Invincible (2001)

Director: Jefery Levy

Producer: Jet Li, Mel Gibson

Writer: Michael Brandt, Derek Haas, Carey Hayes, Chad Hayes, Jefery Levy

Cast: Billy Zane, David Field, Tory Kittles, Byron Mann, Stacy Oversier and Dominic Purcell

Running Time: ?

Plot: Invincible is the brainchild of martial arts box office sensation Jet Li and Academy Award-winning actor/director/producer Mel Gibson, who first conceived the idea while working together on Lethal Weapon 4. In Invincible, a team of four fighters -- pre-destined from birth-- are assembled by an eccentric leader, Os (Zane), to recapture an ancient artifact from the Shadowmen, a secret, supernatural army of pure evil who intend to use it to tip the balance of good and evil and cast the world into the permanent shadow of darkness.

T-STYLE'S REVIEW: Billy Zane, set out to gather the elements of water, fire, air, and metal to stop Slate from destroying the earth with the ancient stone tablet. Let me get to the point. A movie produced by Jet and Mel doesn't mean shit. This movie was horrible. It would be better off as a TV series but as a movie, everything seem so damn rushed and messy. I mean, it only took Billy Zane less than 5 sentences to convince four regular civilians that they're the "chosen ones" and they're needed to save the world so therefore you should come train with him and abandon your regular life. That's it! Next thing you know, all four of them are in this sewer-like place training with Zane.

The cast was horrible. How horrible? Fucking horrible. We have cliche characters as our four elements. The Chinese guy, a black guy that ends every sentence with the word "man," a white girl that got rejected in an audition for Tomb Raider, and a british guy ending every sentence with the word "mate". Such diversity in the group but no originality.

I don't know, but judging by the horrible lines written for the characters, seemed like they were filming and writing the script at the same time. At one point Billy Zane, in the middle of the movie, busts out, "Oh yeah, you guys each have special elements." As mentioned before, the elements consist of water, fire, air, and metal. Metal....WTF?!

The action was tolerable, well...sometimes. All I really ask for these days is to NOT shake the camera during an action scene. And shit! I know this is a common mistake for American directors but zoom out for the fights! What has this guy been directing? Porno?! Zoom out damnit. Special effects were nothing special, nothing we haven't seen. The action stole the show cause it was the one and only thing that's decent.

The camera shots were so outdated. Shots of hero and villain flashing back and forth, each shot getting closer to the hero/villains eye was done before. Walking toward the camera in a group shot in slow-mo was done waaaaay too many times. Fuck this. Stay away from this movie.

T-STYLE'S RATING: 3/10