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Cradle 2 the Grave

I have to admit, I was there for Jet Li. True, he had less dialogue than most of the scenery, but his new "bad-ass" persona is more than a little breath-taking. When he opened up that can of whoop-ass, every white-boy in a three mile radius was shaking! Plus, we got to see him flossing in a sleek black convertible. Ass-kicking has never looked this good.

Jet Li plays stoic Su, the Taiwanese cop who is sent to America to retrieve some black diamonds, which aren't merely pretty gems, but something more valuable and powerful. Strangely, although these rocks are a Taiwanese treasure, they send [i]only[/i] Jet Li to retrieve them. He may be a one-man army, but that's a little unrealistic. I mean the man deserves a little back-up! Give the man a [i]gun[/i] or somethun'!

The other characters in this movie range from the obscenely caricatured to the... well... obscenely caricatured. DMX is the sensitive thug (who needs a hug), who is trying to save his daughter from "International Arms Dealers" (i.e. the PC way of saying "Asian bad guys") from Mark Dacascos, girlfriend Kelly Hu, and thug henchman Michael Jace. Tom Arnold and Anthony Anderson are the white and black comic relief, respectively, and Tom Arnold has the added bonus of being the only white man in the movie who [i]doesn't[/i] get his ass kicked by Jet Li and DMX. Also, he apparently is the proud owner of a "racist white-boy" pass throughout the entire movie; first he calls Jet Li a 'Chinaman', then proceeds to claim that both Chinese and Blacks are impossible to tell apart from one another. (In fact, Tom's inability to distinguish black men becomes the flimsy excuse for one of Jet's more important martial arts fights in the movie).

Mixing the revolutionary with the revolting, Mark Dacascos and Kelly Hu become one of the rare AM/AF couples in Hollywood (albeit evil), but Kelly Hu also outdoes herself with the dragon lady persona, putting Lucy Liu of Ally McBeal infamy to shame.

All in all, this movie couldn't stimulate a brain cell if its ratings depended on it. But then again, who goes to a DMX movie to think? I was there to do the official body count and cheer my Jet on.