Review of Ninja Assassin (2009) by Xgary X — 01 Feb 2013

A ninja who has turned his back on his clan fights to defend an Interpol researcher who is trying to uncover them and seek revenge upon his erstwhile master. No-one has the right to complain about the lack of depth or characterisation in this film.

It's called Ninja Assassin for christ's sake. Essentially it's a mish-mash of ideas that are just an excuse for wildly over the top action sequences in which bad guys are sliced, diced and eviscerated left, right and centre; it has the "gangsters fighting against an invisible assassin" format of the Predator films, the "come with me if you want to live" character dynamic of The Terminator and the soldiers vs afore-mentioned invisible assassins finale that's straight out of Aliens.

But unlike Doomsday which managed to completely balls up this mix of "influences", Ninja Assassin sticks to what it knows and presents a non-stop frenetic gorefest that's actually a lot of fun.

The result reminded me of a Wachowski-fied version of Blade that's a bit thin on plot but makes up for it with above par effects and finely executed action. In fact the bad guys are very much in the vein of The Hand from the Wolverine comics and I would have been a lot happier if the Wolverine film had been handled in a similar way.

Switch brain to neutral and enjoy.