One of the better modern genre flicks.

Rating: 7/10 (31 January 2012)

As much as I love old material arts movies, I just can't seem to like any of the modern newer ones. The movies just don't do it for me it all, with neither its story, action or characters. But having said that, this movie still has plenty of value to it. It gets really saved and made interesting by a fine last 30 minutes, or so.
I'm just not a big lover of wire fu at all. It makes the action so totally ridicules to watch and totally takes me out of a movie. This movie also has some incredible over-the-top action moments in it, which defies all the laws of psychics and gravity. While most people seem to just love this and are absolutely taken by the visual beauty of it, I'm absolutely annoyed by it. Besided, the action at times suffered from some poor editing, which made it hard to tell at times what was exactly going on.
But the action is not just the only problem I had with this movie. It's story was still a much bigger problem for me. The movie is mostly being told in flashbacks but that's not all; it's constantly telling you about the main characters but as you soon find out most of the stories are not true at all and merely a device to confuse the enemy. It's fine if the movie did this once or twice but it constantly keeps doing this. After a while this caused me to not care for the story at all anymore, since I knew I couldn't thrust anything it told me and wouldn't reveal the real truth until its very end.
And I admit, when its storytelling became more linear and I started to see what it was all leading up to, I finally got more and more into the movie. It was only then that movie finally became interesting and it was also then that the true motivations of all of the characters finally got revealed. I did not liked that for most part of the movie I had no idea who the good and bad guys and gals were and who I was supposed to feel and cheer for. The movie constantly confuses you with its storytelling and characters. You could call this a good and positive thing but I feel that in this case it worked out unnecessarily confusing and even annoying at times.
But still, I see this as one of the better and more entertaining modern genre flicks. Even though the movie annoyed me at times, it also did still entertained me and it really wasn't a punishment to watch this movie. The movie, the story and its actions definitely do have its moments, though I still prefer an old fashioned, Hong Kong, material arts flick over this movie any day.
7/10
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