Ninja Assassin
James McTeigue directed one of the best comic book adaptations of the decade with 2006’s “V for Vendetta.” Compared with that film’s artful blend of action and provocation, “Ninja Assassin” is a letdown of significant proportions.
But you can’t expect lightning to strike twice when it comes to a film like this, which is nonetheless bloody good as an action film- McTeigue knows his way around the camera (of course, he was an assistant director on “The Matrix”). If it lacks the bold strokes his earlier film did in story, it’s only because writers Matthew Sand and J. Michael Straczynski didn’t supply them.
Leading the film into battle is Japanese pop star Rain (another Wachowski vet- he was rival racer Taejo Togokahn in “Speed Racer”) as a lone warrior, banished from an ancient order of assassin warriors with beliefs (and abilities) supernatural in nature. He has roamed the world, hunted by his former brothers in arms, while also acting as an assassin for hire in his own right.
We are introduced to this world through Micah (Naomie Harris), who has encouraged her boss at Europol to look into the history of such groups of killings, putting her directly in the crossfire of such groups and old rivalries.
From then on, it’s pretty much all action, all the time. And the action is brutal, bloody, and well, pretty damn cool to be honest. If South Korean master Chan-Wook Park (“Oldboy”) ever directed an American action film (a big if…hopefully), it might look a lot like this. McTeigue doesn’t disappoint, though- like I said, he’s got a good eye for action, and the blood-letting, well, let’s just say “The Final Destination” looks like just another horror movie compared to this sucker.
As a movie, it’s not much else. It’s entertaining when taken at face value, but it should not be taken as much more. I will say, though, that it made me hope that if someone were ever to turn the NES classic vid game “Ninja Gaiden” series into a film (the game itself is already pretty compelling narratively), I hope they call McTeigue. He could very well break the “video game-to-movie” curse.
