Ninja Assassin (review)
Bloody Mess
“Ninja assassin.” You just know that producers Joel Silver -- he helped create the modern action movie with Die Hard and Lethal Weapon, but he’s also responsible for modern schlock such as Gothika and Orphan -- and the Wachowski Brothers (of Matrix fame), professional fanboys all, were peeing in their pants with glee when they came up with that concept. It’s like “monster trucks” and “automatic weapons” and “zombie Nazis”: you take two great things that are awesome separately, and then you put ’em together and it becomes like totally mindblowing, dude.
For certain dudes, at least. While some -- male and female alike, of course -- might prefer the mashed-up awesomeness of, say, “cupcake pony” or “chocolate orgasm” or, heaven help us, “sparkly vampire boyfriend,” the preview crowd with whom I saw Ninja Assassin was absolutely in ecstasy over this bloody concoction of slasher movie blended with martial arts and a small helping of faux Eastern philosophy. They appeared, if their cries of laughter and whoops of delight were any measure, utterly unrequiring of anything approaching movie content beyond that. The gallons of blood and countless gory dismemberments were interrupted only briefly for nods to plot and character and story and theme, and the crowd was absolutely fine with that. They weren’t cheering for or against anyone, they were cheering for the gore. They wanted blood, and they didn’t care whose it was: they approved just as heartily when it was the putative hero’s as they did when it was provided by armies of anonymous ninjas or anonymous paramilitary cops.
I don’t mind cinematic blood and gore and violence -- I just don’t want it to be the entire point of a movie. This offends me. In this I will clearly in a minority among the target audience for Ninja Assassin.
The curious question the title of the film has raised for some is this: Is the titular stealthy warrior a ninja who is an assassin? Or an assassin who assassinates ninjas? Turns out it’s both at the same time, which is still nowhere near clever as deployed here. You’d think that J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5 -- who is worshipped as a god in some quarters -- might have written an actual script instead of the collection of clichés and witless, disjointed nonsense we see here, though we shall probably never really know how constrained his was by whatever his coscreenwriter, newcomer Matthew Sand, brought to the table. Suffice to say that whenever someone isn’t saying something like, “Whatever they’re paying you, I’ll double it! I’ll triple it!” someone else is saying something like, “Why do I think I’m going to regret this?” If someone is urged to leave the premises to get out of harm’s way, that someone is saying, “Not without you!”
About halfway through the film, I was suddenly slapped in the face with the realization that, dear god, this is an origin story, and we’re going to see more of these. Raizo was raised from a pup by Master Ozunu in a remote mountain training camp for ninja assassins, who for a thousand years have accepted a hundred pounds of gold -- or the modern equivalent in the stable currency of your choice deposited into a Swiss bank account -- for their services. (Maybe they killed JFK for the Mafia? It’s a question I presume will be dealt with by at least Ninja Assassin IV.) But Raizo has a Heart, even though he insists he doesn’t, and he is Noble, and he leaves the clan to Do Good. Like protecting “Europol” investigator Mika from the bad ninjas when she stumbles onto their doings, which are, it must be said, less than legal.
It’s all meant to be mythic, but director James McTeigue (V for Vendetta) has no idea how to make it so. Everything on the screen feels small and petty and cheap, from the scenes of mass slaughter, which are so dark you can’t really tell what’s going on except that a whole buncha nameless folks are getting their limbs sliced off -- or maybe getting beheaded! cool! -- to the cast, which collectively has a negative presence, sucking away whatever charisma might be accidentally exuded... like by legendary martial artist Sho Kosugi, as Ozunu. He at least has an appropriate menace about him. But Korean pop star Rain (Speed Racer), as Raizo, and Naomie Harris (Street Kings, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End), as Mika, might as well be ninja shadows themselves. They’re both very pretty, but they both feel as if they might float away without the piles of body parts and seas of blood around them weighing them down.
viewed at a semipublic screening with an audience of critics and ordinary moviegoersrated R for strong bloody stylized violence throughout, and language
official site | IMDB | trailer | more reviews at MRQE
comments
posted by Vardulon (Tue Nov 24 09, 1:03PM)
MaryAnn, I'm pretty sure you're not actually in the target audience for this movie...
Seriously, though - the thing was written in three days. I saw JMS give a speech in which he explained that he got the job to do a page 1 rewrite on Tuesday that needed to be delivered on Friday.
When you're dealing with that kind of timeline there's literally nothing you can do except scribble down every cliche that you can remember.
posted by Mathias (Tue Nov 24 09, 1:11PM)
Yeah, blame the writing on this film on the orignial writer Michael Sand. JMS just did a 52 hour, page 1 rewrite. If the end result is this bad, i shudder to think how bad the orinigal script must've been.
