Reviews

The Lenny to Jackie Chan's George is Danny (Sammo Hung, who also directed), who spends his days playing with the local kids, his toys and enduring humiliation from cruel adults.

From the shot of the pile of hapless blue-collar worker Holappa's spent cigarettes as he waits for kind-hearted Ansa to show up to the moment where Ansa sadly unplugs her electronics after losing her job, almost every moment in this movie proves that less is more.

It may be a minor and/or boring detail to some, but I like that the movie outlines the magnet program that lets those who the SS-like Sentinels and believers in their insidious cause consider undesirable attend their school.

As odd and unsettling as Lynch's movie may be, this one's vision of the Harkonnen home world in particular from its conformity to its disregard for the sanctity of life - even their own - may surpass even the 1984 movie's most alien moments.

Besides, how many dystopian action movies feature the hero leaving a building by shooting holes in the floors?

By the same token, I like that her victims/organ donors seem less and less deserving as the movie goes on.

The important thing is that it made me laugh more than once, and again, it at least has one thing I doubt you've seen in a movie before: Shaolin monks invading Portland.

Speaking of the latter, while director Yu and writer D'Angelo deserve credit, Ferrell, who produced, is undoubtedly at least partially responsible for the movie's cartoonishly surreal moments, all of which brought the laughs, especially the nod to a certain famous painting.

I'll go ahead and admit that Jean-Pierre Melville is one of my very favorite directors, with this movie having pretty much all the qualities that explain why.

This dystopian action movie is as fundamental and derivative as it gets, but it does enough interesting things and makes the most of its peanuts budget that it was worth my while.