A friend saw this shortly after it came out and said he wouldn't mind rewatching it, leaving me rather surprised. A couple of days later another friend dragged us out to see this, at a 4dx screening, no less. I got burnt out on capeshit after "Ant-Man", but this looked possibly interesting enough to be enjoyable.
Aside from the overwhelming shaking of the 4dx chairs, the film itself is a plothole-ridden nonsensical mess, led by unlikeable characters and a complete waste of its two most famous cast members, Ben Kingsley and Michelle Yeoh. As can be anticipated from modern high-budget films, it's also laden with impressive CGI and good-looking visuals, and the monsters are cool. It's just a shame that it's such a waste. The ratings must be artificially inflated as well, as there's no way anyone with an IQ higher than room temperature would actually think this is a good film. But let's get into some more details.
Starting from the opening, we're introduced to our unremarkable protagonist and the annoying female lead. "Katy" is as useless, annoying, infantile, and uncharismatic as one could imagine. I couldn't have written a more grating character if I tried. On top of her, we're given some very awkward, stilted dialogue that was probably supposed to be cutesy or something, but fails dramatically. After the end of the first act, which terminates with the bus sequence, the film becomes slightly more palatable. Instead of cringing and facepalming and wondering why, exactly, I'd spent £16 on this trash, I could at least watch the thing.
Then we get into the nonsensical. After his mother got killed by the mob, Shang-Chi trained hard for years before getting sent to avenge her death. He killed her murderer, but then decided to feel bad, run away to the US and abandon his ten-year-old sister whom he loved, after telling her he'd be back in three days. His sister, who "taught herself better" just by watching the real fighters train, ran away 6 years later and founded an underground fighting ring in Macau all by herself with no money or support from anyone. Right. Shang-Chi's dad didn't actually want to kill his kids when he sent his mercs to fight them (including the big guy with the blade-hand), he actually wants his children's help to find their mum, who's allegedly still alive. They run away from the dad, stealing some BMW hatchback instead of a Land Rover or a Jeep for a trip into the Chinese outback. Conveniently, the car's turn circle happens to be just the one needed to traverse a perilous "living" forest maze that "eats" stragglers. Our heroes find the late mum's village, train for ONE day, and defeat all evil, including the dangerous merc army bent on burning the village down.
Nothing in the paragraph above, and little in the film in general, makes any sense, including the fact that the bad guys show up to the village---the village they want to slaughter the population of---with stun batons and shock crossbows. I guess assault rifles wouldn't have quite stood up to the good guys' "dragon-forged" staves. Katy, the annoying American-born character who looks significantly out of shape, trains archery for a handful of hours before letting a much cooler character get his soul sucked out (RIP Master Guang Bo, I'll remember you) before landing the single lucky arrow needed to dispatch the eldritch boss-monster from half a kilometre away. She'd never be able to draw a real bow, let alone hit any target at all.
Shang-Chi himself also trains for a few hours before defeating his dad and his rings against all odds, but the flashbacks showing him training with his mum as a kid at least allow me to suspend disbelief sufficiently to go with it. What I can't go with is the fact that Shang-Chi takes a full ring-empowered gut punch beforehand, which propels him some fifty metres, and would have ruptured his spleen or stomach. He's dead, Jim. I don't care about your plot armour.
The final sequence also included so much seat shaking (4dx) that I could barely follow what was going on with the eldritch monster. 4dx was fine in "Alita: Battle Angel", but whoever the poor sod responsible for programming this film's effects was, he must have been out of his mind.
The worst part of this is that the story has potential and could have been handled better if someone actually tried to make it logical. What, am I supposed to "turn my brain off"? I can't "turn my brain off" because I actually have one. As a writer, I'd be laughed out of the room if I were to write a script as nonsensical as this. Guess that doesn't apply to blockbusters for some reason...
Michelle Yeoh is completely wasted in an insignificant role as Shang-Chi's aunt. Ben Kingsley is back as his "Iron Man 3" role, a dumb Englishman theatre actor providing comic relief alongside Katy; a role that I recall people perceived as an insult to the character of the Mandarin when "Iron Man 3" came out. The sole difference between his and Katy's jokes is that I actually chuckled at a couple of his.
A 4.5 is what I'd give, and I'd probably round it up to a 5, as the visual spectacle is decent, albeit dragged way down by the sheer inanity of the script. This unnaturally high rating, however, merits rounding mine down. I can't accept the rating is real. If it is, then people must be too willing to slobber up all the flashy corporate sludge thrown their way, which would be saddening.
