*** Official "BULLETPROOF MONK" Review Thread (1 Viewer)

[LennyP]

Strangely, I couldn't find a thread on this. Well I just saw it, I must say it's another disappointing movie with lots of bad, unrealistic, out of place dialogue.

The trailer made it look exciting & fun, Jaime King sure looks beautiful, plus the two 3named guys are a strange but interesting pairing. I didn't notice it came out not on usual Friday but Wednesday, so in its second day today. Grossed about 1.4mil yesterday in 3000 theaters, pretty bad, so this weekend hopefuly will attract a crowd even though Malibu's Most Wanted will compete for the same kind of audience and based on reaction to trailers, will win.

Throughout the film I was liking the music a lot and thinking it had that Leon & The Fifth Element feel to it, someone ripping it off? No, when the credits rolled, I realized it was Eric Serra himself!

The good things:
A few funny moments, like the ones with the old theater owner, one cool bullet-resistant truck, one Indiana Jones style nazi artifact hunter, six super-sexy Jaime King glances, 60+ super-sexy hair flips, 1 awesome daughter-of-russian-mafia vs grand-daughter-of-nazi chick fight, 1 Eric Serra score, 3 great Cory Yuen choreographed fights, one John Woo style deagle (excuse me, desert eagle) in each hand scene, a dozen plasma screens with something cool on it flashing, and 200 kilograms of cheese. :p)

 

[Robert Crawford]

This thread is now the Official Review Thread for "Bulletproof Monk". Please post all HTF member reviews in this thread.

Any other comments, links to other reviews, or discussion items will be deleted from this thread without warning!

If you need to discuss those type of issues then I have designated an Official Discussion Thread.



Crawdaddy

 

[Patrick Sun]

The premise was okay, but the direction in this film (or the screenplay) had a hard time creating a feeling of urgency in it. The parts are better than the sum of the film. There's just something missing, a spark, in the film that could have made interesting or special. The pacing of the film is very average.

The onscreen chemistry between Chow Yun-Fat and Sean William Scoot is good, but the dialog is sort of middling to poor. The martial arts action is okay, some of it is fun (but given away in the trailer).

I liked the 3rd/final act more than the previous acts, but it doesn't quite salvage the film as whole. I am grateful the trailer doesn't give much of it away.

I give it 2.5 stars, or a grade of C+.

 

[Stephen Orr]

Saw it Wednesday. Okay film, kinda stupid, but enjoyed THE CORE, which I saw on Thursday, and THE TRANSPORTER, which I watched at home Thursday night, a lot more!

 

[Karl F]

I thought it was pretty bad -- I can't say "disappointing," since I had really low expectations. But I sure didn't like it.

You know what would have helped it out a lot? ...Owen Wilson.

--K

 

[Alex Spindler]

I thought it wasn't bad at all. Chow Yun Fat is always fun to watch and he is given just enough fight scenes to make it worthwhile. Seann William Scott acquitted himself far better than I expected with all of the fight scenes and wire work that he had to do. The plot is just serviceable to get them from scene to scene.

Fun for a matinee.

 

[Phil Florian]

Gah! Okay, the HK invasion of Hollywood cinema has been on for quite a while now but they still...don't...get it. The premise of the movie is fine. I could see Jackie Chan doing this as an "Armour of God 3" sort of deal any day, to be honest. The casting was fine. Chow was easy to watch as he always is and whatisname was also good, to my surprise. The villian was generic Nazi guy with generic "men in suits" as his henchmen. Evil undergound lair, check. Torture device, check. Female love interest, check. By the book, to be sure.

But this still isn't a bad thing. Execution of this, though, is the bad thing. First and foremost, no one in Hollywood has gotten an editor to do a fight scene correctly (Wachowski brothers not included). They chop the hell out of the scene so that all you know is that people are kicking and jumping but no punch started ever connects or any connection didn't have the "wind up" in it. I don't know why they don't trust their stuntmen and coordinators (the list was impressive) but they just don't. If they Wachowskis can make Keanu look like he knows what he is doing, by golly they should be able to do the same with Chow. It was uncomfortable to watch those scenes...with the odd exception being the fight between Nina (generic shocking blonde Nazi) against the proverbial "Bad Girl" Bad Girl. This was well choreographed and editted, which is odd because it was otherwise a predictable and throw-away conflict.

Which, honestly, sums up the movie. It is too bad. The rollicking fun of the Hong Kong cinema scene just hasn't taken hold over here and I honestly don't think it ever will. We will have to settle with the hours and hours of wonderful stuff from the source.

And dang it, I had hoped for a Matrix preview as a bonus but instead we get the soon-to-be destroyed Shaolin Soccer (original available cheap and IT gets it).


For the $3 I paid, I got what I expected (bad editted martial arts and a few good Chow moments). It is cheaper than a rental, anyway.


Phil

 

[Yumi]

[SIZE=no]I have no expectation on this movie even at very beginning.
-Yumi[/SIZE]

 

[Paul>Wh]

I saw this movie on Saturday and was it just me or did alot of the scenes look fake. The opening scene looked like they were just using a green room and doing it poorly. Just all of the rocks looked fake. That opening scene just helped ruin it for the whole thing. The writing was awful too.