Dorkgasm Gonzo Is God

Crouching Aslan, Hidden Narnia
By
Anonymous Jones

            As you will no doubt notice, I feel like we have been here before. While The Forbidden Kingdom is by no means a bad movie, it covers a lot of familiar territory. It has the obligatory “Gawky Kid Who Makes Something of Himself”, the “Love Interest Who Hates Our Hero, Only to Grow to Love Him”, the “Crotchety Mentor Who Has A Heart of Gold”, and the requisite “Plot Holes You Could Drive A Truck Through”. Don't let that sour you, though. It's a good, fun movie to get the family out of the bunker and into the nearest town to check out.

            The Forbidden Kingdom is all about Jason Tripitikas (Michael Angarano, probably best remembered from the Disney superhero movie Sky High), a teenage outcast who loves the Kung-Fu. I mean seriously. If you saw a bunch of posters and said that the owner was obsessed, this kid would be the one to tell you that you haven't seen anything yet and show you his room. Posters of the greats, like Bruce Lee, hang from every flat surface, and rows upon rows of bootlegged DVDs line the walls. He spends so much time with them that you would think that osmosis might have set in about three years ago. He's the “New Kid” in town, and no one respects him. At night, he dreams of an acrobatic Monkey King (Jet Li in the first of his dual roles) who beats down a lot of soldiers with a golden stick and laughs all the while. The only solace he finds these days is in the rundown Chinatown shop that owned by “Old Hop” (Jackie Chan in his first of two roles). Here, he finds most of his escapist movie titles and generally feels somewhat at home. Then, the conflict kicks in.

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            After a random encounter with a bully, Tripitikas is forced to help them rob Old Hop's store. Things go wrong, as they inevitably do, and Hop is shot down. Jason is then charged to take a golden stick (or MacGuffin) to its rightful owner. Portal nonsense kicks in right about here, and Jason is whisked away to a magical land where a magical drunk, Lu Yan (Hey! It's Jackie Chan again!), protects him from soldiers that look like the ones from Jason's dreams. No sooner than you can say “Intense Spiritual Quest”, Jason and Lu Yan begin their journey to complete Jason's mission and find the rightful owner of the “Magic Stick”. Along the way, they meet Golden Sparrow (Yifei Liu) and The Silent Monk (Jet Li! Never saw that one coming!) and Jason learns the true meaning of kung-fu.

            Now, what good movie would be without its villains? Guarding the petrified Monkey King (long story...) is the Jade Emperor (Deshun Wang) and the witch Ni Chang (Bingbing Li, who was superb in A World Without Thieves). Both the witch and the Emperor have made it their lifes work to keep the Monkey King from being brought back to life. Now, the only way to bring said primate royal back to life is to give him his magic banana stick back. Oh, and guess where Jason is headed with the MacGuffin? Yeah, you know how this is going to end, but the fun of this is allowing yourself to be swept into the narrative and just going with it.

            This movie was written by John Fusco (the writer of the upcoming Seven Samurai remake) and directed by Rob Minkoff (who also directed Disney's The Haunted Mansion). I thought they did a wonderful job of keeping it awe-inspiring for the kids and peppering it with enough humor to keep the adults enthralled. Well, at least I was. When I looked around the theaters, half of the adults were checking their watches and looking back at me. However, you could tell where us dorks were. We were the ones watching in rapt attention as Jet Li and Jackie Chan fought each other in a series of amazing wire-fu stunt work exhibitions. There was one instance of... let's call it “bodily fluid” humor… that I think the kids could have done without, but I was too busy laughing at it to notice if they were scarred for life.

            This movie was a blast. I know this is a late review, but you should go check it out while it is still in theaters. The box office hasn’t been too great, and I want Hollywood to keep making these movies. It was fun for the kids, fun for me, and just a sweet movie to look at. It may be implausible and just downright silly, but that's my kind of fun. So sue me.