Friday, September 8, 2006

The Protector (**3/4)


? A pissed-off Thai guy (Tony Jaa) heads for Sydney to recover his stolen elephants and kick some Aussie butt.
+ The obviously incredibly skilled Jaa uses fists, feet and the occasional weapon to face off against an amazing array of opponents, including the seven-foot Nathan Jones, who appears concurrently in Jet Li’s Fearless. All of the very many apparent broken bones mustn’t be real, but it looks close enough. The stolen-elephant idea seems novel.
- There’s a back story mentioning some family lore and explaining how the elephants are supposed to provide power to the king and are supposed to be protected and all, but basically everything else is just an excuse for the numerous fight scenes. Jaa is great at fighting but not the most expressive actor. Half of the Aussies sound more like Americans. The villains are supposed to have half the Sydney police force in their pockets but can’t even find a gun to shoot the hero. The editing is clumsy. And so on.
= **3/4 Nothing to recommend except the fight scenes. But the fight scenes are very impressive.

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