I’m not going to over-simplify and proclaim that making a good ninja movie is
the easiest thing in the world. But I never would have guessed that doing so is
as difficult as James McTeigue’s Ninja Assassin makes it appear. This is a
big-budget movie with a top-flight crew and a star blessed with undeniable
magnetism, not to mention the R-rated freedom to provide the copious blood and
gore that so many genre fans crave. Yet it plays no better than a cheap direct
to DVD feature. Ninja Assassin is a forgettable throwaway, a waste of creative
talent and the audience’s time.
Like a relic from old Hollywood, only with a lot more blood, the film exists as
a would-be star-making vehicle for the Korean actor/pop star Rain, who impressed
the Wachowskis and producer Joel Silver while working on Speed Racer. The
biggest surprise of this film is that, with respect to their estimation of
Rain’s potential, Silver and the Wachowskis weren’t out in left field. Rain has
the raw physical prowess to make a career as an action star, and while there’s
nothing in Ninja Assassin to say he can actually act, his strong silent persona
here should be enough to carry a film or two.
Then again, it doesn’t carry Ninja Assassin. But I’m not sure anything could.
Legend has it that this shooting script is the result of J. Michael Straczynski
rewriting a previous script draft in 53 hours. That feels generous; I would have
guessed he penned the movie over lunch. What we’ve got is the origin story of a
ninja, played by Rain, and the intertwining tale of two Europol agents who
attempt to investigate and bring down a modern clan of shadowy killers in black
pajamas. The story is merely an excuse for bloodshed, a fact underlined every
time the agents Mika (Naomie Harris) and her superior, Ryan (Ben Miles) pause to
cough up inane dialogue.
The overly grim bare-bones story doesn’t kick in until after a bait and switch
opening promises more gratuitously gore-soaked action than the movie is able to
deliver. A ninja attacks a room full of Yakuza wankers; the first swordstroke
cuts a man’s head in half. The slice is an adrenaline jolt; that execution of an
unflinching dismemberment plan is all we’re really here to see.
