Dear Jesus who is in Heaven, why do you allow
me to keep doing this to myself. At this point, 40+
years into this game that is my life, it should be clear that
I am not capable of governing myself when it comes to the
movies I choose to watch. Take this TV Kung-fu epic from
2001 calling itself 'Invincible' for instance. Here this
movie was, completely obscure, not bothering anybody, begging
to be watched by nobody, but like the Shadow Wolves hunting
Al-Qaeda, I tracked this movie down even though it didn't want
to be found, and I watched it. And my soul died just a
little bit more. But the worst part about that… is that
it kind of felt good. I'd almost call the pain
'exquisite'. Help me Jesus who is in Heaven… please…
Billy Zane will narrate for us as the 2000 year old Super
Human named Os. If you happen to have a fetish for the
voice of Billy Zane, then my friends you absolutely have to
get this movie. Anyway, for 2000 years Os has been
walking the earth killing people just for fun, until one night
in a dusty alley he the met the Bride with the Blonde Hair
(Michelle Comerford) who showed him the light via a very nice
wire fu sword fight. I'm thinking after seeing that nice
little wire fu display, while the whole 'showed the light'
thing was hokey, that maybe this movie is getting a bad
rap. I'd be wrong, of course.
Os needs The Light because his former BFF Slate (David Field)
has grown weary of wearing silk suits, walking the earth like
Kain and murdering humans, and has come to the conclusion that
if he destroys the Earth he can go back home. Wherever
home is for this cat because I thought it was Earth.
Clearly I missed something. Os cannot let this happen,
but to stop Slate and his boy band crew of The Four Silk Suit
Wearing Madmen, he needs his own crew of meta human super
warriors.
Who are these four warriors chosen before
they were even conceived (?) to do battle to save the
earth? There's Angry Black Dude and soldier Ray Jackson
(Tory Kittles), Long legged angry cop Serena Blue (Stacy
Oversier), Angry professional bodyguard Michael Fu (Byron
Mann) and finally the not so angry international thief Keith
Grady (Dominic Purcell). Those aren't their real names
by the way, just the names Os gave them since their old
identities have to be tossed away. But their faces
remain the same which kind of makes the new names a little
silly.
You know the routine. The Warriors aren't ready, they
don't get along, they need to work together, yada yada
yada. How are they going to work together?
By Os talking. A lot. I mean A lot. It's
almost as if the geniuses behind this film saw this film,
determined that all the talking by Billy Zane was losing the
audience, then came to the conclusion that to bring the
audience back, they should bring Billy back in the studio so
he can record more talking. It's just like that.
Eventually our heroes will listen to what the sage Os has to
say, like they have any real choice in the matter, put on
their own silk suits and kick some ass with their 'Matrix
Inspired Martial Arts'. That's what the DVD box cover
said. A DVD that I own. The fact that I own the
DVD to this movie makes less sense that the movie itself.
A couple of things about 'Invincible'. First is that it
seems the original plan was for this to be a pilot of a TV
show. Heck if I know what they would do every week since
they killed the silk suit sporting bad guys and Slate was
pretty much rendered inoperable. Maybe they'd just stop
bank robbers and stuff, not that it matters because this movie
with the names of Mel Gibson and Jet Li pasted prominently on
the box as Executive Producers couldn't have thrilled anybody
enough to warrant a follow up episode. Besides, Billy
Zane bowed out at the end, at least physically, so in future
episodes all we would've heard is more of his voiceovers.
So what's not so good about this movie? Pacing… pacing…
pacing… pacing. True enough, we did enjoy that battle
with the Bride with the Blonde hair, but starting out the
movie with a decent fight and then following it up with a
bunch of yak, massive slowness and a few lame fights sprinkled
in between might not have been the best cinematic move.
Instead of Os and slate fighting, what we got was a lot of
panning, slow moving close up shots of their eyeballs.
I'm no film director, but that's probably a cinematic move I
wouldn't have gone with. It's too bad really because
'Invincible' is a really nice looking movie with a fairly
solid cast of actors on board for this nonsense. Billy
Zane was at his sardonic best and his fake sword fighting
looked pretty decent, and we've been a fan of Byron Mann ever
since 'Crying Freeman' back in '95. Tory Kittles?
Frankenfish? Come on now. While this movie for
Dominic Purcell was pre-'Prison Break' we could still see some
of the Aussie's charm fighting to get out. Apparently
the lovely Stacy Oversier decided that acting wasn't her cup
of tea after this movie as this was the end of the woman's two
film career. Guess what? That other film is
'Guardian' with Mario Van Peebles and I purchased that
too. Tell me I don't need help.
So what we have with invincible is a terrible kung fu movie, a
terrible action movie, and a terrible drama that blew the
majority of its budget on silk suits.
