Review of The Replacement Killers (1998) by Aaron K — 01 Aug 2012

Director Antoine Fuqua's history of directing before this movie is instantly apparent within five minutes. Making the transition from commercials (Where you have 90 seconds to get your point across) to cinema (Where you have 90 minutes.

) is a tough one. Every scene tries to squeeze in a money-shot, and while modern day directors like Zack Snyder pulls it off, here it doesn't quite work. Now if you appreciate John Woo style gunplay and Charles Bronson revenge movies then by all means add on two extra stars to my score, because this movie is simply Chow-Yun-Fat running around with guns looking cool.

There is no substance or depth to the unrealistic characters, and the emotional connection is noticably vacant. But as a mindless romp its action delivers for the mood and has some very clever peices of cinematography that preceeded what would become the following years hit - The Matrix.

Getting their first, however... doesn't always mean that the prototype is better than the production peice.