MOVIE: Jiu Jitsu
STARRING: Alain Moussi, Nicolas Cage, Raymond Pinharry, Mary Makariou, Tommy Walker, John D. Hickman, Eddie Steeples, Rick Yune, Ryan Tarran
RELEASE DATE: November 20th, 2020
WHERE TO WATCH: VOD (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Vudu)
By Justin Pomerville (2 Broke Geeks)
Wylie (Nicolas Cage) in Jiu Jitsu
Do you like aliens? Martial arts? The movie Highlander? Then 2020’s Jiu Jitsu might be the missing movie from your collection. As someone who is a fan of sci-fi, martial arts, and Nic Cage, this film felt like it was catering to a very small, niche fanbase. As an added bonus, this film was adapted from a 2017 comic book of the same name that was written by Dimitri Logothetis, who also directed this film. So, how can a movie with those kinds of details fail? Turns out, fairly easily.
The plot is that every six years, an ancient order who are Jiu Jitsu experts face off against alien invaders for supremacy of Earth. For thousands of years, they have this contest, and every year, the humans win. Now, when a master Jiu Jitsu fighter, Jake Barnes (played by Alain Moussi) refuses to face an indomitable alien creature names Brax, the future of humanity hangs in the balance. Injured and suffering from severe amnesia, Jake is captured by a military squad unequipped to fight the merciless intruder who has descended upon the planet. Jake is rescued by Wylie (played by Cage) with an ancient order of Jiu Jitsu fighters who must help him recover his memory, regain his strength in order to band together and defeat Brax in an epic battle that will determine the fate of mankind.
Brax (Ryan Tarran) in Jiu Jitsu
This movie is extremely boring. It feels like they were trying to make their own variation of Mortal Kombat, but everything lands like a cheap knock-off. Anytime there were fight scenes, you could see the crash pads under straw. The sword fighting was extremely slow and messy. And unfortunately, the acting was horrendous. It felt as if everyone was just going through the motions without any real emotion behind anything. From start to finish, it was a boring film with cheap-looking effects, and although the design of Brax was eye-catching, it felt like it would have been better used on a good film. This falls near the end of “Hot Mess” on the Nic Gauge.
