The One Reviews

Mediocre at best

Script is terrible.

Acting EVEN worse.

FX - quite good.

Cinematography - non-existant.

Believability - ZERO.

Don't waste your time. This is not a good film. The 3 mins of decent special effects are eclipsed by the terrible acting and script.

BORING. DULL. TIRESOME. WASTE OF TIME.

I should have known....

Well, I thought the plot surrounding a set of parellel universes, and a single person gaining strength, speed etc from killing off the other versions of himself was a grounding for a decent movie. I'm not all that fussed with martial arts stuff, but a good scrap is a good scrap, so I chose this movie to watch.

It had all the right ingredients, a good and an evil character, both played by Jet Li, and the promise of a well thought out action film.

Unfortunately, it all just ended up as Jet fighting lots of people, and Jet, in a sub-Matrix way, with lots of posturing and not a bruise to be seen after all the wall hitting and general knocking about. This meant no real tension, and I couldn't have cared less which of the 'twins' made it, twist or no.

On the plus side though, Jason Stathams american 'accent' was a laugh-a-sentence, and Jet's alternative others with wigs from hell did add an extra star to an ordinary, un-exciting film. There you go.

Very good action, but extremely far-fetched...

I guess the concept of a multiverse (multiple universes) could be true, in theory - but travelling freely between them? Now that is just mad, but it's the basis for this film. The acting is average, and the plot is okay, if significantly far-fetched. The action and martial arts scenes, however, are great. Jet Li is a fantastic martial artist, and defo one for the kung fu enthusiasts out there to look out for. All in all, not a bad wee film, but when watching it you can't help thinking it would have been better if more time and money had been put into the making of it.

The Usual chop , bang , kapow

Very poor story, not bad action...could have been a lot better. Big name stars, 100 Jet Li's running around, need I say more..

Should have known better.....

If you like your martial arts and like me you train in them then you could be mistaken for getting quite excited about this film.

When I heard that Jet Li was releasing a film that used the internal chinese boxing skills of Hsing I and Ba-gua I thought great!!!!! But as a kind of good vs Evil, parallel universe, special effecty type affair I thought to myself... hmmmm this could be a bit on the dodgy side!

From a martial art point of view Jet Li is, as always on form. From a film viewers point of view, this is not a film that will challenge you in anyway... it comes across a bit hollow.

In a parallel universe this could be a good film...

Perhaps the most surprising things about 'The One' is just how far off form the work of writer/director team Glen Morgan and James Wong is. This is the team which brought us some of the best episode of 'The X-Files', created 'Space Above and Beyond', turned the frankly mad 'Millenium' into something watchable and brought us 'Final Destination'. So how they could squander what is a potentially fascinating idea for an action film is beyond me.

This is the same territory as 'Sliders', Buffy episode 'The Wish', Marvel Comics 'What If?', DC Comic's 'Elsewhere' series and a hundred other sci-fi tv series (although oddly 'The X-Files' hasn't done one). Parallel universes. The main difference here being that that one or two of the universes are aware of there non-uniqueness and have formed a force to police the dimensions.

The expectation is of a cross-dimensional chase as Jet-Li tries to save his other selves from himself. Instead we see one reality in which Al Gore is president which looks like our own, and then our own. All of the other Li's are dead already.

So instead we have a re-run of 'The Enemy Within' episode of Star Trek and a certain other episode of Buffy. I know it's a cliche, but you wish someone had said 'Kill him, Spock' just to get it out in the open.

Instead we find the minimal actorial charisma of Li, protected by a cast who are (for the most part) at least trying. Carla Gugino (last seen in 'Spy Kids') shows again how she should really be more famous than she is (watch it again and see if you're looking else in frame when she's on) but Delroy Lindo looks embarassed, frankly. The only time this charade picks up is at the end ... but I'm not going to give that way in case you really must sit through this...

MMMMkay

Righto. I didn't expect it to be a high concept film that would leave me musing over life's greater moral quandires. But I did expect a semi-ok beat 'em up film.

I was dissapointed.

It is drivel. Drivel that unfortunatley it kept me watching until the end by bordering on the almost good. If you like these sorts of films then I guess your tolerane would be higher than mine. I still say it's a waste of your time

Very short, only 75 mins! But the action/effects are good. Not bad for a Saturday night in front of the TV if you like a bit of silly action, but don't expect magic.

Not the worst film I've ever seen but I'm a little partial to the actress that plays Jet Li's wife. Carla Gugino I think is her name. The special effects were cool and the fighting was of course great. It's exactly what you'd expect. Nothing more, nothing less.

Ifyou like Jet Li then you should probably like this movie anyway, but if you've never seen a Jet Li movie, this is a good place to start. We get to see 2 sides of Jet. We get the Good side and the Bad side, which i must he plays brilliantly. The story is also pretty good, and does go off one of those weird parallel universe type tangents, that usually happen.