First of all this should not be called "XMA: Xtreme Martial Arts" but "Matt Mullins returns" or "Matt Mullins doesn't quite cut it" instead.
I was expecting something more in the lines of scientific description of martial arts, techniques involved, strains on the body and maybe even a little bit of history behind it. And when I was given the 7 minute "look what cool gadgets we were using to make these cartoons"-intro followed by another 4 minute "martial arts are for hitting people"-intro I still thought that there might be something interesting in this documentary.
But then they started to talk about Matt. And with him not being Bruce Lee and me not giving a damn about his life and career you can say I was starting to get bored. Add to that the fact that Matt is trying to "act" this documentary in such way that you are constantly trying to place him either in a Power Rangers, Adam West's Batman or a Spanish Soap OperaTM episode you might even say that I was starting to get annoyed.
And when they stopped for a second to talk about Matt (and his young sidekick and student Craig Henningsen) or his teachers (BTW John Sharkey in here looks remarkably like Adolf Hitler he should really do something about that hair) we got to watch the tournament where Matt in the end didn't win. And not only did he not win, but some of the video of OTHER competitors in the tournament might be the most interesting part of this documentary.
Matt didn't even come out as on par with some of them he came out like that guy in martial art movies that gets invited to a super secret underground tournament because they needed someone from his country/division to fill in the spot and who is mostly showing off in front of girls instead of doing real training. At least this time we weren't forced to watch him being killed by the BadGuyTM so TheHeroTM could avenge him.
And in between all those "Look at Matt" and "Look its the Tournament" we would get couple of minutes of choreographic pretend-fight, partially with HD 3D renderings of skinless humans (done by the guys who did the Matrix), partially with real recording of those humans doing the dance. If you were REALLY careful you could get a point or two of actual information about the technique or weapon used.
After about 40-something minutes of this I've started to fast forward whenever Matt, other martial artists or the narrator (in the best Pablo Francisco doing The Narrator voice) started talking for more then 10 seconds.
There is more fact, educational material, documentary value and entertainment in a Jackie Chan movie. And I am not really big fan of his post Drunken Master II movies.
I was expecting something more in the lines of scientific description of martial arts, techniques involved, strains on the body and maybe even a little bit of history behind it. And when I was given the 7 minute "look what cool gadgets we were using to make these cartoons"-intro followed by another 4 minute "martial arts are for hitting people"-intro I still thought that there might be something interesting in this documentary.
But then they started to talk about Matt. And with him not being Bruce Lee and me not giving a damn about his life and career you can say I was starting to get bored. Add to that the fact that Matt is trying to "act" this documentary in such way that you are constantly trying to place him either in a Power Rangers, Adam West's Batman or a Spanish Soap OperaTM episode you might even say that I was starting to get annoyed.
And when they stopped for a second to talk about Matt (and his young sidekick and student Craig Henningsen) or his teachers (BTW John Sharkey in here looks remarkably like Adolf Hitler he should really do something about that hair) we got to watch the tournament where Matt in the end didn't win. And not only did he not win, but some of the video of OTHER competitors in the tournament might be the most interesting part of this documentary.
Matt didn't even come out as on par with some of them he came out like that guy in martial art movies that gets invited to a super secret underground tournament because they needed someone from his country/division to fill in the spot and who is mostly showing off in front of girls instead of doing real training. At least this time we weren't forced to watch him being killed by the BadGuyTM so TheHeroTM could avenge him.
And in between all those "Look at Matt" and "Look its the Tournament" we would get couple of minutes of choreographic pretend-fight, partially with HD 3D renderings of skinless humans (done by the guys who did the Matrix), partially with real recording of those humans doing the dance. If you were REALLY careful you could get a point or two of actual information about the technique or weapon used.
After about 40-something minutes of this I've started to fast forward whenever Matt, other martial artists or the narrator (in the best Pablo Francisco doing The Narrator voice) started talking for more then 10 seconds.
There is more fact, educational material, documentary value and entertainment in a Jackie Chan movie. And I am not really big fan of his post Drunken Master II movies.