A sequel to an adaptation of a video game. To lovers of decent film everywhere this sentence is a linguistic klaxon that screams "Run fast, run far, do not turn back". Think about it for a second. Think about films like "Max Payne", "Prince of Persia", "Tomb Raider" and, of course, the supremely execrable "Mortal Kombat". This is where big studio conservatism and the attendant franchise mania has gotten us - they’ll make anything if they think there’s a built-in audience.
What’s probably most surprising here is the cast. Have a look at the names. This isn’t a bunch of desperate, talentless, straight-to-DVD chancers. They’ve all proved themselves to be more than capable in the past. And yet for some reason they’ve all ended up here together; each and every one begrimed by the woefulness of this "movie".
The plot, and I’m using that word in its loosest possible sense, deals with a genetically engineered assassin who is attempting to track down Katia, the daughter of the man who genetically engineered him. There’s a bit of a problem though because an organization called Syndicate International(they’re an international syndicate you see) are after her too and they’ve sent John Smith, a man with sub-dermal titanium armour(no, I’m serious), out to make sure they get to her first.
So, there you have it. What follows is basically lots of gunplay and car chases and explosions and fighting, the usual ingredients of your standard action movie. The only problem is that the director doesn’t seem to understand how to direct his material. You can forgive the action genre most foibles as long as the big set pieces are decent but the problem here is that every single scene is directed like an action scene.
Being close to tranquilised by boredom I found myself counting the amount of cuts in certain shots to stay lucid. There are 20 cuts to show Katia walking into a metro station. There are nearly 15 to show Agent 47 looking at his computer. When every non-action scene is cut and shot like an action scene there is no discernible change in momentum when the real action arrives thus robbing it of energy.
A boring action movie is akin to a bland curry or an esoteric pantomime and when every fight scene is rendered incomprehensible thanks to yet another plethora of quick cuts and epileptic camera-work you quickly lose any sympathy you might have had in the first place. The fact that its barely over an hour and a half long should it make it more tolerable but somehow all that quick-cutting and frantic editing produce a time dilation effect so that a third of the way through you’re already praying for the end.