12-11-2016, 03:25 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-11-2016, 03:41 PM by Drunk Monk.)
This reboot is all about JCVD who steals the show from a stable of MMA fighters that are 2 decades his junior. Cain, Werdum, & GSP are mostly negligible and Gina is completely wasted (she plays a villainous promoter so has no fight scenes.) Newcomer Moussi in the lead is in great shape - heck they are all in great shape. This is a pec, gun and washboard show - borderline homoerotically so. There's one other female character other than Gina, a hot cop love interest who does a short topless love scene but that in no way makes up for all the beefcake. Bautista is the villain, doing what he always does.
The fights are plentiful with lots of gratuitous blood spitting. The sequences aren't long, mostly one move, one cut, but Moussi pulls off some crazy aerial kicks. He has skills and potential. And there are swordfights, even a swordfight finale, which gets a little dumb because once the sword are dropped, no one bothers to pick them up again even though they are in reach in the shots.
Thailand is shown off fairly well, except the whole underground fight scene is dumb like usual. The fight-to-the-death spectators are casually attired and only one row deep. And Thailand has a great fight scene - you can watch Muay Thai anywhere. It bugged me that they called it Muay Thai and didn't observe the traditional bows or music. Plus Muay Thai is a modern sport. The lethal stuff is Muay Boran and the sword work is Krabi Krabong. The filmmakers went to the effort of having a lot of dialog in Thai, you'd think they'd do just a tad more research.
This franchise already has a sequel in the works. I'll watch that if JCVD is on board. He even dominates the end credit dance scene which Moussi tries to spoof (if you've seen the original, you know).
The fights are plentiful with lots of gratuitous blood spitting. The sequences aren't long, mostly one move, one cut, but Moussi pulls off some crazy aerial kicks. He has skills and potential. And there are swordfights, even a swordfight finale, which gets a little dumb because once the sword are dropped, no one bothers to pick them up again even though they are in reach in the shots.
Thailand is shown off fairly well, except the whole underground fight scene is dumb like usual. The fight-to-the-death spectators are casually attired and only one row deep. And Thailand has a great fight scene - you can watch Muay Thai anywhere. It bugged me that they called it Muay Thai and didn't observe the traditional bows or music. Plus Muay Thai is a modern sport. The lethal stuff is Muay Boran and the sword work is Krabi Krabong. The filmmakers went to the effort of having a lot of dialog in Thai, you'd think they'd do just a tad more research.
This franchise already has a sequel in the works. I'll watch that if JCVD is on board. He even dominates the end credit dance scene which Moussi tries to spoof (if you've seen the original, you know).
Shadow boxing the apocalypse