The number of enemies made me think “oh the hundred fools” but it wasn’t a scene as cool as in Kill Bill. Here and there there were scenes that had videogames-sounds and even looked like videogames.
Throughout the movie the narrator explains, more or less, always in a sort of cryptic way, who you're going to meet or what is going to happen. The characters were very stereotyped.
It starts describing how men invented more and more ways of killing each other until they arrived on the verge of destruction, so all firearms were banned, but “the gun gave way to the sword” again and men kept killing each other. This town is run by a murderer and his gang. The boss is called Nicola the woodcutter (Ron Perlman) and his men wear red suits. One day a train brings to town not one but two silent strangers: the Drifter (Josh Hartnett) and Yoshi, a Japanese man who wants to find a medallion that was stolen from his family. Now Nicola wears it. At first they fight each other and then they become allies. The Bartender (Woody Harrelson) helps them, but he doesn’t fight anymore. He did once and was almost killed: he says that Nicola took pity on him, but it seems to me that he was spared because Nicola liked his woman Alexandra who became Nicola’s favourite.
Together they will take down all the red suits and Nicola’s nine warrior before defeating him too, and after that they will both go their separate ways, while the bartender will stay in town with Yoshi’s cousin Momoko, to open a bar/restaurant together.
The best character was Killer n.2 (Kevin McKidd), very stylish and cool for real, who really seemed part of that world. I specially liked his first scene, when he defeats the gang who wants to dethrone Nicola and his men, and gives their leader a chance telling him that if he comes back to work for Nicola “all will be forgotten, even the buffoon part” with a nice little bow, rather cool, because the guy had called him a buffoon earlier. That was my favourite part.
For the final battle Nicola shaves his face and finally we can see him more clearly, although I didn’t really like that sort of Obelix-look. Still, his scene was good.
Hartnett seemed a bit out of place, trying too hard to be what he’s not.
The final battles were more annoying than cool, because Killer n. 2 seems to overpower Yoshi while Nicola hits the drifter with an axe to the chest. They both seems defeated and yet they get up and kill them with a single move. I know they’re the heroes and blah blah blah, but you know, fantasy has rules too, comedy is a serious business, stories should have sense and meaning, and all that kind of things. Every story should make sense, even the most fantastic of them.
The drifter seemed even unable to get up on his feet while Nicola was perfectly healthy without a single scratch, and yet at the end the drifter kills him and walks out... once again another movie with undefeatable enemies that at the end are defeated in the wrong way. They always do that, it’s really annoying: impossible obstacles overcome by sheer luck, or impossible enemies defeated in absurd ways simply because the heroes must win.
Basically, the man with the limp manages to live, Momoko is saved, Yoshi and the drifter are again as healthy as ever although they were almost dead, and Alexandra died in the fire they caused when she came back to save Momoko and stopped where she was when she saw the bartender she loved and the burning roof fell on her, and she died while the bartender took Momoko out to safety and didn’t spend a single word for her.
So yes, I like some things about it, the visual, the colours, the idea, the style, but there was no soul. Watched it once, and that’s enough.
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