Rogue Assassin plus Death Proof

I was planning on watching "Rogue Assassin" at the movies. But then I found out I could watch it for free on the internet, and so I just did that.

I reckon there was probably something lost watching it on my laptop, but even still, it wasn't very good. It stars Jason Statham as an FBI agent who is trying to track down "Rogue", played by Jet Li. "Rogue" killed his partner (FBI partner, not the other type) in a flashback at the start of the film, and now Jason wants revenge. There was also a plot about a war between the Triads and the Yakuza in San Francisco, but I couldn't really understand that since they all looked the same to me.

Anyway, you don't watch a movie like this for the plot. The trailer promised lots of shootouts, car chases and kung fu fighting, and it didn't really feel like the movie delivered here.

I like Jason Statham a lot. He was great in "Snatch", and the first "Transporter" film. Most of his other movies have been pretty rubbish though, especially that "Crank" movie, which was just ridiculously bad. Sadly this seems to follow in that tradition. I really wanted to like this, but I couldn't.

I also saw "Death Proof", the Quentin Tarantino-directed half of "Grind House" recently. Again, I wasn't a huge fan. I'm starting to notice a pattern with Tarantino's films. After the masterpiece of "Pulp Fiction", he turned in "Jackie Brown". He followed that with the brilliant "Kill Bill", and now this. It's like he takes every second movie off.

Anyway, this mainly consists of a psychotic stunt car driver (Kurt Russell) chasing down women in his "death proof" car, which he's modified so that he can crash into other cars and still live. It's split into two sections, with each focussing on a different group of girls. Most of the time though is just them talking about girl stuff, and while the dialogue is usually great in his films, it's rather boring in this.

So overall I wouldn't recommend this. Hopefully "Planet Terror" is an improvement, because this was a bit of a let down.