War
Starring: Jet Li, Jason Statham, Nadine Velazquez
Director: Philip G. Atwell
Genre: Action / Thriller
Rated: Rated R for sequences of strong bloody violence, sexuality/nudity and language.
Duration: 1hr 43mins
Plot: An FBI agent (Statham) wedges himself in a conflict between a Triad boss and Yakuza chief in order to suss out the assassin (Li) who killed his partner three years ago.

My Review: War poses a couple of great action movie stars, Statham and Li, against each other and yet still manages to come out as a very mediocre action flick. That’s probably because there isn’t much action tacked on to a painfully over-thought plot. Following a pretty exciting opening sequence War goes into cruise control as it makes its way around the track being sure to hit every cliche in its path. You’ve got the gunned down cop’s partner and family, check, the bad guy that gets facial reconstructive surgery every few years, check, and the cop who is so set on revenge that his marriage is ruined, check. All of that wouldn’t have been so bad if they could have just been satisfied with blending in with every other action movie from the 80’s

What brought War down for me was the surprisingly limited action and the overburdened story. Considering all of Jet Li’s impressive set of martial arts skills I was really surprised to see him constantly using a gun to dispatch enemies for the first half of the movie. It’s not until the closing where we see him really let loose with the kicks and punches. The same goes for Statham, just without the martial arts. Statham has done lots of action movies now and I find him very entertaining in these roles. So I’m not sure why the writers/director held him back from putting more action into the mix. Those were both big missed opportunities. While that was disappointing the worst part of the movie would have to be the storyline. As the movie plods along you can tell that something just isn’t right with Li as he seems to take a special liking to one of the mob boss’ wife and child. However, that in no way prepared me for how mangled of a twist they would try to work in on Li’s true motivation. It’s painfully impossible and illogical even for a shoot ‘em up movie. As though it wasn’t enough to smack around Li’s character the writers were sure to try to mess with Statham’s as well giving him a darkened past that no one could have ever guessed based on the story. Ugh.

Overall, the action in War was fun when it decided to show up, but the messy story and wasted actors was just too much for me. I’d recommend you pass on War, I wish I had.

Rating: 2.5/5 stars
High Point: Li’s martial arts moves
Low Point: The “What?!” twist

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