5/11/2023 0 Comments Enter the warriors gate rating![]() Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Why on earth would anyone write dialogue like that unless it’s ironic?).Įnter The Warriors Gate. You know, ‘case you get mixed up (I don’t know then. I can only assume this is done so that you understand the differences in culture and time between the white kids in America vs the Chinese warriors, in warrior outfits, carrying swords and wearing armour. He isn’t helped by the dialogue which Kamen and Besson, for some unknown reason, decided should be 90’s-esq your-mother-trying-to-speak-ghetto. He plods through it like he’s studied at the Joey from Friends school of acting. Shelton isn’t believable as a teenager and even less so as a teenager who’s discovering this new world that contains warriors and magic. So, when the two of them are supposed to be ‘falling’ for each other, well, it’s just a bit cringeworthy. ![]() But Shelton just looks young and acts young because he is young. Shelton is 20-years old playing a high-school student, whilst Ni Ni is 29 and, whilst her age is never mentioned, it looks like they want us to believe they’re of a similar age. The time travelling side of things and ‘fish out of water’ is what reminded me of Bill & Ted’s.Įnter The Warriors Gate could have done with some finessing. Her performance takes us through her as a spoilt princess, a warrior fighting alongside Chao and Shelton and a woman who experiences a shopping-mall for the first time. It’s Ni Ni who stands out the most though. Bautista is great as Arun, he has quite a few ‘Arnie-style’ one-liners and quips which don’t always work but are still fun. It’s not trying to be anything other than entertainment and, on that level, it works.Ĭhao is good as the warrior who Shelton tries to teach to relax and have fun – though these scenes felt a bit disjointed and where never really followed up on or put to much use. It’s the sort of thing you can watch and imagine being part of, it’s escapism and it works as such very well. Sure, it’s not without its issues: The direction, from Matthias Hoene ( Cockneys vs Zombies, Trigger Point (TV)) is wonderful if a tad slow at times, the dialogue can be a little clunky and Shelton is just plain annoying throughout. It’s a very simple setup and it borrows heavily from the likes of The Karate Kid, Gremlins, Bill & Ted’s and many others. The duo of Kamen and Besson are on form with Enter The Warriors Gate. Jack is a wizard at fighting computer games so this will help him, right? This pot ends up transporting Jack into ancient China where he teams up with Zhoo, played by Mark Chao (Monga, Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon), to rescue princes Su Lin, played by Ni Ni (The Flowers of War, Suddenly Seventeen), from the evil Arun, played by Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy, Spectre). One day, after Jack is running from bullies, Francis gifts him a strange looking pot that happens to have magical powers. Though they don’t always write together (Kamen isn’t involved in the upcoming Valerian), when they do, what you get is fun and action.Įnter The Warriors Gate tells the story of a teenage boy, Jack, played by Uriah Shelton (The Glades (TV), Girl Meets World (TV)), who works for a Chinese man, Francis Ng (Exiled, Gen-X Cops), in his shop. When the hero’s a big blank, no amount of slickly staged fight scenes can compensate.The duo of Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen have been turning out movies for a while now in their Europa Corp guise usually. Aside from the amusingly grumpy Bautista, no one here develops much personality - not even Jack. Think “The Princess Bride” meets “The Last Starfighter.”īut while Bresson’s presence as a writer-producer assures a certain baseline level of competence, this movie ultimately lacks the characters and imagination to make it anything more than a passable entertainment. “Enter the Warriors Gate” mashes up an old-fashioned, family-friendly fantasy quest - more concerned with magic and high-flying stunts than blood-and-guts - with the tale of an idle youngster who discovers how to put his years of playing adventure games to good use. Uriah Shelton stars as Jack, a high school geek who comes into the possession of a mysterious box, which turns out to be a portal to a fantastical version of medieval Asia where a barbarian warrior (Dave Bautista) has abducted a princess (Ni Ni), leaving Jack and the royal’s protector (Mark Chao) to track her down. Zombies”) and co-screenwriter Robert Kamen (who previously worked with Besson on his “Transporter” and “Taken” series), the French impresario tells a story that encompasses ancient Chinese sword-and-sorcery, teen romance, hip-hop and video games. ![]() Working with director Matthias Hoene (best known for the cult hit “Cockneys vs. Like a lot of Luc Besson productions, the international martial arts extravaganza “Enter the Warriors Gate” mostly just assembles multiple salable elements into a shiny package.
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