Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Leofwine_draca In a plot twist already done to the death by the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Arnold Schwarzenegger, THE ONE features renowned martial artist turned actor Jet Li fighting himself. That's basically what the film is about, a straightforward action pic with a sci-fi story as an excuse to spend lots and lots of money on some pretty special effects. However this predictable movie plods along, offering a wealth of not entirely satisfying action, building up to an expected battle to the finish between good Li and bad Li. The setting? An abandoned warehouse, of all things. One cliché I am sick to death of is the old "abandoned warehouse" routine used as a setting for a showdown; I think THE TERMINATOR and ROBOCOP were the major movies of the '80s to first use this particular cliché but since then hundreds of action movies have done so and now I cringe every time I see one. What happened to a little originality? The only nice thing about the location is that we get a cool shot of Jet Li walking through a rain of sparks but otherwise it's seen-it-all-before stuff. The same can be said of the rest of the film.Jet Li walks through the multiple roles required rather straightforwardly; he's mastered the English language, but he fails to be scary or imposing as the bad guy (far from his hissably evil turn in LETHAL WEAPON 4) and he isn't nice or charismatic enough as the good guy. The supporting actors are adequate; Delroy Lindo (RANSOM) is commanding and strong as the cyber-cop and Jason Statham is good and funny as his partner. Carla Gugino makes for a nice female-in-peril, although her part is very limited.The science fiction premise is very basically done, full of plot holes. It's probably done more intelligently on TV's SLIDERS. The special effects of characters jumping universes and disintegrating as they do so are quite spectacular and worthwhile. The action sequences themselves employ lots and lots of wire work and enhanced computer effect fights in the style of THE MATRIX, with fast-motion, freeze-frames, and even computer generated opponents in some places. One shot has Li picking up two motorbikes (one in each hand) to bash some poor guy over the head - a fun shot, but not entirely convincing. Very pretty to look at, these artistic manoeuvres become so overused from the very beginning that the extended battle at the end becomes unfortunately tiresome, and the loud, grating score works against it. The colourful futuristic guns and plentiful explosions recall Schwarzenegger's less-than-satisfying THE SIXTH DAY and, like that film, THE ONE is a movie without a heart at its core; a big disappointment from the team who gave us the imaginative and frightening FINAL DESTINATION.

dworldeater The One is Jet Li's stand alone science fiction vehicle. I would not regard this as essential viewing for Jet Li fans or the sci fi crowd. However, The One still is a pretty decent sci fi/ action buttkicker in its own right and brings a lot of fast paced, action packed entertainment. I would say The One has a lot in common with both Time Cop and The Matrix. There is the occasional nod to Highlander as well. In this film, there are parallel universes and Jet Li travels through the multiverse killing off alternate versions of himself and absorbs their energy. Now only two versions of himself remain and good Jet must fight evil Jet, so evil Jet does not upset balance in the universe. I dig the premise of the film, but it is kind of sold short here with a lack of substance. Although the selling point of this movie is action, I would have liked more of a story and character development. The finished product is a pretty average and straight forward action movie with a sci fi backdrop. Although the story is very simple, the fight scenes are not and is one of the finer qualities of the film. Corey Yuen choreographs the intense and very complex fight scenes. To watch Jet fight is an excellent reason to watch the film and in that area, Jet excels and is in a class of his own. Even though this is PG 13 action, the scfi elements make the action interesting and I don't feel if the violence was more impactful that the film would be any better. Jason Statham gives a real good early performance as a multiverse agent(cop) and he probably put more effort into this performance than he does in a lot of his other projects where he is cast as the lead in the future. The soundtrack for The One is a negative aspect for me as I despise the genre of nu metal and watching The One is a constant reminder of one of the many reasons the late90's/early00's really sucked. I'm sure it was an attempt to get the Hot Topic kids to buy movie tickets. If I was deaf I would have enjoyed this more, but even with the horrible and really stupid music of Papa Roach, Disturbed and Drowning Pool The One is still a decent watch.

FlashCallahan In the first five minutes of this film, we are treated to Basil Exposition explaining the plot if the movie. As soon as he utters the word 'multiverse', you know you can just switch off for ninety minutes and enjoy Li once again choosing a dodgy script to showcase his skills to Hollywood.And he did this in favour of The Matrix Reloaded?Basically Li plays several characters and there is one who goes around all the universes and killing his other self, thus making him stronger. But he also makes the surviving Laws get stronger too, and we are down to one, and you know he's going to be problematic because it's the Li character who is all shy and confused looking.It's not a brilliant film by any means, and as time has passed, the years have not been kind to this movie. Apart from one scene at the beginning when Li is beating up people in slow motion, the effects are blooming awful.My personal favourite is when Law is supposedly running at 50 miles an hour, and in order to depict this, the makers just have Li running as normal, and cars driving at a snail pace.Statham is okay as his sort if sidekick, but he should have laid off the awful accent, which he does now.All in all, it's not a very good film, but its a good idea, and Li is as watchable as always...

Charles Herold (cherold) This zippy little action pic doesn't do anything exceptional, but it is fast and fun with a number of entertaining fight sequences. And I always like Jet Li. The premise is also pretty cool, although I think any scientist would say that it makes utterly no sense.Not making sense is actually a bit of a theme in this movie. It moves so fast that I really didn't have time to be bothered by much of that, but certainly the holes are easy to spot.For me the most annoying thing was that the authorities were off on the number of victims of the main bad guy, probably by several hundred people, because they ignore all collateral damage. It's just weird that no one making the movie thought that through.All the same, I enjoyed it.