Flashback to Flashback

Rating: Null/10 (5 September 2004)

I thought this movie had great potential and a lot going for it. Unfortunately sometimes directors fall in love with their own style. This movie is one that contains to me one glaring problem. The way the storyline is put together.
The director uses layers of flashbacks, which when used properly can create a great movie, that confuse the audience more than anything. Then I feel that he uses fight scenes and epic scale to cover the lacking in the films coherncy.
Also the relationships between the characters was underdeveloped. Crouching got away with this because of the actors skill to convince you of the deep love.... in Hero I don't think they could convince anyone. I felt as though the movie wasn't even meant to have a love story but they wanted to sell out and throw one in really quick.
The acting and directing in this movie have been over-rated because this movie has cultural significance, or at least I hope thats the reason. The action shots were nothing special either, I found myself for once not liking the fighting scenes. Other than 1 maybe 2 of the fighting scenes I just did not buy it.
I saw this movie as a matinÃ©e and I thought I got my 6 bucks worth. Here is my bottom line feeling, If you wanna make a movie in this genre make sure the fight scenes are something worth watching, and don't make a story with flashback upon flashback if you cant tie it together well..
Give it a C....