There wasn’t much jiu jitsu in Jiu Jitsu. I daresay there wasn’t any at all. I don’t want to belabor the point, but it’s kind of like titling a film “Baseball” and then showing two hours of tennis. Film, and I use that term very loosely here, you deserve a failing grade on that count alone.
The action takes place in the jungles of Myanmar where some outer space Wolverine-type punk has decided to make Earth its bitch. Well, not the whole planet, necessarily, unless the fighting guys won’t fight. What?! Yeah, this is stupid. And there’s a whole Predator thing going on because was that a great plot or what? Hold up. I just discovered Predator is rated 7.8 on imdb. 375,000 votes. 7.8. Well gosh, that just zoomed to the top 10 list of “Most Overrated Films Ever.” But I digress.
In the opening bit of today’s predatory slog, our “hero” is running away. Yup, that’s the guy I want to root for. In fact, this whole thing is really, really backwards. Lemme ‘splain: There’s a faceless alien who comes to Earth every six years to kill time, people. This is his sport. And there’s a group of fighters trained to resist the alien and sacrifice their own lives in order to
“save” humanity. See, the alien dude just wants a good fight, and then it cheats by regenerating every time it loses. I’ve told you before how I feel about fights between immortal and mortal; it’s the stuff of bad screenplays.
Don’t try buttering me up with inclusions of Tony Jaa, Frank Grillo, and Nicolas Cage. This film distinctly chose the nondescript Jake (Alain Moussi) as its champion. And then it made him run away from a fight. And then, these folks who are so concerned about sacrificing themselves for humanity deliberately led the injured and unconscious Jake to an army post where he’d have to fight his way out … in order to battle a regenerating, all-powerful alien. This whole thing is stupid.
Bottom line: Jiu Jitsu is really all about setting up a series of mixed martial arts cage matches between faceless alien and Earthling. You know exactly why they chose faceless, right? Cuz no real Earthling is disciplined in all of the seventeen non-jiu jitsu martial arts on display. So while it seems like just one alien fights everybody, it’s clearly several different guys in a faceless alien suit throughout the film. Boy, if I didn’t already dislike the film before, that would have sealed it of me. Suffice to say, I tapped out of this one. And so should you.
An alien returned to battle Earth by the score
He forgot a face as he went out the door
But we’re ready, you see
With FYNC
Did I mention this is poor man’s Predator?
Rated R, 102 Minutes
Director: Dimitri Logothetis
Writer: Dimitri Logothetis, Jim McGrath
Genre: FYNC!
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who love pointless hand-to-hand combat
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Let’s suppose you don’t even have a taste for Predator
