Slow day at work, a movie theatre 3 blocks away, time for a matinée... in this case, Forbidden Kingdom. The basic story is the rescue of the imprisoned Monkey King of Chinese myth from the Jade Warlord, infused with bits of the standard memes like stranger-from-another-world, young love, mid-level evil underling, training to martial arts proficiency in an improbably short period of time, and the like.
The movie as a whole isn't half bad... sure, the 'American' bits are pretty much throwaway, but the rest of the story, while not deep, hangs together nicely... and doesn't have a purely happy ending, either, which is a plus. The action sequences also work well, with special effects thrown in only where they make sense (the use of chi powers by the Jade Warlord, as an example)... the rest is all choreography and wire work. There's not a lot of the "funny" fighting that Jackie Chan is so well known for, but both he and Jet Li put in decent performances none the less.
All in all, I don't think it's full-price-admission fare, but matinée is fine... and, as long as it's been out in the theaters so far, it's sure to hit the discount circuit before long. It's still pretty enough to be worth catching on the big screen at any rate, so don't wait for the DVD unless you've got a monster home theater to play it on.
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