The One (2001)
Stealing the power of the universes one by one.
There’s a lot of different stories out there with the premise of how there can be only one -be it a figurative last survivor or a literal only one. Tonight, we’ll dive back into the martial arts fun-fest that once was, and still is very much in that time. Is it good? Is it bad? Should this movie have killed off a couple other versions of itself to deliver even better? I sure don’t know - but perhaps we can find it if we ask The One.
The story is actually right in the title - we follow the plot of a man whose going mad with power and wants to be come a god by becoming the one - or you could look at it as he wants to be the one and only him across the multiverse of worlds and times out there. Every time a copy of him dies form another universe, the power of life that was once on that copy gets redistributed amongst the remaining - and after killing 123 copies, it’s down to just him and one other. Of course, the one other knows nothing about this, and the multiverse police are trying to stop their ex member from becoming a god, but when it’s Jet Li that’s doing the tallying you know the only man to be capable of stopping him will be himself. The dilemma presented of course lies in which of the Jet Lis will survive - the power hungry or the once just caught up in it all?
The characters aren’t given a ton of room to breath here with all the action and events happening. We get some back stories for a few of them - mostly only in a few lines, nothing major - but it’s enough that everyone doesn’t feel like they are just along for the ride because the story says so. That said, none of the main crew is noticeably lacking in feeling more than just paper - each has at least a little to contribute, which is a bit more than can be said for all the B-staff whose largely there to ham it up and get shot or punched or squashed by vehicles. I won’t say they are all bad characters - they just don’t get the screen time needed to really do much of anything in lines of shining as anything - even a stereotype really.
How are the actors? Exactly as they are supposed to be I imagine. Will they absolutely corn-ball it sometimes? Heck yes. The Stallone-lip that Statham seems to be doing the entire movie for example? A bit over the top. Some of the background cops act quite over-enthusiastically. That said, with the subject matter everyone’s doing a fine job in the main crew. Best job? Probably not - but good enough to not hamper the enjoyment, and sometimes slightly bad enough to make it slightly more enjoyable. There is some chemistry here and there that works decent, and then other times you’d never really guess it. Jet Li gets plenty of chances to flex his martial arts chops, and a few to try and show off the more emotional side - although I would personally argue that the earlier is far more polished than the latter, be it on the director/writer end or just not really giving a whole lot of a screen-time focus to let Li really play with what he’s trying to deliver for his character.
The sound track is one hundred percent 2000s. I’m not sure what it was that made everyone go “hey, let’s Nu Metal the crap out of this!” only to have most people completely abandon movie metal soundtracks afterwards, but yeah. Now, I enjoy metal, so when I hear some of those older bands I can recall from the past like Disturbed, Drowning Pool, and Papa Roach my ear-hearts warm over slightly with nostalgia. That being said, I will admit the songs chosen don’t always greatly match whats going on in the movie as far as telling a story with the audio, but it’s at least enjoyable for me to hear anyways - and of course the mileage there might not be as sturdy for people who think it “all just sounds like noise” when it isn’t the more constructed for the movie score. That stuff does it’s job fine i suppose, adding to a scene, although at times of action when it doesn’t choose the nu metal it can seem a bit weird, even though at those points it’s some of the few times it does feel like the music is trying to tell a story.
The rest of the sound comes off pretty fine. You can hear all the lines as desired, and you should understand them all just fine. People who have a harder time with accented English might have a bit of a rough spot with how Li can deliver some lines, but I don’t really feel that it’s an understanding issue as much as the flow of the words can feel slightly different. Now, when him and the wife-character start spitting out some Chinese, people won’t understand that unless they know it - but that’s hardly a pronunciation and balance issue is it? The other sound effects are great for zazzing up the audio department, and everything sounds suitably punch where it should. As mentioned before in the characters and actors part - some of the line deliveries can be a bit more comical than I think strictly intended, but as long as it adds to the enjoyment and doesn’t hurt serious parts how bad is that?
The action scenes are well done. Plenty of them, plenty of types - including a nice drawn out fist to fist battle at the climax. Gun play, footwork, chases, and of course super-human moves get thrown in there through various means. The practical stuff all looks quite good, and a some of the digital stuff also looks pretty good, but I’d like to remind the reader that this is early 2000s. Some of the effects aren’t great - like you can see what they were going for and that’s fine, but if you were to be one of the picky graphics folks out there you’d be twisting your face expression in this “ew, that’s gross and is dated as heck” to some of the effects. Despite the plot being so heavy on two of the same person being in it at once, it handles it all quite well, with the exception of one moment where I’m pretty sure they just added in a cutout of Li and dropped it to the floor, as the lighting on it stands out and makes the interaction look more odd than it would have with a stunt double in a wig. Oh well, you can’t win them all right?
While I won’t lie and say the movie doesn’t show its age at some parts, it's still a pretty fun watch. The soundtrack and the action is good for someone looking for those things, and the plot is a neat little science fiction one that does the whole multiverse idea a bit less fancily than the modern day take from Marvel and their strange doctor. There’s plenty of room for improvement across the board, but even so it finds itself being quite the enjoyable watch for someone wanting to view it.