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DokBrowne [ 6.5 ]
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Forgiving its lack of ambition (aside from the slick photography and dollops of CGI during the action scenes, everything about this movie - the story, dialogue, acting, music - could have been lifted from the late '80s), and provided you don't take the genre too seriously, this is a decent attempt to revive the old ninja brand. Rain the likable hero provides a handful of impressive badass moments, the pacing doesn't lag too much, and there's buckets of blood (albeit mostly digital-looking) streaking across the screen and strewn over clothing and faces. Even the ostensibly boring parts, like the flashbacks to his young training and doomed romance with a fellow warrior, or the investigation of co-protagonist Naomie Harris into the secret world of warring kung fu clans, or Harris and Rain's bonding scenes, are kinda comfortingly functional. They're competently done odes to older techniques of storytelling in this genre, and fit perfectly with the itself-arcane concept of a big movie about ninjas.
In fact, one of the worst things about the movie - its simple-minded cheesiness - is nearly endearing if you accept the movie on those terms. And if you've voluntarily sat down to watch a movie about ninjas beating each other up, you kinda have to.
The only real, inexcusable flaw to the movie is the frequent incoherency of the fight scenes - whether said 1,000 times already or not, the point about modern action filmmaking needing to just put the camera down and SHOW THE FUCKING ACTION needs to be made again. I get the need/trend/value of making it look all whirlwind intense like the viewer is actually in the middle of it, but when the director isn't that good, as is usually the case and certainly is here, the supposed money-shot scenes just turn out annoyingly impossible to follow.
Otherwise, this is a good enough movie to see with friends, or if you're looking for a generically fun time. It's got ninja violence, end of story.
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| Weighted Rating | : 6.7 |
| No. Ratings | : 1 | |
| No. Reviews | : 1 | |
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