But i hope all this talk about the fight scenes being too dark to see anything is an exageration. That's the kind of flaw that even action-hungry, gore-hounds won't forgive.
posted by MaryAnn (Tue Nov 24 09, 1:29PM)
We can blame JMS for taking the job. His name is on the film. If he didn't think he could do a good job in the time allow, he could have turned it down. If he's not proud of what he did, he could have had his name removed from the project. But he didn't do either, and he surely must know that there are those who expect a certain something from a project with his name on it.
So I'm comfortable blaming him, too.
posted by Hank Graham (Tue Nov 24 09, 1:43PM)
Joel Silver reminds me an awful lot of Carlson from "WKRP in Cincinnati." I imagine him giving an interview about "Gothika" and "Orphan" and this one some day, and saying that as God is his witness, he thought turkeys could fly.
posted by Hasimir Fenring (Tue Nov 24 09, 2:02PM)
I don’t mind cinematic blood and gore and violence -- I just don’t want it to be the entire point of a movie. This offends me. In this I will clearly in a minority among the target audience for Ninja Assassin.
I guess I don't have to see this film, since I've already experienced it as Kill Bill. If it's blatantly racist as well, Tarantino should sue.
posted by doa766 (Tue Nov 24 09, 2:19PM)
cupcake pony? girls are weird
posted by MaSch (Tue Nov 24 09, 6:33PM)
ninja assassin? boys are gross *yuk*
posted by Sarah (Tue Nov 24 09, 6:58PM)
I'll go see this. Of course, if someone ever put out a movie called "Cupcake Pony" I'd probably go see that too. For nearly the same reason.
posted by Hdj (Tue Nov 24 09, 8:01PM)
Sho Kosugi and bloody gore, sold, it'll leave my brain at the concession stand. They should of got Chuck Norris too, oh well.
posted by Bongo (Thu Nov 26 09, 12:26AM)
Target audience intentions-correct.
For me, it was over the top. Too many ninjas.
Got to be like cowboys and Indians (apologies to
Native Americans).
They saved a lot on hiring skilled martial artists
by keeping the light low. I suspect it was easier to
layer in CGI efx.
Just saw it (Thanksgiving Eve).
The first gore scene, I couldn't help to think about
how I was going to carve up the turkey.
Ninjas running around in traffic made me crack up
laughing. Lesson learned: The bumper/grill is mighter
than the sword.
"I hate to sound critical."
posted by Mathias (Thu Nov 26 09, 12:47PM)
Damn, you weren't exaggerating MaryAnn, even the action scenes are poorly done. Yeah, there's really absolutely no reason to waste your money on this crap. If you haven't already seen it, stay away.
posted by Remco (Mon Nov 30 09, 7:23AM)
Typo: This offends me. In this I will clearly [?] in a minority among the target audience for Ninja Assassin.
;-)
posted by CB (Mon Nov 30 09, 2:57PM)
I don't want to hear any crap about how MAJ is not "the target audience" of the movie. I know, deep in my bones, that I'm the target audience for a movie titled "Ninja Assassin". That title moved me like the title "Snakes on a Plane" moved Samuel Jackson, and I know in my heart that a movie with that title could be -- wants to be -- one of my top ten favorite movies ever.
But not this movie.
The only way this could be an issue of "target audience" is if the target audience of the movie was someone who likes everything that I do, except for quality.
P.S. Going by IMDB, it doesn't look like JMS has gotten a whole lot of work since B5. At some point, pride in one's art gives way to the need for a paycheck. Which isn't to say we can't blame him for the result. But it's a little like when a musician who you know just got into IRS troubles starts doing a lot of Pepsi commercials. You kinda hate them for selling out, but feel a little sorry for them too.
posted by joey (Tue Dec 01 09, 4:06PM)
JMS has done a lot of comics of varying quality - including the widely loathed Spider-Man "One More Day" story, in which he trades his marriage to Mary Jane to Mephisto in exchange for Aunt May's life and the restoration of his secret identity. So it's not totally unprecedented...
Once your name is on something that hated, I don't see how this could really hurt.
posted by Jurgan (Tue Dec 01 09, 4:31PM)
I was a big fan of JMS's Amazing Spider-Man run (in fact, that's all I know him from), which went for six or seven years. So it's not as though he's been out of work all this time. I also hated the way it ended in "One More Day," to the point where I gave up canonical Spider-Man comics cold turkey, but again that wasn't all him. He was ordered by editorial to write a certain story, and he almost took his name off of it. That seems to be a running theme on this thread- he had a small role in a bad product that he probably should have disassociated himself with.
posted by commercial ads script (Wed Dec 09 09, 4:57AM)
I like Rain and I really enjoy this film specially the choreography of the fight scenes.