The One

views updated

The One ★★ 2001 (PG-13)

The premise of this action-intensive martial arts flick is that there are 125 parallel universes, and that each person has a counterpart in all of them. Gabriel Yulaw (Li) is a renegade Multiverse Bureau of Investigation agent who is killing his fellow selves in order to absorb their energy. He has fellow MBI agents Roedecker (Lindo) and Funsch (Statham) after him, but he only has one Gabe left to kill, this one a hardworking L.A. deputy sheriff. Bad Gabe kills good Gabe's wife, and the stage is set for a showdown in a grungy factory. Did you follow all of that? Well, it doesn't matter, because it's all just an excuse to have Jet Li kick Jet Li's butt on a catwalk to the sounds of grating techno/metal. Should have added a touch of humor to a completely ludicrous plot instead of concentrating on stealing special effects from “The Matrix.” 80m/C VHS, DVD . US Jet Li, Delroy Lindo, Carla Gugino, Jason Statham, Dylan Bruno, Richard Steinmetz, James Morrison; D: James Wong; W: Glen Morgan, James Wong; C: Robert McLachlan; M: Trevor Rabin.