This movie started out at a furious pace and pretty much kept it up to the end. And I enjoyed it very much until the end. The stunts were great. The chase scenes were great. Pretty much everything was great. Until the end.
And the twist ending kind of sucked. I didn't find it believable. And honestly I don't think Statham and Li found it very believable either. That was the only part of the movie that I thought either of them did a less than decent job. I believe that the twist ending was an unnecessary complication and the movie would have been better with a more "standard" ending. Sometimes less is more.
As you would probably expect, the script was heavy on action and light on meaningful dialogue. Perhaps the back-story of Rogue could have been a bit clearer. Not that that made a difference to the film. It was after all an action movie. Cinematography was good and overall the entire look of the movie was vivid and colourful.
The only minor gripe I had was with the wardrobe. Why didn't the FBI guys look like FBI guys? It looked kind of like they changed the script to make them FBI after the wardrobe was already done, and originally they were supposed to be part of some other agency.
Performances by Statham and Li were overall good. I've seen both of them show more range in other films but they did just fine with what they had to work with. There just wasn't anything in the script that required them to do much except fight. It was nice to see Luis Guzman again. He always does a great job with even small parts. Saul Rubinek was good in the tiny part that he had. I was surprised that his part was so small considering he had fairly high billing. Devon Aoki was good, although she didn't seem entirely comfortable in the role. John Lone was good. Ryo Ishibashi was great, one of the high points of the movie.
It is extremely graphically violent and has a significant amount of nudity. I personally don't find it offensive but it is definitely not a family movie, so be warned.
Overall it is certainly worth seeing, even with my disappointment at the ending.
And the twist ending kind of sucked. I didn't find it believable. And honestly I don't think Statham and Li found it very believable either. That was the only part of the movie that I thought either of them did a less than decent job. I believe that the twist ending was an unnecessary complication and the movie would have been better with a more "standard" ending. Sometimes less is more.
As you would probably expect, the script was heavy on action and light on meaningful dialogue. Perhaps the back-story of Rogue could have been a bit clearer. Not that that made a difference to the film. It was after all an action movie. Cinematography was good and overall the entire look of the movie was vivid and colourful.
The only minor gripe I had was with the wardrobe. Why didn't the FBI guys look like FBI guys? It looked kind of like they changed the script to make them FBI after the wardrobe was already done, and originally they were supposed to be part of some other agency.
Performances by Statham and Li were overall good. I've seen both of them show more range in other films but they did just fine with what they had to work with. There just wasn't anything in the script that required them to do much except fight. It was nice to see Luis Guzman again. He always does a great job with even small parts. Saul Rubinek was good in the tiny part that he had. I was surprised that his part was so small considering he had fairly high billing. Devon Aoki was good, although she didn't seem entirely comfortable in the role. John Lone was good. Ryo Ishibashi was great, one of the high points of the movie.
It is extremely graphically violent and has a significant amount of nudity. I personally don't find it offensive but it is definitely not a family movie, so be warned.
Overall it is certainly worth seeing, even with my disappointment at the ending.