The One review
by Ishmael Williams
If Neo is truly The One, he has nothing to fear from Jet Li's assumption of
the title.
That said, let's get right to it. There are some who would say this is my
kind of movie - shallow, action-adventure, cool fight scenes and explosions.
And yeah, they'd be right. But this one left me luke-warm, so it was okay.
Briefly, Jet Li plays Yulaw, who seems to be bent on killing people. Well,
not lots of people, unless they get in his way. He seems most intent on
killing himself, over and over again. You see, he comes from a parallel
Earth that has perfected dimension travel. He travels from "Earth" to
"Earth" killing the other incarnations of himself. He is chased by actors
Delroy Lindo ("Roedecker") and Jason Statham ("Evan Funsch").
Briefly, Jet Li plays Gabe, a cop who, while transporting a prisoner, is
attacked by.... himself. Gabe is a good guy, you see, with the Los Angeles
police department, and in the blink of an eye, he is thrust into a life and
death struggle across dimensions with Yulaw. He is chased by actors Delroy
Lindo ("Roedecker") and Jason Statham ("Evan Funsch").
Strangely, almost too much time is spent in developing the characters and
not enough on developing the story. Li is one-dimensional in his portrayal
of Yulaw, and barely adds a second dimension (no puns intended) in his
portrayal of Gabe. The characters portrayed by Lindo and Statham are
predictable, almost too much so. You know, after certain pieces of
dialogue, which of them is going to do what. If only they could do it as
well as, say, Gibson and Glover. But that's asking a lot.
There are tons of minor characters, all of whom basically take a beating at
the hands of Yulaw. With nothing else to look at, you fall back on the
special effects and fight scenes and draw one conclusion: The Matrix did it
better. There is a valiant attempt to draw on how The Matrix filmed and
executed fight scenes. And The One simply gives truth to the old adage of
there being many imitations and few duplications. The special effects were
okay, although upon closer examination one can see how they break down and
fail to look quite real.
Finally, it's always interesting to see an action star take on himself. Of
course, as far as I can remember, no one else has done it since Jean-Claude
Van Damme. Perhaps Mr. Li should have taken note of that, and not tried it
himself. In the end, the actor is fighting a stunt double, and the stunt
doubles are never quite as good. It's always better, in my humble opinion,
to fight someone totally different, and have the viewers marvel at the
differences in style. Fighting yourself, in the end, is only showing people
more of the same.
Give it 1 beaker for the attempt at the idea, and wait for late night
television, if at all.
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The One
One
Beaker
(out of five)
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Ishmael I. Williams is a fan of both movies and television, and
doesn't get to see as much as he'd like in any given year. Still, what he
does get to see he enjoys writing about, and hope people will stop by from
time to time to see what he has to say. He also thinks he's going to be a
pretty good foil for Tim Wick, fellow board member and with whom he often
disagrees on a film (ask Tim and Ish about Wild Wild West sometime).
He previously wrote about Archangel Protocol.
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