The Man With the Iron Fists (2012) - Movie Review

Wu-Tang Clan might not be 'nuthin' to fuck with', but The Man with the Iron Fist, is.  I'm sorry, that was terrible.

The Man with the Iron Fists is a new martial arts film from RZA, best known from the Wu-Tang Clan, and Eli Roth.  In some ways this is a loving tribute to old school martial arts films.  Unfortunately, it's not a very good one.

I'm a little torn here, and I have mixed feelings about RZA's story and direction.  I was looking forward to this, as I know RZA is a huge fan of martial arts, so I was a little disappointed at what ended up on screen here.  However, I've heard that the original cut was intended to be over 4 hours long, and RZA suggested splitting this up into two films.  Eli Roth disagreed, and the movie was cut down to 96 minutes.  Apparently RZA was so disgusted with the editing process that he walked out at one point.  I can't say I blame the guy.  If the movie isn't what his intended vision was, can I really slam him too much for it?  The movie is poorly edited and I felt that there was very little backstory or character development for many of the characters. Maybe the original cut of the film had these elements though.

What's it even about?  Basically, from what I could tell, it's about gold and revenge.

The movie centers around the Blacksmith (RZA), who also narrates the film.  He needed to, otherwise, you wouldn't have known what was going on at all.  The Blacksmith is trying to save up enough money so he and his girlfriend, a prostitute played by Jamie Chung, can go away together. He eventually becomes the title character as the story progresses.

There's the Lion Clan, lead by Silver Lion (Byron Mann) and Brass Lion (Cung Le), who are after some gold being transported by the Gemini Clan on behalf of the Emperor.  They also killed the leader of the Lion Clan, Gold Lion.  The son of Gold Lion, Zen-Yi (Rick Yune) is after them to avenge his father's murder.

Jack Knife (Russell Crowe) - yes, his name is Jack Knife - is a British soldier sent to retrieve the gold on behalf of the Emperor.  I think.  This is where I think the editing came into play as I didn't get his motivation or role in the film at all.  Initially, it seemed like he was after the Blacksmith, but then allied with him almost instantly.  As much as I like Russell Crowe, I think he was really miscast here, especially when there were any action scenes involving him.  His performance was silly at times.

The movie starts out campy and I thought it was going to be a film that I was going to enjoy for it's intentional badness.  It did have those moments, but there were times where it was just plain bad or silly.  The dialog and narration is terrible, as is the acting.  When the audience would laugh, there were times it felt they were laughing at how bad it was, not laughing with it.

The one character I actually enjoyed was when Dave Bautista would shows up as "Brass Body".  I didn't think his acting was bad, and he was a character that I felt might had some depth to him had he been in it more.  He's a mercenary that can turn his body to metal, kind like a gold Colossus from the X-Men.  It was a cool effect, but his ability seemed more reflexive than controlled, as he doesn't use it all the time.  You'd think if he'd control it, he'd stay in the form for the duration of a fight, but maybe it was simply that they didn't have the budget to do the effect that much.

Speaking of, the overall look of the film is very nice and you can tell a lot of detail went into the sets and production design.  It's another example to me of RZA's knowledge of the genre.  Another thing I liked was the soundtrack.  There's something about the mix of hip hop and martial arts action that works.

Does it at least have good martial arts action?  Unfortunately, no.  It starts off hyper violent, but then devolves into a mess of bad CG-blood.  Once again, I hear that many of the gorier elements were removed from the film to appeal to a wider audience.  This seems bizarre to me, as this film ended up less violent than, say, Kill Bill or Hostel.  Do violent, martial arts films ever appeal to a wide audience?   I think violent and gory is exactly what the audience for this movie was looking for.  Plus, it suffers from many of the same poor fight editing and quick cuts you've seen in lesser action films.  There was some real bad wire-fighting, and many times where you couldn't tell what was going on at all.  It's a real shock to me when the actual fighting is not the strength of a martial arts film.  Even in the worst martial arts films, you can at least enjoy the fighting, but I didn't even get that here.

The Man with the Iron Fists is simply a bad movie.  It's poorly acted, edited and doesn't even deliver on kick-ass martial arts action.  I appreciate what RZA was trying to do here, but it's too heavily flawed and it's just a mess.  I really wanted to like it, even on that 'bad on purpose' level, but it didn't work for me.  If you're a fan of the genre, I advise you to save this for a rental.

