For some reason, I was somewhat fascinated with The Tournament when I heard its premise, even though it's not the least bit creative. Because of this, I watched the movie and now, I'm writing a review.
As is just said, the plot isn't exactly creative. Some rich assholes start a tournament where the worlds best assassins kill each other. If they don't kill each other, they explode. We have all seen this, like, 24 times before, but for some reason, everyone in the movie seems to think it's a big deal, and they are very surprised when one of the assassins cuts the bomb out of his stomach, even though this is the thing every reasonable person would do if he had a bomb inside of him. Apparently, rich assholes don't watch a lot of movies.
The dialogue isn't exactly witty, either, and it pretty much consists of killers describing how much they like killing, of killers describing how much they not like killing, a priest tells the killers to stop killing and the rich assholes are rich assholes. It's not so bad because for the most part, everyone just shuts up, and at least the characters have a personality. But it's still a bit strange that a drunken priest can talk mass murderers out of killing each other. This people have murdered for several years, they certainly wont stop just because some tells them to, even if they are good persons at heart.
The action sequences use too much Jitter Cam, and there are times where you can almost feel the budget restraints, but they are not bad. In fact, some of them are pretty cool. The fight between Lai Lai Zhen and the russian soldier is quite awesome, the gore effects look decent and Joshua uses some interesting tactics in his fights. My only real complain is that Lai Lai Zhen doesn't kick enough ass. She's badass, sure, but she gets beaten up too often, and she angsts too much. This is especially egregious because she's established from the very beginning as the martial arts expert in the tournament, so I expect her to win almost every martial arts fight.
That said, The Tournament is an okay flick. Not a good one, but not bad, either. It's not very inspired, but if you run out of action movies, you can give it a try.
Film So okay it's average
For some reason, I was somewhat fascinated with The Tournament when I heard its premise, even though it's not the least bit creative. Because of this, I watched the movie and now, I'm writing a review.
As is just said, the plot isn't exactly creative. Some rich assholes start a tournament where the worlds best assassins kill each other. If they don't kill each other, they explode. We have all seen this, like, 24 times before, but for some reason, everyone in the movie seems to think it's a big deal, and they are very surprised when one of the assassins cuts the bomb out of his stomach, even though this is the thing every reasonable person would do if he had a bomb inside of him. Apparently, rich assholes don't watch a lot of movies.
The dialogue isn't exactly witty, either, and it pretty much consists of killers describing how much they like killing, of killers describing how much they not like killing, a priest tells the killers to stop killing and the rich assholes are rich assholes. It's not so bad because for the most part, everyone just shuts up, and at least the characters have a personality. But it's still a bit strange that a drunken priest can talk mass murderers out of killing each other. This people have murdered for several years, they certainly wont stop just because some tells them to, even if they are good persons at heart.
The action sequences use too much Jitter Cam, and there are times where you can almost feel the budget restraints, but they are not bad. In fact, some of them are pretty cool. The fight between Lai Lai Zhen and the russian soldier is quite awesome, the gore effects look decent and Joshua uses some interesting tactics in his fights. My only real complain is that Lai Lai Zhen doesn't kick enough ass. She's badass, sure, but she gets beaten up too often, and she angsts too much. This is especially egregious because she's established from the very beginning as the martial arts expert in the tournament, so I expect her to win almost every martial arts fight.
That said, The Tournament is an okay flick. Not a good one, but not bad, either. It's not very inspired, but if you run out of action movies, you can give it a try.