In my house there was a picture on the wall of Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr, and Bruce Lee. My father was a huge fan and so was I. So to hear Game of Death was akin to finding out there were Krispy Kreme in the UK. Pure heaven. Game of Death hinted at being a remake of the Bruce Lee movie as it was mostly set in a near empty hospital with Wesley Snipes battling it out with jaded assassins and former CIA agents in the Motor City. I was excited to see this movie. I got all
my Kung Fu movie watching paraphernalia ready. A quart of House Fried Rice with sweet and sour chicken, a liter of sprite and my Bruce Lee action figure that my dad got for me on my first day of Karate class. Don't judge me.
I thought I was in for a beautifully acted and written movie that pay homage to the
unfinished film by the late and the very great Bruce Lee.
I was sadly and very rudely mistaken. I've seen conspiracy movies done, and done well. I've seen Wesley Snipes movies done and done well. Who could forget the swagger that was Nino Brown? To this day the name Nino Brown is shouted from every rap song from Chris Brown to Guccie Mane, and we all know how hard it is to get a mention in a rap song without paying out the nose. And Blade. Need I say more? Unfortunately for all who spent that dollar at the Redbox, Game of Death wasn't done well. Not even the barest hint of a well made movie. I wonder if I can get that
dollar back.
If Snipes needed to get back into the acting business to pay off that IRS debt this was the wrong movie for that comeback. Snipes plays Marcus Jones, a CIA agent running his own team under the watchful eye of his mentor. He is apparently the top dog in the CIA agent food chain. So he has to be good. His latest mission is to play bodyguard for slimy arms dealer Frank Smith played by Robert Davi. Smith is on his way to a meeting with a 100 million dollar payoff. Jones has his team ready to take Smith into custody. His team of sidekicks consists of Zander played by Gary
Daniels and Floria played by Zoe Bell. En route to the meeting, Smith suffers a heart attack, forcing Jones to take Smith to the hospital. This is where the double cross begins, and the sharks start circling.
The plot does hint at something running afoul when the mission that Snipes was charged by his mentor takes a turn for the worse. So you sit back and await to be sucked deep into the spy world. With twists and turns at every corner. The ex CIA ops surround the hospital and you just know you're in for some great shoot out scenes and even some nice hand to hand combat. After all Wesley is a kick ass martial artist. He brought the Daywalker to life for Merlin's sake. He should
know his way around a fight scene, but for the love of all things Depp that is not what Game of Death nor Wesley delivers. Instead you get slow, dim witted combat scenes that the could have been the graduation project for a film school student.
It is a lazily written, sloppily produced and slow acted movie. Its almost as if the actors themselves weren't convinced of their lines and characters. The writers seemed to run out of things to say. So the great revelations in the movie that are meant to be the cliffhangers, are just some hastily spat one liners that leave you on the edge of that climax and then fall's asleep on top of you, without a promise of the orgasm.
The oddball casting of Ernie Hudson is worth pondering. Hudson has played some great
roles. Most notable is Winston Zeddemore in Ghostbusters and Warden Leo Glynn in the HBO series OZ. Hudson has shown he has the acting chops, so its just a wonder why he choices to act in these B-rated movies all the time. He should really rethink who his agent is. Though Hudson as a soul saving priest is as laughable as Christina Aguilera singing the National Anthem during the Superbowl. And that was pretty funny if you missed it.
Gary Daniels was cast to play opposite Snipes as the leader of the rouge CIA operatives. His bad guy is just an abomination. Hermione Granger punching Draco in the nose during Prisoner of Azkaban frightened me more than Daniels' Zander character. If you are going to play a bad guy with a funny accent and you can't bring it like Alan Rickman did in Die Hard, then you just need to go back to Evil High School with Dr. Evil and the kids from Sky High and take good notes. Or
maybe just pick a different role to play.
Zoe Bell, stunt woman, turned actress should stick to her day job. A woman wielding a gun, killing innocents and threatening the good guy has got to be bad ass. She has to bring it on her worst day and Bell fell flat. Though her fight scene in the vault was the best fight scene in the movie. She took a whooping and kept on ticking, and she came out on top. Dropping both men with a single gun shot and a expertly thrown knife. Bell proved she can be deadly but the jury is still out on her acting abilities.
The closing fight scene on the rooftop between Snipes and Daniels was maybe the biggest letdown of the movie. We've seen Snipes in better fight scenes. Hell the shootout scene in New Jack City offered more of a nail biting, edge of your seat experience than this dance of the nimrods Snipes and Daniels offered in their three minute fight scene. It was just too long for the lethargic fight they were having. Believe me you will feel every stinking, dragging minute of that scene and
when its over you will thank your lucky stars this movie was only 98 minutes of your life.
I pose to repeat a question William McKenzie asked his fellow Inbetweeners in season two before they ran off to go clubbing in London, “Is it possible to unsee something?” That's how I feel after watching Game of Death.
