JIU JITSU (2020)

JIU JITSU (2020)

Tagline: Nope, didn't have a budget left for that. 

(Action, Action, Martial Arts [R]

Oh man, so yeah, any time I see Nicolas Cage in anything, it piques my curiosity. He just passed 100 acting credits last year but seems to be picking up speed. Yes, the dude does a lot of dumpster fire movies, but man, the guy is entertaining. Anyway – throw in some martial arts and you’ve got the perfect movie, right? 

In this one, a man named Jake Barnes (played by Alain Moussi famous for being in a couple of the KICKBOXER movies) has lost his memory and is being detained by a military force in the area. They have a run-in with a group of Jiu-Jitsu fighters that want Jake back, but the world has a bigger problem. Yeah, it’s freakin aliens. This one’s name is Brax and according to the story, he brought Jiu-Jitsu to earth. All he asks is to swing by every now and then and face a worthy opponent. Kind of like when you run into a former barista and they are thinking they can throw down a better cappuccino than you. They can’t because you invented cappuccino’s when you time-traveled to the dawn of coffee innovation and decided regular caffeinated drinks were too boring. Where was I…oh yeah… fate of the world… let’s fight!

Needless to say, not many previews got my attention in 2020 but this one did. Anyone expecting a masterpiece probably didn’t know what they were walking into. I expected total nonsense and I got what I came for.

Where this movie goes pretty wrong is trying to cram actress Marie Avgeropoulos into this film. She is pretty awesome when she is not going berserk as Octavia in the TV show 100, but she is cast so badly in this movie it’s hard to get my head around why she was cast. I hope she gets some better roles where she isn’t playing Myra and army interrogator. Also strangely cast and largely wasted were the talents of Tony Jaa who plays Kueng. It takes very little time for him to be irrelevant in this movie. If you like Tony and would like to see him in a WAY better role, see MONSTER HUNTER immediately. Rick Yune (best known for playing Johnny Tran in THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS) is well cast in this as Captain Sand, but they give zero backstory into how he knows what he knows in the film. They do kind of explain it, but it feels jammed in for no real reason. Finally, Nicolas Cage kills it as Wylie. I won’t go too much into his character if you ever decide to see this thing, but Cage is almost comical and definitely nuts and it’s just freakin perfect. 

JIU-JITSU feels like one long action sequence in some parts and in others feels like not much is going on. Layer in this movie are some decent shots of artwork, I am guessing this was done because the movie was based on a comic. The lighting overall is pretty horrible, but I did like the crazy look they gave this alien. 

To sum it up, this is not a blockbuster movie, it didn’t make my TOP 10 of 2020, but it is a pretty fun B-Movie and I think people slamming it might have gone in expecting something that just wasn’t there. As for me, I actually dug this thing on some levels and I really loved the premise. If you get a chance maybe check this out, but I can’t recommend buying it unless you can find it for super cheap and just really love Nicholas Cage.  

I give JUI JITSU a 3 out of 7. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF ACME ROCKET FUEL AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.  

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