Aside from the overwhelming shaking of the 4dx chairs, the film itself is a plothole-ridden nonsensical mess, led by unlikeable characters and a complete waste of its two most famous cast members, Ben Kingsley and Michelle Yeoh. As can be anticipated from modern high-budget films, it's also laden with impressive CGI and good-looking visuals, and the monsters are cool. It's just a shame that it's such a waste. The ratings must be artificially inflated as well, as there's no way anyone with an IQ higher than room temperature would actually think this is a good film. But let's get into some more details.
Starting from the opening, we're introduced to our unremarkable protagonist and the annoying female lead. "Katy" is as useless, annoying, infantile, and uncharismatic as one could imagine. I couldn't have written a more grating character if I tried. On top of her, we're given some very awkward, stilted dialogue that was probably supposed to be cutesy or something, but fails dramatically. After the end of the first act, which terminates with the bus sequence, the film becomes slightly more palatable. Instead of cringing and facepalming and wondering why, exactly, I'd spent £16 on this trash, I could at least watch the thing.
Then we get into the nonsensical. After his mother got killed by the mob, Shang-Chi trained hard for years before getting sent to avenge her death. He killed her murderer, but then decided to feel bad, run away to the US and abandon his ten-year-old sister whom he loved, after telling her he'd be back in three days. His sister, who "taught herself better" just by watching the real fighters train, ran away 6 years later and founded an underground fighting ring in Macau all by herself with no money or support from anyone. Right. Shang-Chi's dad didn't actually want to kill his kids when he sent his mercs to fight them (including the big guy with the blade-hand), he actually wants his children's help to find their mum, who's allegedly still alive. They run away from the dad, stealing some BMW hatchback instead of a Land Rover or a Jeep for a trip into the Chinese outback. Conveniently, the car's turn circle happens to be just the one needed to traverse a perilous "living" forest maze that "eats" stragglers. Our heroes find the late mum's village, train for ONE day, and defeat all evil, including the dangerous merc army bent on burning the village down.
Nothing in the paragraph above, and little in the film in general, makes any sense, including the fact that the bad guys show up to the village---the village they want to slaughter the population of---with stun batons and shock crossbows. I guess assault rifles wouldn't have quite stood up to the good guys' "dragon-forged" staves. Katy, the annoying American-born character who looks significantly out of shape, trains archery for a handful of hours before letting a much cooler character get his soul sucked out (RIP Master Guang Bo, I'll remember you) before landing the single lucky arrow needed to dispatch the eldritch boss-monster from half a kilometre away. She'd never be able to draw a real bow, let alone hit any target at all.
Shang-Chi himself also trains for a few hours before defeating his dad and his rings against all odds, but the flashbacks showing him training with his mum as a kid at least allow me to suspend disbelief sufficiently to go with it. What I can't go with is the fact that Shang-Chi takes a full ring-empowered gut punch beforehand, which propels him some fifty metres, and would have ruptured his spleen or stomach. He's dead, Jim. I don't care about your plot armour.
The final sequence also included so much seat shaking (4dx) that I could barely follow what was going on with the eldritch monster. 4dx was fine in "Alita: Battle Angel", but whoever the poor sod responsible for programming this film's effects was, he must have been out of his mind.
The worst part of this is that the story has potential and could have been handled better if someone actually tried to make it logical. What, am I supposed to "turn my brain off"? I can't "turn my brain off" because I actually have one. As a writer, I'd be laughed out of the room if I were to write a script as nonsensical as this. Guess that doesn't apply to blockbusters for some reason...
Michelle Yeoh is completely wasted in an insignificant role as Shang-Chi's aunt. Ben Kingsley is back as his "Iron Man 3" role, a dumb Englishman theatre actor providing comic relief alongside Katy; a role that I recall people perceived as an insult to the character of the Mandarin when "Iron Man 3" came out. The sole difference between his and Katy's jokes is that I actually chuckled at a couple of his.
A 4.5 is what I'd give, and I'd probably round it up to a 5, as the visual spectacle is decent, albeit dragged way down by the sheer inanity of the script. This unnaturally high rating, however, merits rounding mine down. I can't accept the rating is real. If it is, then people must be too willing to slobber up all the flashy corporate sludge thrown their way, which would be saddening.
