Action Hero Movies
This movie gets off to a powerful start, albeit slightly juvenile. Jackie Chan is acting constantly drunk and Jet Li is constantly grinning. Fortunately, Jet Li’s grinning character goes away and doesn’t come back till near the end, and we see a similar but more serious character played by Jet Li in the mean time.
The Forbidden Kingdom is a mildly powerful story, put together quite well.
By half an hour in, it looks set for an Above Average rating. By 1 hour in, that seems generous, but by the end, it seems accurate again.
There are some nice action scenes in this movie — not outstanding, but pretty good still. The fight scene between Jackie Chan and Jet Li is quite memorable, and the battle scene towards the end is pretty good.
There is a very funny scene just before the turn of the hour though — albeit very short — as Jackie Chan tries to make rain, and thinks he succeeds, until he sees what Jet Li is doing over his head.
The lead character — a nervous teenage boy, played by Michael Angarano when he was aged 19 and a half — looks a bit like Christopher Lambert crossed with Colin Farrell, with an extra pointy beak.
It’s quite rare that a movie peaks towards the end and has a very long, strong back end, leading to a great final moment, but this movie is a prime example of exactly that. Half way through I was thinking the initial Above Average prediction is too generous, but in the end I think it’s undershooting if anything.