2 (out of 5) Death Stars

Premium Rush (2012) - Movie Review

I need to start riding my bike more.

I was a little worried about seeing this. First, it's a late-August movie, and with a name like Premium Rush, you might think this was a movie about surfing or a new flavor of Mountain Dew. Even when a movie stars two of my favorite actors, The JGL and Michael Shannon, you have to wonder if this is just a late-summer paycheck. Actors have to pay their mortgages, too. Plus, the trailers didn't really look all that compelling. I mean, it's a movie about a mike messenger getting chased all over.

Fortunately, Premium Rush is an entertaining film. It's a throwback movie if there ever was one. Veteran director and co-writer David Koepp managed to take a pretty basic premise and turn it into a fun, fast-paced thriller.

The title does serve as a double meaning, as it's both a reference to rush delivery (actually mentioned by name in the film), and the rush you get from riding your bike at high speeds where the wrong move can get you killed. Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a recent law school grad, has no interest sitting behing a desk all day or wearing a suit. He prefers to chase the rush he gets from riding, and makes a meager living as a New York City bike messenger. He has a philosophical view of his riding and enjoys the risk. He's such a purist that he rides a low tech bike with no gears or even brakes, because breaking gets you killed.  Wilee wouldn't have it any other way.  His fellow co-workers, and girlfriend Vanessa (Dania Ramirez), all think he's nuts and needs to slow down.  He's the best at what he does though.

A friend of his, Nima (Jamie Chung), contracts him to make a small delivery, but this immediately puts him in the cross hairs of Bobby Monday (Michael Shannon), who really wants what he's delivering.  Monday relentless pursues Wilee with the tenacity of a Terminator, and Wilee doesn't understand why he wants it so bad.

As far as thrillers go, you aren't going to get any real surprises here.  The story stays on it's bike path from beginning to end.  More is revealed through a series of flashbacks that show you the events leading up to now, but also give you a break from the action.  You do get a rush from the film, as it's extremely fast-paced and you get invested in what is going on.  Similar to what I said in my The Expendables 2 review, I left this movie wanting to dust off my bike and take it for a spin. I'm not going to be doing any of the crazy moves seen here though.  The bike stunts here are great, and the way some scenes were shot you do get a real feeling on the speed and danger of it all.

Another really cool thing they did is at times they'd show some scenarios where Wilee would have to map out his route or plan out which way to go when it looks like he was running out of room.  Then they show you how each scenario would have played out.  It's similar to stuff you've seen in Sherlock Holmes or even Next.  They don't overuse this, so it doesn't get old or feel like too much of a gimmick.  I thought it was a nice touch.

It's ironic that main character's name is Wiley, as in coyote (he even makes a joke about it), as he's really The Road Runner being chased around.  He's always narrowly escaping, while pulling of moves that would get a normal person killed.  It felt like something you used to watch on Saturday morning. In addition to being chased by Monday, Wilee is also pursed by a bicycle cop, and harassed by a co-worker, Manny (Wolé Parks), who not only wants to prove he's better than Wilee, but he wants his girlfriend, too.

Speaking of his girlfriend, that's one of the elements that felt forced here.  From the opening moments, there's conflict between Wilee and Vanessa, and it just felt thrown in to add drama. They do a really weak job of explaining why they are having issues, and by the end everything is fine again without any discussion between the two.  Also, the way some of the characters were related to each other was a little clunky.

What makes this movie stand out is that is does have a good cast and the performances are strong.  The JGL always delivers and this is no exception.  I absolutely loved Michael Shannon's performance.  His character is totally ridiculous, but he's so completely over the top and corrupt that it was just fun to watch.  It's the kind of role where I don't think a different actor would have been able to pull it off.  I also enjoyed Wolé Parks as a foil for Wilee.  He's another character that could have felt thrown in there and unnecessary, but it worked.  Former The Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi has a small, but funny role as the dispatcher for the messenger service.

After I saw The Apparition a few days ago, another moviegoer expressing his disappointment in that movie simply said, "I should have gone to that bike movie instead."  Yes, we both should have.

Premium Rush is fun film with lots of great action, some unexpected humor and good performances.  If you've ever wondered a Road Runner cartoon acted out by humans looked like, this would be it.  It caught me by surprise and I enjoyed it.  It's a nice movie to catch if you're bored this weekend and just want something fun to watch.  Totally worth a matinee.

3.5 (out of 5) Death Stars