If you’re a fan of Nic Cage’s crazier projects and you’ve seen the trailer for Jiu Jitsu, then you’ll likely be pretty pumped to sit down and give it a watch. The trailer promises an over-the-top zany comic book blend of Predator and Mortal Kombat, with Cage playing a Raiden-like character. Unfortunately the trailer is about as good as Jiu Jitsu ever gets, as in reality, the film is a rather dull and uninspired affair.
Every six years, an ancient order of jiu-jitsu warriors band together to battle a vicious alien, the fate of the planet hanging in the balance. Although having been successful for many years, the latest battle throws up a plethora of hardships after their champion fighter, Jake (Alain Moussi), loses his memory. As his fellow fighters try to revive his lost identity they must also try and stop their deadly foe and protect the realm of Earth.
The plot of Jiu Jitsu is all over the place with both story and character continuity being its major flaw. The story begins with Jake taken in by some military types, throwing The 100’s Marie Avgeropoulos forward as a potential love interest and key player. Around the twenty minute to half hour mark however, her character simply vanishes, never to be spoken of again. She’s not the only one to disappear at this juncture and the result feels as if the first third of the run time belongs to an entirely different film altogether. Other characters then pop up out of nowhere and are suddenly very important, but once again, they flash in and out in such a peculiar fashion that it’s hard to properly pin down who, and what, is actually worth paying attention too. Even the inclusion of Nic Cage in full insane mode can’t steady the ship, Cage seemingly having been given carte blanche to do and say whatever he wants. The result – Cage appears to be in a completely different movie to everybody else.
The characters are horribly stereotyped and under-developed. The worst offender is My Name is Earl’s Eddie Steeples who is shoe-horned into the stereotypical ‘comedy relief black guy’, sticking to all the tropes highlighted in Not Another Teen Movie, so prepare for a plethora of ‘damn’ and ‘that shit is whack’ type quips. Action icons Tony Jaa and Frank Grillo make appearances, but with so little time spent developing either one, their involvement feels more like an extended cameo than a cohesive inclusion.
The rules of the invader and its weaknesses also make for a muddled mess. The alien attacks Earth every six years, and unless beaten, gets to destroy the world, but it always enters via one specific portal. Considering that Earth is still standing, it doesn’t make sense why the group are struggling so much to take it down this time around, and surely the easiest way to end it would just be to wait outside the portal and blow it up upon arrival…but this is not a film that relies on sense or reason.
Most infuriatingly, the title may be Jiu Jitsu and our fighters may all be masters of that particular martial art, yet there is very little actual Jiu jitsu on display. Instead, far too much screen time is devoted to rival martial arts styles, and guns, lots of guns. With jiu-jitsu pushed so far to the back it’s rather odd that they opted for that name for the film and is just another example of how confused and nonsensical this film really is.
There are plenty of action sequences, but they become tiresome fairly early on as director Dimitri Logothetis latches onto a stylistic camera choice that is more nauseating than inventive. All the fight sequences are shot in slow-mo bullet time, a move to try and show-off the choreography, but after the first couple of shots, they feel dragged-out to fill the screen-time. By shooting every little kick and punch in this way you lose sense of which moves are super fancy, thereby diluting everything on display. The feeling of nausea comes from Logothetis’ decision to only have the impacting blows in slow motion, but also having the connecting moves play at normal speed. Consequently, the motion judders; it constantly speeds up and down, distracting the viewer from the action. During the fights, the camera places the viewer into first person mode several times, but rather than feeling new and fresh, it just feels strange, the camera bobbing and weaving at the same time as it changes speeds. You’ll need a really strong stomach to make it through.
It’s a shame that so much time within the action sequences is spent on unnecessary camera tricks as the majority of the cast are world-class martial-art practitioners. The techniques detract from their talents and give the impression of covering up a lack of ability, which is of course completely untrue.
If you’ve seen the trailer for Jiu Jitsu then you’ll be mightily disappointed with what the film actually is. Were it to actually play on the Mortal Kombat against the Predator idea then the result might have been something really special. Instead, the film is just one hundred minutes or so of muddled mayhem, that although watchable, is infuriating and almost instantly forgettable.
Jiu Jitsu is available on Digital HD from 21st December 2020 and on DVD from 4th January 2021.
Jiu Jitsu
Summary
A bland and confusing film that plays against its obvious fun factors, creating a rather dull action movie that won’t stick in your memory for long.
