MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Bulletproof Monk’ is shallow but entertaining — Grade: B-
It’s about time they released a fun movie.
I’m not saying “Bulletproof Monk” is a great movie, but it is definitely better than anything else that has been released in the last three months. It’s like Hollywood proclaimed that period a dump time where they pawn off all the movies no one cares about.
“Monk” was one of those fun, escapist entertainment flicks where you didn’t really care that it had no substance. You were just there to watch people kick butt.
“Monk” centered around Kar (Seann William Scott), a pickpocket who meets a mysterious monk (Chow Yun-Fat) protecting the ultimate scroll from a psychotic Nazi who is stuck in the past. When Kar starts fulfilling the “three prophecies,” the monk realizes he is the one to take over as the guardian of the scroll.
This movie seemed to focus a lot of time on how the characters (including Jaime King as Kar’s love interest) had a lot of potential. In fact, this movie had a lot of potential it never seemed to realize. The martial arts fights were fun, the humor was there (sometimes) and the choice of actors was great.
They just never seemed to really get it together.
The disjointed story line and shallow characters never allowed me to develop any rapport with them. Instead I was relegated to wading through the campy dialogue and waiting for the next big fight. And even the fights were more like games of red rover than the beautifully dangerous skirmishes of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
What “Monk” lacked in story, though, it made up for with pure, unadulterated fun. This movie was fun to watch. It was different from the art-house flicks of the pre-Oscar season and better than the trash dumped in Academy’s wake. It didn’t try to make a statement (unless you count the war display where the final scenes were staged), and it wasn’t made to be a losing actor’s big comeback feature (see “Pluto Nash”). It just was. And it was, well, fun.
“Monk” was loosely based on a Dark Horse comic book, and fans of the comics may be disappointed in what they see. And in a year with a multitude of comic book adaptations hitting the screen, “Monk” won’t last beyond the opening of “X-2: X-men United” in May.
Jared Sterzer is a senior majoring in business information systems. Comments may be sent to jwsterz@cc.usu.edu.