Review of The One

Although The One is total crap, I found it entertaining nonetheless. Basically, I went in to see a lot of cool fighting and SFX and that's exactly what I got. But I must admit, that after leaving the theatre, my higher brain functions kicked in. And all I could think about was how they pitifully wasted a good nucleus of a story. The director/writer/producer had lots of SFX, an intriguing Sci-Fi premise, DeRoy Lindo and the action star Jet Li. All they had to do was write a decent script. That's all. And this film truly could have been the one. (I apologize for that, I just couldn't help myself.) Instead, everything we learn about the multiverse is expository. They could have, at the very least, showed us the incident that got Yulaw started on his maniacal quest to begin with. Never before have I had so much respect for DeRoy Lindo. It was obvious that he was the only real actor in the bunch and that he did the best he could with the campy material. Everything in the story with the exception of the fight scenes is derivative. I could go on and write something about the horrible script, plot holes, obscene use of the soundtrack, movie cliches, and one-dimensional characters, but I won't.

Instead....

The fighting was kick-ass! My only quibble is that I wished they would have instant replayed fight scenes at normal speed to make Gabe's/Yulaw's powers appear more realistic (despite being impossible, of course). Slowing things down gets annoying actually. The coolest fight scene wasn't even the predictable show down, but the one with the police motorcycles. Too bad, even that felt truncated.

In sum, all of the criticisms that I heard about The One were totally valid, but I simply liked the film for what it was, an ass-kicking vehicle. What can say?

6/10