*** Official "THE ONE" Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[McPaul]

Alright, we saw this movie tonight for a friend's birthday - who wanted to see it over Monsters Inc. It was VERY fun to watch, but don't expect to see much plot or depth of characters. Great effects of course, and amazing fight scenes! Interesting premise, but one quite obvious fault to it. (okay, more than one) Interesting depiction of Spoiler:Hades at the end however. Your thoughts?
Oh, and I loved the trailer for "not another teen movie" (I'm assuming that's what it's called) This had all 10 of us laughing and rolling in our seats.
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McPaul.
[Edited last by Paul McGowan on November 03, 2001 at 03:43 AM]

 

[tyler O]

Saw this last night at an IMAX theater and absolutely loved it. RottenTomatoes with its 18%. Bah. I love film more than most, but sometimes I just want to watch a movie. This was a great popcorn flick. Excellent stunts and fight sequences. Beautiful effects, personally I felt they were done better than the Matrix. All around very enjoyable and there were many many moments when I was dumbstruck and in awe. Beautifully done. I'm definitely buying this one... I'll get to catch the man who wasn't there this afternoon and that about wraps up what I want to see that I haven't as of yet...
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[Gregg Shiu]

Ahhh... I need more opinions on this before I see it!!! Really wanted to though, until seeing Rottentomatoes reviews. It's either this or Monsters Inc., but from what I hear, I'm just gonna buy Shrek on DVD and watch that. Does anyone else have anything to say bout The One? As a Jet Li fan, I'm hoping that the over-advertisement and less than average plot won't stand in the way of enjoying what seems to be a good popcorn flick.

 

[Alex Spindler]

The rotten tomatoes scores have me scared as well. But I'm committed to seeing it anyway. Should have an opinion for you later today.
BTW, Monsters Inc is a blast.

 

[David Lawson]

This is nothing more than a Street Fighter knockoff with some Timecop and Highlander nods thrown into the plot. I didn't think any of those three movies were any good, either.
There are some nice effects, but does Jet Li really need computer assistance in fight scenes? This was a huge complaint about Romeo Must Die, but The One carries it to the extreme.
To be honest, I wasn't expecting much going in. No one should. I do enjoy mindless entertainment from time to time, but there really wasn't much entertainment here. I still think I'd watch The One before I'd watch Shrek again, though...at least it isn't getting any undeserved hype, IMO.

 

[Brad_W]

don't expect to see much plot or depth of characters.

Almost all action movies don't have plot or depth of characters. The "dumb action movie guy" persona can be seen lurking around the Steven Segal movies at the video store. I'm not trying to make fun of people, just an observation I make from working at a video store. "Ohhh, Navy Seals" (clerks, I know). For a while, I hated action movies because of their lack of plot and character depth, but as I'm getting older I enjoy watching them because of their lack of substance; it can be fun. My wife and I will occasionally watch a Segal movie for comedic purposes.
Anyway, sorry if I offended some, I didn't mean to. I want to see "The One." It looks like it will be a fun movie. Although, I am starting to get a little tired of the slow-mo camera "Matrix" shot. So many movies are doing it these days that it's appeal has begun to wear off. Still, I'm gonna go see it.
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[Alex Spindler]

I'm dying to see what they do to make Matrix 2 look fresh, especially in light of the lifecycle of bullet-time. It's already gone from innovative->copied->parodied->tired.

 

[Duane Robinson]

I loved it. Sometimes I just want to see ass getting kicked, stuff blowing up, and no plot anywhere in sight. Although the plot wasn't Citizen Kane or anything it was a lot better than a lot of the stuff that's been trying to pass for action flicks these days. The stunts were great and the special effects were awesome, although that bike thing did look a little too CGI and cartoony. I can't wait for the dvd to come out for this bad boy. I'm gonna be all over it.
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[McPaul]

David - yes, I was also thinking Timecop while watching this flick. I was the only one in my party tho however. Agree, timecop, and other vandamme movies are horrible.
The bike shot? yep looked way too overdone, but what the hell, this movie was FUN TO WATCH!!
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McPaul.

