Ninja Assassin

With a title like Ninja Assassin, I knew I was not going to get art, but I was at least hoping for some dumb fun. And yes, I'm a firm believer that dumb can be very fun if done right. I'm the guy who gave a good review to the gloriously stupid G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, after all. As the movie went on, I was disappointed to learn that while it had plenty of dumb to spare, there's very little fun. The numerous action scenes (which should be the highlight of any movie called Ninja Assassin) are poorly lit, filmed mainly in such close and tight shots it's sometimes hard to tell what's happening, and just not that exciting to watch, no matter how much CG blood is splattered on the screen.

Yes, I said CG blood. Whenever a character is decapitated, dismembered, sliced open, or gouged (which seems to happen every two seconds at times), gallons of bright red computer-enhanced blood flies all over, covering everything in sight. The filmmakers probably had to make it look cartoonish in order to avoid an NC-17 rating, but it still looks too unconvincing to get the desired effect. Sometimes the blood is the only thing we can see, given the camera's tendency to go into "shaky cam" mode whenever the action heats up. This was a surprise to me, given that the film was directed by James McTeigue, whose previous film (2006's V for Vendetta) had a lot of expertly-paced and edited action sequences. Here, all coherency goes out the window, and we just get a lot of flashing images, with a few shots of limbs flying or blood splattering. There are some potentially cool sequences (such as a massive battle that takes place on a freeway), but we never feel like we're watching the best parts.

The movie, I guess, is supposed to help Korean pop singer, Rain, get a career as a Hollywood action star. He had a supporting role in last year's Speed Racer movie, but he doesn't have quite the charisma here to carry a leading role. His character, Raizo, betrayed his ninja clan when they killed the woman he loved (Anna Sawai) after she rejected their ways and tried to escape. Now, Raizo is forever on the run, keeping his skills sharp by training in his apartment, and fending off random assassins sent to kill him while he's trying to do his laundry. The first hour or so of the movie is devoted solely to Raizo having flashbacks about his childhood and teenage years training as a ninja. It's supposed to tell us about who Raizo is, but we never feel any sort of personal connection to him, or to the enemies that still haunt him for his betrayal. Thrown into the mix is Mika (Naomie Harris), a woman investigating a string of murders that she thinks are tied into ninja clans. She gets too close to the truth, the evil ninjas show up to kill her, Raizo shows up to save her, and the two go through a series of action sequences that don't stop until the end credits roll.

The problem with Ninja Assassin is that none the characters (the heroes or the villains) are interesting enough to carry even the paper-thin story that this movie tries to tell. And since the action sequences are not that interesting to watch, the movie kind of sits there up on the screen, never making any sort of impression. I'm all for action movies that are "check your brain at the door" entertainment, but I felt at times that this movie was asking me to check a little too much of my brain in order to enjoy it. I kind of liked the way that the movie presented the ninjas as having almost supernatural or superhuman abilities, but it's not used as well as it could have been. I get what the filmmakers were trying to do. They were trying to make this like an elaborate comic book or video game come to life. That wasn't my issue. My issue came with how uninvolved I was, and how the movie kept on coming up short for me.

Walking out of the movie, I overheard a boy who must have been 10 or so talking to his dad about how awesome the movie was. While I think the movie is too violent for kids, I could understand his enthusiasm. The movie speaks on his intellectual level, and to those who simply want to watch a lot of computer-generated gore flash on the screen. What other kind of audience would you expect with a movie called Ninja Assassin?

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