MY REVIEW OF IT

Source: http://freewebs.com/mhrbh

PLEASE CHECK OUT THE SITE!

ROB-B-HOOD(2006)
(Directed by Benny Chan)

Plot: Three burglars kidnap a baby, and are forced to take care of him for a week. During this time, they bond with the baby and begin to regret their actions.

Review:
Jackie Chan has been getting tired of his nice comical, nice guy persona. The result hasn’t been a pleasant one for us fans. “New Police Story” was a heavy drama, and while having some touching moments(the ending always gets to me), felt very sappy. Then “The Myth” came out and proved to be a disjointed mess. When Jackie tries to act dramatic, he tends to come across as either bored or wooden. Luckily, he found the right balance with “Rob-B-Hood”, which while flawed, brings out what Jackie wanted to do. He plays a compulsive gambler and thief, but still a decent human being. Jackie is finally back to his enthusiastic self, while showing off the drama he keeps wanting to do.

At the core, Rob-B-Hood is a comedy. This is ultimately what makes and hurts the film. At times it’s really funny. But this is when the movie throws out a good one-liner or some comical stunts by Jackie Chan. Other times, it takes it too far. There was too much poo to be found here, and by poo, I actually mean baby poo. Seriously, throwing dirty diapers at characters shouldn’t be used more than once in a movie(and even then…). Also, what was up with our leads drinking milk from the baby bottle? Not funny, but very stupid.

Then we have the drama. For once, it works up until the very end. There are some touching shot compositions, my favorite being the scene where Jackie Chan is driven out of his families home. It wasn’t overdone, but is completely effective. It’s just like the ending in “New Police Story”, where it’s revealed why the younger guy is helping Chan. Overall, I completely bought the heroes personal growth and this leads to some tear jerking scenes. Hell, even the villains become sympathetic after awhile. For once, Jackie Chan has completely succeeded in making a decent drama.

Then we have the fight scenes. Yes, there are a fair amount of them, and they are quite good. The fight scenes show Jackie still has what it takes, and I was very impressed at some of the stunts. The roller coaster scenes were cool and I especially liked the air conditioner hopping scene. The fight scenes also manage to be intense and funny. I liked how characters use random weapons(even resorting to using a fan) near the end. It was funny and inventive.

On the downside, the plot seems TOO similar to “Three men and a baby”. As I said, the comedy didn’t always work and some of the subplots needed to be fleshed out. The love story arc is definitely the most random. This movie was too long(over 2 hours!) for this kind of subplot. In fact, this leads to my next criticism, the movie is simply too long. It felt like a lot could’ve been cut out, but at least the pacing was nice.

Jackie Chan(Thongs) does great, nailing his dramatic scenes while showing off all his charisma throughout the entire movie. Louis Koo(Octopus) is hilarious, and also nails his dramatic scenes. Michael Hui(Landlord) does good in his limited screen-time and it was nice to see Yuen Biao(Inspector Mok/Steve) again. I wish he would’ve been in the movie more.

Violence: While there are a lot of fight scenes, I don’t remember much violence. But there is a lot of poo.

Nudity: Jackie Chans nipple.

Overall: If some of the comedy was scaled down and the running time was shorter, I probably would’ve given this a higher review. So while flawed, it brings back the energy of the old Jackie Chan while still having the drama of the new Jackie Chan. So yeah, I’d recommend it to fans.

2.5/4 Stars

my reviews of martial arts and horror films
http://freewebs.com/martialhorror