Review of Brick Mansions (2014) by Maksim B — 03 Oct 2014

Unsurprising, lacking any creativity, but satisfyingly violent, Brick Mansions is an absolutely unnecessary remake of the cult French Banlieue 13. By copy-pasting the story to the smallest details and even one of its lead actors, Brick Mansions is a disappointing and predictable attempt for a Hollywood adaptation of a movie that a top-notch European action classic.

As already said, the screenwriters have literary copy-pasted the original story and just adapted it for the Detroit and the American reality. In addition to this, they have added Paul Walker (replacing Cyril Raffaelli' to partner with David Belle (whom we already know from the original movie) and spiced up the cast of the bad-asses with the cool, ultra-violently-stylish performance of RZA. The rest of the story remains so similar to the original movie that one could ask himself what the screenwriters were paid for.

If Banlieue 13 achieved its cult status due to its fantastic action sequences and the original first-time stunts by David Belle, Brick Mansions adds nothing new to the action fans. In fact, if you have seen the original movie you would be probably bored with Camille Delamarre and Jean-Sebastien Giard's Americanized version. The likeable presence of Paul Walker and RZA surely manage to compensate partially for the lack of originality, but this is definitely not enough.

Sadly, it could be said in conclusion, that Brick Mansions is one of the examples that some successful European and Asian movies should not be adapted by Hollywood. If you have not seen Banlieue 13, give it a try, it would be an OK action, but those who have seen the original French classic would be totally disappointed.