Invincible (2001) (TV)

User Rating:

3.4/10   

Director:

Jefery Levy

Writers:

Carey Hayes (story) &
Chad Hayes (story) ...

Release Date:

18 November 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Fantasy | Thriller

Tagline:

The Shadowmen are coming...

Plot Keywords:

Female Detective | Katana Sword | Flash Forward | Card Game | Wisecrack Humor

Cast

Billy Zane	...	Os
Byron Mann	...	Michael Fu
Stacy Oversier	...	Serena Blue
Tory Kittles	...	Ray Jackson
Dominic Purcell	...	Keith Grady
David Field	...	Slate
Michelle Comerford	...	White Warrior
David No	...	Shadowman #1
Bren Ismail	...	Shadowman #2
Kyle Rowling	...	Shadowman #3 (as Kyle Rowlings)
Ray Anthony	...	Shadowman #4
Simone McAullay	...	Mrs. Harrison
Linal Haft	...	Howard Lancaster
Mark Baker	...	Rapper #1
Aki Holloway	...	Rapper #2

Also Known As:

Invincibles (Canada: French title)

Runtime:

UK:90 min

Country:

Canada | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Finland:K-11 | Iceland:12 | South Korea:15 | Singapore:PG | UK:12

Filming Locations:

Bare Island, La Perouse, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Company:

Alliance Atlantis Communications

Trivia:

The large Chinese character used in the film's logo does not mean "Invincible" at all; it actually just means "water".

Quotes:

White Warrior: Surrender to the light...

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Troldspejlet: (#30.13)" (2003)

Uh, yeah.

This movie wasn't as good as it could have been. The potential was there, with a decent plot and a few good actors, but it was just not done well.

The idea of a group of different individuals putting their differences aside and coming together to achieve a common goal is not new, but it can be done well. Here it was not. I didn't watch the movie for the story, which was good as it was not real good. The whole "love will overcome all" is a good idea, but Os runs it into the ground to the point that he comes across as one of those fake happy lovely-dovey Mormon missionary types that makes most people nauseous.

Judging from the commercials and the packaging, I expected this to be more of a martial arts movie. Sadly, where most martial arts movies use the story to connect the fight scenes, this movie apparently forgot that it was a martial arts flick and concentrated on a really weak story at the expense of the fighting. One could count the number of fight scenes in this movie on the fingers of one hand and still have plenty of fingers left. The fights that it did have weren't all that great, either. The fighting relied a lot on wires, which is okay for a fairy-tale or a wuxia movie, but it just looked silly here. Also, it wasn't hard to tell that the actors trained just long enough to pull this movie's few fight scenes off. The actions weren't crisp or particularly fast, and they tried to hide all of this via flickering lighting, jerky camera shots and slow-motion. It was just not good from a martial arts perspective.

Unfortunately, most of this 90 minute snoozer is only worth fast-forwarding through, which I did for most of the last thirty minutes, and I'm kicking myself for not fast-forwarding earlier through the totally inane temptation scene. Fast-forwarding through a movie is something I almost never do, but I couldn't take it after an hour of drivel. This movie may have worked as a children's cartoon or some sort of kids live-action movie, but not as a movie aimed at a post-adolescent audience. Mel Gibson I can forgive for being involved in this silly movie, but Jet Li ought to know better. Hopefully he did it as a favor or lost a bet or something.

Bottom line - avoid this one.