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A grounded tale about a man dealing with his traumatic past quickly devolves into an over the top movie that injects ninjas, mystical elements, and cartoony heroes and villains into the mix, and in the right hands that can be a lot of fun, here it just turns into a mess. (Even the font, whether it’s gigantic location labels or the subtitles that are bright red and slanted to seem action packed, make the film seem too silly.) At its core, the plot is straightforward, but it takes so long to get to the point and they make it so convoluted, it’s not till late in the third act that we understand what’s really going on. It doesn’t help matters that the characters are so hard to root for. Thanks to hidden agendas, constantly shifting allegiances, and baffling decision making, just about everyone to be unlikable at some point. And the addition of random G.I. Joe characters and concepts feel totally out of place to this story, and seem to be there to build up a franchise. The action is mediocre, with shaky and up-close camera work that obscures the hand to hand fighting, and CG used to deliver some unbelievable jumps and flips. There’s a brief mid-credits scene that comes up pretty quickly, so there’s not much harm in sticking around for it.
*1/2 out of *****