 

[Brian Crowe]

I was REALLY pumped after the initial fight scene. I think the bullet-time technique has evolved since Matrix. However, it seemed to get bogged down in a mediocre storyline. Since this was mostly just eye-candy anyway they should have focused on the effects more throughout and skip the plot. And did everyone in this movie learn to shoot at the stormtrooper academy or what? There was some insanely cool hardware that you could use to shoot everything around your target without actually hitting it. The final showdown made up for most of the shortcomings though.
Overall: good fights and effects mixed with an interesting concept which suffers from bad storytelling. I'm putting money on Matrix 2 to blow it out of the water.
Not to say I won't end up buying it though
(Guilty shrug)
OH, and one kick-ass soundtrack if you like heavy music.
~Crowe~

 

[Alex Spindler]

Wow, I had the opposite reaction. I was fairly disappointed in the film in many areas. What makes it so hard is that Kiss of the Dragon was right in so many ways. A real back-to-basics film that I thought was a move in the right direction.
This one had so many things to be disappointed with that I'm a little concerned that it got as far as it did.
First,
Why don't they just let the man do his stuff. I initially loved the special effects scenes where he could move ridiculously fast, but they got so tiresome and I felt like any non-martial artist could have taken the role. It was only in certain sections of the ending that there was any real physical combat.
Second,
Waaayyy too short. I mean, it was over before it had a chance to get going. Why not show at least one more acquisition to get us in the swing of things. That they essentially repeat the first scene 5 minutes later doesn't help at all. Maybe show some scenes where Gabe learns to harness the power he's had all along.
Third,
Totally inconsistent. Not that I'm trying to read into this too much, but there were some severe story problems. Why was Law afraid of the multiverse guys at all. They weren't any more powerful or fast than normal people, and their weapons didn't appear to be any more effective (despite being "smart"). I would have thought he would have dispatched them at will, but instead he runs or capitulates every time. Then there is the question as to why Gabe doesn't exhibit all the power that Law does from the beginnning. He had some abilities, but they weren't anywhere near Law's level, even though they were equal.
Of course, I specifically didn't read into the script, because it was not written to make any sense. But they could have included some basic meat and potatoes story elements to flesh out the story.
Fourth,
The music was ridiculous. Very disappointing musical choices, that had the same effect as they had on Universal Soldier: The Return, make a bad film even harder to experience. I can appreciate a modern soundtrack for a film if they match up the scenes to it well and choose some nice tracks, but these were damn near inappropriate and silly.
The only parts that I really enjoyed was the first scene, some sections of the ending fight (the spark section was pretty fun visually and was bookended by some nice fight choreography) and the end
Spoiler:The perpetual King of the Hill in Hades was a nice touch, and certainly preferrable to killing off Law.
Giving this one

, with the extra half for the 30 seconds that Mark Borchardt (from American Movie) was in it and for the beginning, which had some some impressive beatings in it (before it got old).
[Edited last by Alex Spindler on November 03, 2001 at 10:08 PM]

 

[Steve_J]

I have to agree with Alex Spindler. I love action movies and loved K.O.D. and the Matrix. However the inconsistencies in this movie annoyed the crap outta me.
I mean Law could pick up two moving motorcycles but he couldn't dispatch or at least incapitate the multiverse guys for a long time.
At the beginning Law seemed to have extreme powers but when he was fighting in non-slow mo or just running away he looked weak. That didn't make sense.
Also how was the multiverse guys pointing a gun at his head threatening? Law knew they couldn't kill him because it would disrupt the universe so where's the threat? And who was that redhead with the rat-bomb at the beginning who helped to free Law?
My main gripe was that Law's powers seemed really inconsistent and when he wasn't doing slow-mo stuff he looked really normal.
Another thing, if when Law kills one of his selves and the power of that self is divided equally between all of his selves how come is other selves didn't become stronger or gain powers and resist their fate?
I thought all the slow-mo stuff was really cool but anything in between was boring and didn't make much sense even for a Jet Li action movie.

