movie reviews

In the last couple weeks, since my return from the Carolinas, I've seen a couple movies.

Street Kings and The Forbidden Kingdom.

Street Kings (Rated R) stars Keanue Reeves, Forrest Whitaker and Hugh Laurie. Reeves plays a gung ho LAPD detective who breaks the rules to get the bad guys. His captain (Whitaker) always has his back and has worked hard to promote Reeves to his current status. Laurie is an Internal Affairs Division (IAD) detective trying to clean up the corruption in the LAPD. Reeves' antics have gotten him in trouble with his ex-partner and Internal Affairs before. Reeves was going to talk with his ex-partner about IAD. But before, he can do so, his ex-partner is gunned down in a convenience store. Now, Reeves has the task of solving his ex partner's murder while staying a step ahead of the bad guys (be they gangsters or crooked cops).

It's a violent movie. Plenty of gun battles and blood and guts. High stress situations bring out colorful language and there are plenty of f-bombs and other less than edifying terms of speech. The script is ok. I thought Whitaker did a great job. Laurie's character is very much like his Gregory House, MD character from the tv show. That is, very abrasive and rude but excellent at his job. Reeves hasn't had a major blockbuster since The Matrix trilogy. However, this latest venture will not catapault him back to stardom.

The Forbidden Kingdom (Rated PG 13) stars Jet Li and Jackie Chan

A young man from South Boston is magically teleported back to ancient China by means of a special staff. He discovers that he has to return the staff to its rightful owner, the Jade Monkey, who has been imprisoned for 500 years in rock. Along the way he meets with a drunk master (Chan) and a monk (Li) and an enigmatic young woman named Yellow Sparrow (who refers to herself in the third person) who's on a personal mission of revenge.

The martial arts scenes and there are plenty of them are very well done. They account for most of the 113 minutes of the film. Chan is at his usual humorous self. Li still provides plenty of bang for the buck in terms of his martial arts prowess. The young man from Boston even learns a few moves himself. The movie is meant to be light hearted escapist fun. Don't look too hard for deep messages-everything's pretty much on the surface.