy title like War, already moviegoers are turned off by the idea of seeing this movie. Walking in, my friend and I collectively shared this feeling. As I was skeptical going in that such movie with a dimwitted title would be bad, it most certainly was. War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing! War is good for disappointing you and making you feel helpless for 90 minutes while you watch a montage of absurdity go off in the complete wrong direction.
This was Philip G. Atwell's first time in the director's chair for a movie. His prior work included mostly music videos. His direction in War was obviously a direct descendent from his previous work. With the soundtrack used and quick cuts looped in with brief slow motion shots, War resembled one big music video. It was even obvious when subtitles appeared on the screen. It had this little "scrambling" effect, which was constant throughout the film. I don't know whether Atwell was trying to be cute or not, but it was just very overused and irritating. It's just as nauseating as the dialogue itself.
The acting in the movie was far from extraordinary, but going in my expectations were considerably low due to the casting. Jason Statham is back as the rugged, tough guy, who just yells and forgets to shave. The man has no range. He goes from angry to angrier and no sign of any other human emotions. Jet Li's character speaks no more then fifteen times. He just stands there with a blank expression and an occasional evil looking smirk. His death-like silence and firmly planted statue-like stance forces everyone to overact just to carry the scene to evoke some sort of reaction from the audience.
Jason Statham and Jet Li are primarily known for their jaw-dropping martial artistry, not their heartfelt, tear-jerking performances. Moviegoers trek to the theater to see these two kick butt and provide high flying, wild and crazy karate moves wailing on the bad guys. There wasn't anything between them until the climactic moment in the third act where they square off, which is a let down.
This movie is nothing more than a cheap marketing ploy utilizing a budget of most likely no more than $15 million dollars casting the two current biggest martial artists in Hollywood. Theoretically, it might sound like a bright idea, however, the studio forgot about one tiny problem. Nobody cares about these two characters! We don't feel any connection or reason to care about them.