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Nothing. Absolutely Nothing. Watching the new hip-hop chop-sock
action flick starring Jet Li and DMX was just like the time
I was forced to go to summer school for algebra, despite the
fact that I had just passed the final 2 weeks earlier. No
one believed me when I said that I already knew the material,
and I was forced to sit through the same old equations all
over again, when I could have been out chasing girls. That
was a wasted summer.
And this was a wasted two hours. Don’t get me wrong;
the movie served it’s purpose: to have things blow up
cool and to give Jet Li an opportunity to kick a plethora
of ass with one hand in his pocket, but on the whole the film
was superfluous. We’ve all seen this before. And I’m
not talking about the whole “action/kung-fu” genre.
I’m not that much of a wet blanket that I would fault
a film for sticking to those tried and true conventions.
No, “Cradle 2 The Grave” attempted to teach me that
DMX was a tough-as-nails thief who really has a heart of gold
and will do anything to protect his and his own. But I already
knew this: I had already seen “Exit Wounds”. It
attempted to teach me that Jet Li is a mysterious man with
secrets in his past (a device commonly used by filmmakers
to find a way around limited acting ability: “Mysterious”
merely being short-hand for “let’s give our lead
actor as few lines as possible”) who kicks as much ass
as humanly possible. Yet I already knew about the many asses
kicked by Mr. Li: I had already seen “Romeo Must Die”.
“Grave” tried to teach me that Tom Arnold is the
most annoying man on the Earth. But I’ve known this since
the 1980’s, ever since he was the most famous man to
see a fat woman’s undergarments ever since Gene Hackman
watched Shelly Winters go swimming in “The Poseidon Adventure”.
What’s worse, is that “Cradle 2 The Grave”
was directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak, the noted Polish director
responsible for “Exit Wounds” and “Romeo Must
Die”. So “Cradle 2 The Grave” is basically
the same director making the same actors perform the same
shtick for the third time in a row. I’m not that bad
a study. Just because it took me four years to finally pass
Italian in college doesn’t mean I need three lessons
on how Jet Li kicks ass.
This doesn’t mean that the movie was bad. Stuff did blow
up good. And Jet Li kicked ass with one hand in his pocket.
You read that right: for almost the entire movie, Li had his
right hand in his front pocket, like he was playing with himself.
Maybe fighting bad guys gets him aroused. Maybe Li injured
his arm in a terrible accident, and is forced to hold a pen
like Bob Dole does in order to hide this terrible, terrible
disformity. Maybe he just likes Alanis Morissette.
If pressed, I can come up with one thing I that learned from
this movie: It’s okay to beat up on midgets. During the
most impressive fight scene in “Cradle 2 The Grave”,
Jet Li has to take on the entire extended membership of the
Ultimate Fighting Championship and one angry, bald midget.
Now, Jet Li’s not the biggest actor in the world (at
5’4”, he stands slightly taller than Tom Cruise)
but I think that a fight between one of the most talented
martial artists working in the movies today (Jet Li, not Cruise,
you twit) and an angry midget would be slightly one-sided.
But, that was one angry midget. And I’m sure that he
was ready to bit Jet Li on the ankle or something. So it must
be okay to beat the crap out of a little person.
Except, now that I think of it, I didn’t learn this from
“Cradle 2 the Grave”. I knew it was okay to beat
up a midget ever since the 70’s, when James Bond tossed
Herve Villechaize out a window in “The Man with the Golden
Gun”. Dammit! Was there nothing new to this movie? I
already knew that Jet Li kicks ass. I already knew that DMX
is unable to say a line of dialogue without screaming or barking
like a dog. And I already knew that Tom Arnold should be weighed
down with old refrigerators and dropped into the middle of
the ocean. Maybe he can meet up with Shelly Winters while
he’s down there and the two of them can go swimming together.
My name is Michael Niederman, and I’ll be learning at
the movies.
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Above: Jet Li and whatshisname. Below: Herve Villechaize is
not in this movie
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