Sunday, October 07, 2007

WAR! Exploding Dog!

War was originally going to be titled Rogue as I previously reported but they changed the name for some reason but not the concept: pitting Jason Statham against Jet Li in a slightly more realistic setting than The One.

In this movie, Statham is the commander of the FBI's Asian Crime Task Force who is determined to get revenge on an infamous skilled assassin Rogue (Li). His efforts are somewhat hampered by a sudden escalation of hostilities between the Chinese Triads and the Japanese Yakuza.

The movie has excellent action-oriented performances from both Statham and Li but I was hoping for a bit more from them considering their recent performances in Crank and Fearless respectively. However as there's no shortage of automatic weapons fire, edged weapon dismemberment and fragmentary explosions; (including a suicide bomber dog!) I can't really fault the movie too much. This is surprisingly the feature film directorial debut of Philip G. Atwell formerly a music video director whom you would not think would be able to craft such very clever production which gives us plenty of gang shootouts, assassinations, motor cycle and car chases, and enough over the top violence for the most hardened of viewers. One blood bath takes place in a Japanese tea house in San Fran's Chinatown where a room full of Yakuza and their kimono clad waitress are reduced to an unnecessary amount of pure dead meat - sublime!

Once I heard there was going to be a twist greater than anything that Shyamalan could've pulled off at the end of this movie, I set all the details to "go dark"; a total blackout. I didn't want to know anything else about this movie and it paid off, as unlike some other brilliant movies this year- the climax of this one will blow you away physically and emotionally- well that's if you can get emotionally vested in characters from an action movie that is.

Final verdict: Sometimes awful dialog and restrained acting couldn't take away the adrenalin rush from this superb action flick, but I was expecting something a bit more from these two.

Colonel Creedon Rating: ****1/2

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

And there you have it folks, the Lt.Col has finally come out of the closet and admitted his addiction to Gun Porn.

Major General Creedon said...

You thought that was a secret??? WTF???

Anonymous said...

Admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery, continue like this and pretty soon you'll be a tree-hugging, long-haired hippy, pot-smoking, draft-dodging, liberal Democrat. Are you sure you want to go down this path?, Wouldn't you much rather go back into the Gun Porn Closet?

Major General Creedon said...

*goes back inside*

Anonymous said...

anyone who saw his DVD collection in its magnificence would know he had an addiction to Gun Porn.

Major General Creedon said...

Next time you come to visit. Remind be to show you my DVD on cleaning a variety of today's most common pistols :)