Hey cool kids, I'm back with another post from my Tuff Fest series.
Simul-posted here: Someone To Love More Than Music
Last week I talked about how silly The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly was. It does not compare to the silliness in the District 13 series. This should come as no surprise for those familiar with the work of Luc Besson (writer producer) and EuropaCorp (studio), whose names appear on such great pieces such as The Transporter series, the Taxi series, and Kiss of the Dragon.
These are not the kinds of movies that you get into for aspects like "deep emotional involvement," or "meaningful social commentary." Let's be honest here: we love these movies because we love explosions, chase scenes, and watching people beat each other up. The District series delivers on all these honorable areas, this second installment ramping things up well past ridiculous.
District 13: Ultimatum has the distinct honor of being a sequel to the first ever Parkour-centered action flick. Where D13 fell short was that they focused too much on their silly story and limited the amount of actual parkour seen on screen, I guess not realizing why we put the movie on in the first place. D13:U does not have this problem. D13:U mostly consists of our two protagonists, Leïto (David Belle, founder of parkour) and Damien Tomaso (Cyril Raffaelli), jumping off of things, climbing things, and punching folks. What story they allow in is just there to push our fellas into higher and higher stakes situations, ending with a crescendo of silliness you just have to see to believe.
D13:U has a certain self-aware charm about it that keeps it afloat in the sea of ludicrousness, making it a blast to watch, even if it's about as deep and meaningful as a can of baked beans.
-Luke Hunter James-Erickson
To see all the movies written about so far, click here: Tuff Fest II
To see all the movies written about during Tuff Fest I, click here: Tuff Fest IFor an explanation as to what this is all about, click here: Tuff Fest Introduction.