Starring: Jet Li, Carla Giugino, Delroy Lindo, Jason Statham
The premise:
There is more than one universe, a multiverse. Whether it's an
infinite or a finite number of universes it's never established.
People exist simultaneously in several universes, though not in all of
them. In fact, it is stated that there are a finite number of people (at
least the protagonist) existing simultaneously. If one of these people
dies, his life energy is divided equally among the survivors. It is
possible to travel throughout this universes via black holes, which can be
predicted by those agents who police the access and immigration among
them. One such agent, Yu-Law (Jet Li) starts killing his alter egos in
different universes so he can gather their energy. When he is the only
survivor, he will become "The One" with godlike powers. Trying
to stop him are two other agents, Harry Roedecker (Delroy Lindo) and Evan Funsch
( Jason Statham, Turkish from Snatch). Only one man remains to be killed
so Yu-Law can become The One, LAPD agent Gabe Law. Of course Yu-Law has
against him the fact the Gabe also has awesome powers due to the killing of his
alter egos.
My take on the film:
I like to see the glass half full. Most reviews compare this movie
unfavorably to The Matrix, and in fact there's not a shred of originality on
this production. I prefer to see it as a VanDamme movie with three
points in its favor: excellent special effects, great choreographed
fights (wire fu anyone?) and no VanDamme.
Bullet cam times abound, explosions, a fight in a factory (a
la Terminator II) mindless plot and dialogue and a very corny ending.
Conclusion:
Not bad for an evening of mindless fun. Worth a rental, if not the
price of admission to a theater.
Interesting Trivia: The Rock was considered for the main roles but opted out to do The Scorpion King. Thanks to Master Villain for the info.