 

[AJ Johnson]

I usually hate Jet Li's wire-fu movies because they take away from his natural ability but I liked The One a lot...it was very fun to watch more because of Li's villain role than anything else. I agree they should have focused more on his powers and eye candy more than the plot because there was barely a plot in the first place. It was a sci-fi movie without the science. The fight scenes didn't disappoint. The Jet vs. Jet fight scene didn't really have much wirework except for them flying as a result of power kicks and power punches. Most of the fighting was on the ground. There wasn't much "floating" ala CTHD and I was thankful for that. I agree..it was too short. About the same running time as Monsters Inc. They could have put in one more action/fight scene to make up for that. Overall I had a good time watching it and the "King of the Hill" dialogue/fight had the crowd laughing and cheering in the end. I never thought I would ever hear Jet Li say what he did but it was funny as hell. Yulaw is now one of my favorite villains.
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http://www.angelfire.com/sk/hitman1/AJtheatercover
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[Patrick Sun]

For a Jet Li vehicle, it was okay.
Spoiler:Why would you send the guy to Hades where he'll be fighting everyone on the planet. Eventually he'll die (he's got to sleep, doesn't he?) and when that happens, Gabe in the clean Los Angeles multiverse, will get all of his powers and become twice as powerful as he is now.
I'd give it a 2 stars. Some of the effects are neat, some don't make much sense, the concept is somewhat immaturely conceived.
I did enjoy seeing Spy Mom (Carla Gugino) though.
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[Kirk Tsai]

As a huge Jet Li fan, I was dreading the arrival of this movie. As others have pointed out, I get really angry when the filmmakers think they need to pour in ridiculous special effect shots for Li's action scenes. That being said, as I had seen the ads and trailers more than a few times, I was quite prepared for all the fantasy stuff. And as it turned out, it wasn't that hard to get used to, though I still feel it's basically a waste of Li's talents. No surprise I suppose, since The Rock was originally planned for the role. I did enjoy some of the martial arts choreography, especially how Li tried to demonstrate the different styles for the two main characters. Now if someone would just properly film these action sequences...

 

[Robert Crawford]

This thread is now designated the Official Discussion Thread for "The One.". Please, post all comments, links to outside reviews, film and box office discussion items to this thread.
All HTF member film reviews of "The One." should be posted to this thread .
Thank you for your consideration in this matter.
Crawdaddy
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[Edited last by Robert Crawford on November 04, 2001 at 04:16 AM]

 

[David Ren]

This movie can be funny in a MSTK3 kind of way and I enjoyed the action scenes up to a certain point. Then they just get repetitive. The only cool parts were the slo-mo bullet-time style shots (but there were only a few of those)
Problems with the movie:
- People die at different times. If there are 125 versions of everyone, sooner or later, 124 of them will die, leaving only one alive. Why doesn't the last one explode/implode/become a god?
- Yu Law could've easily killed the multiverse agents anytime he wanted. He also had no reason to be scared of their guns, so he shouldn't have been captured in the first place.
- He could've easily killed Gabe too. In the beginning, where Gabe hasn't fully realized his powers yet, Yu Law had many opportunities to kill him.
- The scene in the hospital. Why did Yu go into the doctor's place and try to kill the doctor? He should've just went into Gabe's room and killed him while he was in the MRI machine.
- Now that I think about it, If Yu was smart, he would've attempted to kill all his other "ones" while they were asleep in bed, and not get into long fights with hundreds of cops.
- What Patrick said about sending him to Hades, where he'll die eventually, and the other guy will implode/explode/or become a god.
- Yu Law is fast enough to dodge bullets and throw people in the air and kick them before they fall down, but he can only run 50 miles an hour?
-Too short (80 minutes, with around 9 minutes of opening/closing credits)
- Why 125? there should be an infinite amount of universes
That's it for now. I'm sure I can think of 100 more plot holes later.
Dave

 

[Elbert Lee]

Plot holes aside, I was entertained, but also disappointed with the film as well. The premise is interesting, but there was absolutely nothing between the action scenes that was worth the time spent on it. There were so many interesting possiblities for the film makers to do. They would have fleshed out more of a relationship between the two Jet Li characters (similarities and differences, philisophical and personal drama, etc.) Instead, they were just two dudes bent on killing each other. I did,however love the last line in the movie.
Elbert

 

[Justin Lane]

I just got done seeing this today and can only describe the film as mindless action. If you concentrate too much on the plot you will definitely see the many holes and inconsistencies (Spoiler:an auto tracking gun that is supposed to fire 25 rounds per second then just fires singles shots that miss the target for example).
However if you go into it just looking for a fun time, and a decent entry into the action genre then you should be in for a good time.
J
[Edited last by Justin Lane on November 04, 2001 at 04:47 PM]