The word for today is ostentatious!

Rating: 5/10 (24 April 2005)

Ostentatious pretty much sums up "Hero". Ostentatious being something that is made to be flashy/showy. That's this movie in a nut shell. Made to look pretty, but the fire shown in the fight scenes in "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" isn't here. In fact the fights all look and feel astonishingly staged to the point that you are rolling your eyes. The performances are over-dramatic. Example: Jet Li is fighting another guy on a lake (and I mean on it, they're jumping off the water) and a drop of water from their fight lands on the body of the guy's dead lover, so this guy ignores Jet Li only to run over to his lover's body and wipe the drop away while looking mournful. That's not deep, that's asinine. The shallow depth of all the characters is attempted to be concealed by fancy dialogue and incomprehensible actions by the characters. Overall weak, and over-dramatic.