Truly Dreadful Film

As Good As It Gets

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

While trying to find out who murdered his martial arts mentor, former spy Neil Shaw (Snipes) is on the run from Homeland Security who believe Shaw is implicated in a Senator's (McDonald) death.When you have the word "art" in the title of a movie, what follows within the movie should have some semblance to it. Not the case here. Just because you use a quote from the book, THE ART OF WAR by Sun Tzu doesn't mean that the goal of "art" is fulfilled. While not artful, the story is okay, but the mechanics of making this movie somehow got in the way. Many fight scenes were too dark and yes lasted too long. The nervous camera made some appearances and when will someone realize it just makes the audience dizzy and has really no dramatic impact at all. I guess we can blame the defunct TV show NYPD Blue for that. They did that so they could show a naked butt from time to time. Yes, yes, all in the name of "art" I am sure. And, get this: Homeland Security raids Shaw's computer friends who are helping him unravel the troublesome situation he is in and Homeland Security enters those offices with guns blazing and all are killed. Nice, eh? Maybe the story isn't all that okay.And, why would you leave Carlson (Hayward) a US Senator unprotected when you know others are close-by and out to kill her? Yes, she is seen leaving in a van from a hotel she was supposed to speak at; but another, with blonde wig, takes her place and the decoy van takes off. The bad guys figure it out and the Senator is left unprotected and is, of course, killed. Did I say the story is okay?Actually, for an Okay-Not Okay movie, the acting by the entire cast was good. It was the other stuff. Wesley Snipes' movies, by and large, are rather good. I would hate to see Mr. Snipes' future movies turn into another sad affair as we witnessed in a recent John Cusack movie, War, Inc. So what we will do is give Mr. Snipes a pass this time as he may have been distracted by his accountants. Doing an OKAY movie is not an option, Mr. Snipes and please do not use the word ART in the title unless you mean it.Violence: Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: Some, not much

Agent Nigel Shaw(Wesley Snipes)comes out 'retirement' to avenge the murder of his former mentor. Along the way he allows himself to do some work for a friend(Lochlyn Munro), an actor turning candidate for the Senate. He ends up trying to protect current Senator Carlson(Rachel Hayward)from possible assassination. Shaw does his digging and finds a round robin of political corruption and dead bodies keep piling up. A romance starts brewing when Shaw's mentor's daughter Melina(Athena Karkanis)begins sticking to him like glue.Some high octane martial arts and very good special effects. A simple story seems to become a snake uncoiling. The high tech surveillance is interesting, but the movie on a whole is a bit of a let down. Snipes is very much the hero and Karkanis is so easy to watch. Others in the cast: Winston Rekert, Ryan Mcdonald, Eric Brecker and Olivia Cheng. Its anyone's guess about a third episode.

The first one was pretty good except for the bloody scenes which i pretty much disliked.This one is clearly a low budget product from the director of the contractor, a film which was even superior to this one.It has fights in the dark where you get the impression that snipes'double did most if not all of the fighting.The DVD even has alternative fight scenes which really don't look that much different from those actually in the film.In about every snipes action film straight to DVD, i can find something to like and this one isn't different but you need patience and i really was getting to lose mine at 45 minutes.Something interesting happens at about 49 minutes(unfortunately it starts getting in the flat and boring zone oncein a while after that) and you can tell until the end that the scriptisn't the main problem but the directing is.it's mostly flat and boring but a better directorwith a bigger budget could have made something good out of it.I also really hated the ending.You see ... there's a traitor(not such a big surprise when you see so many movies) at the end and that person is being killed in cold blood by snipes.The whole thing is so flat and dull that it simply doesn't feel true and leaves the viewer unsatisfied.This art of war sequel is indeed a betrayal of the first one since it hardly has any real connection to it (bringing marie makito could have helped) and is so far below in quality.Apparently nobody was aiming high with this and it shows.

I tried to watch this movie and only made it through 15mins, About 3 chapters. The music was really bad, and annoying! From the amount that I saw, The movie was poorly produced. The acting made me want to cry, I am surprised others could not see this before it made it out of the cutting room,It should have been left on the floor. It was so atrocious and A complete let down, And I was Shocked to see acting from Wesley Snipes in this manner. I figured he could do so much better, than this piece of (blank). I feel that this is a sign of a career ending of A great actor or a great hit to come. So ending this blog I hope everyone is able to hear through the grape-vine, Not to watch this movie, and don't waste your money.