Ninja Assassin

This has to be the funniest movie I’ve seen all year. By that I mean, the most unintentionally hilarious movie since Dragon Wars. Directed by James McTeigue, who hopefully will take lessons in editing someday, the movie is about ex-ninja assassin Raizo (Rain, yes his name is just Rain) fighting against his old clan with the help of Europol Forensic Analyst, Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris). That is all you need to know about the plot of the movie. Really, that’s it. The rest of the plot is a Hollywood Madlib: Protagonist is betrayed by Antagonist and seeks revenge with the help of Bumbling Sidekick/Love Interest by verb with a noun .

Raizo has a stock back story told in infrequent and annoying flashbacks. It consists of child abuse, more child abuse, then some more child abuse and the murder of his childhood sweetheart. This is where the audience is supposed to be made sympathetic to Raizo, but it is done so badly you end up laughing. That’s right, this movie makes you laugh at child abuse.
As an adult Raizo lives in Germany and plots to get back at the Ozuno Clan, and is randomly attacked in Laundromats. Meanwhile, Miko has uncovered the existence of the Ozuno Clan by way of diligent research and Forensic Accounting. This is the only plausible part of the entire movie. Mika’s research has put her in danger and a ninja assassin is sent to kill her. This leads to the worst fighting scene I’ve ever seen in my life. In my life. Anyway, Raizo saves her and you’re praying the movie is almost over. It’s not.

The movie gets progressively worse and less believable as it goes on. The fighting, which is the only reason you watch a ninja movie, is badly lit and poorly edited. You spend half the time trying to figure out what is going on while computer generated shrunken (throwing stars to the laymen) fly at you like they expected the movie to be in 3D. When you’re not counting plot holes you’re being overpowered by the bad dialogue. I mean, unbelievably, astronomically bad dialogue. The entire movie feels like it was written by someone who has done nothing but watched poorly dubbed kung-fu movies and has never had an actual conversation with anyone, ever. On top of that everyone seems to think they’re in a serious movie and acts so.

I can’t tell if Rain is any good as an actor because his character is so flat. Hopefully, this movie won’t mark the end of his career because he looks damn good with his shirt off. In fact, if this movie had been completely silent with nothing but Rain walking around shirtless it’d be ten times better. Naomie Harris’s character is supposed to be bumbling adorable and has “a special heart,” (no really, they say that, it’s an actual line) which is suppose to endear her to us. But she’s either overacting or under-acting every scene and fails to be compelling, endearing, or any other positive adjective. At one point she’s supposed to have this heartfelt speech over Raizo’s bloody and unconscious body but it starts out, “I know I’m only a Forensic Analyst…” and then I started laughed soda out my nose and missed the rest of it. The only interesting character in the entire movie is Ms. Forensic Analyst’s boss, Ryan Maslow (Ben Miles) who, despite the seven layer cake of bad of dialogue, still manages to make his character interesting.

The movie works on the Inverse Law of Ninjas. For those of you who are not versed in Hypothetical Geek Mathematics, the Inverse Law of Ninjas states that the ability of ninjas decreases the more ninjas there are. So if you find yourself facing one ninja you’re screwed, but upwards of 500+ ninjas and a gentle breeze can kill them all. This movie also teaches you many other interesting facts about ninjas. Such as, they are actually giant ticks filled with strawberry sauce. Cigarette smoke hides your smell from ninjas, rendering them unable to track you…by smell. Light is hazardous to their health, or something, and they can actually sink or turn into shadows, or something. This movie did prove conclusively, however, that ninjas do not bounce.

So, if you’re looking to waste some money and kill a few brain cells, and if you really, really like kung-fu movies, don’t watch this movie. Go hunt down Jackie Chan’s live-action City Hunter and watch that instead. The always entertaining Mr. Chan dresses up like Chun Li from the Street Fighter video game. It is a moment of Geek Nirvana.