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The One
Score: 78%
Rating: PG-13
Publisher: Sony Pictures Home
                  Entertainment

Region: A
Media: Blu-ray/1
Running Time: 87 Mins.
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action
Audio: English, French, Portuguese
           Dolby TrueHD 5.1, Spanish 5.1
           (Dolby Digital)

Subtitles: English, English SDH,
           French,Portuguese, Spanish


Features:
  • Director & Crew Commentary
  • Making-Of: Jet Li is The One
  • Multiverses Create The One
  • About Face
  • The Many Faces of Jet Li
  • Animatic Comparison

The One pits Jet Li against himself as a version of his character from one universe, Gabriel Yulaw, hops parallel dimensions killing the alternate versions of himself in order to gain ultimate power. But when Yulaw is down to one other version, Gabe Law, he might have met his match.

With each version of Jet Li's character that dies, the remaining versions become more and more powerful, so naturally, when there are just two left, they seem to be evenly matched. But with the help of interdimensional cops, Harry Roedecker (Delroy Lindo) and Evan Funsch (Jason Statham), Law might be able to get a grip on his new powers and actually stop his evil twin. The problem is, if one of them dies, the agents are tasked to kill the other else the entire multiverse could rip itself apart.

As you would expect from a Jet Li film, the action is incredible and the fighting is superb, though the story does feel like something riding off of the wake of The Matrix. As the two Li characters duke it out over and over, Statham and Lindo follow behind firing off their super high-tech blasters, but the real focus is Li's fighting. It was interesting to see how the two characters use drastically different styles of Kung-Fu. The evil Yulaw takes on a much more aggressive style than Law's and in two's final fight with both of them at their maximum potential is pretty cool. To go along with the two characters' super-powered fighting is a host of visual effects that do everything from slow down the environment (to show how fast they are going) to wire work for some high-flying fun.

I was also impressed with the movie's music selection, particularly when Yulaw is on the scene. Everything from Disturbed's "Down With The Sickness" and Drowning Pool's "Bodies" to Papa Roach's "Last Resort" and Godsmack's "Awake."

As for special features, The One has a few featurettes that cover everything from how the visual effects and choreographers managed to have Jet Li fight himself to the photo shoot of Jet Li from the different universes. While not a whole lot, they were still interesting.

The One is a pretty fun action movie that feels a lot like The Matrix, so fans of that same sci-fi action style should definitely enjoy the movie, and the upgrade to high-definition Blu-ray only helps the situation. There are a couple of times when the CG doesn't look as realistic as it could be, but it's forgivable.



-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications
AKA Chris Meyer
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