The Movie

No one can dispute Jet Li's awesome fighting ability, despite the fact that he barely passes the height requirement to grace a seat on Space Mountain. He's quick, he's talented, and he's one of "the one's" (no pun intended) to watch in action movies to come. But perhaps he should have thought twice before taking on this feature film.

The One is a sci-fi action movie that puts too much stake in the special effects rather than the choreography of its fight scenes. And unless the special effects are mind blowing, they won't keep this sinking ship from hitting rock bottom. Sadly, the effects aren't that good. In fact, they come off looking cheesy and over-the-top ridiculous, completely pulling me out of the movie. Director James Wong would have been much better off had he stayed with conventional methods to show Li's awesome abilities, rather than plop millions of dollars in computer generated animations.

Now for a movie of this genre a strong plot is not needed, and there are no surprises here. Li plays a present day cop in our respective universe. He then becomes the target of another version of himself from one of 125 known parallel universes. Every time the evil Li kills one of his alter egos, the remaining few gain their energy and strength. Once all the others are killed, the sole remaining man will be unstoppable. So naturally, our hero and a couple of trans-universal police officers do everything in their power to make sure that never happens. I'm sure you can guess the outcome.

If the plot hasn't grabbed you by now, then the acting is sure to fail as well. Most of the performances in this movie are bad, with the exception of Li, who plays his parts perfectly, and given the nature of the movie, was probably better than he had to be. Even Jason Statham - who does a wonderful job in the lead role of The Transporter - pulls off a dreadful performance in this lackluster action film. The One starts out with a very exciting action scene, but just kind of slides downhill from there. Instead of saving the best for last, they kind of used it all at the beginning, and kept stringing it out all throughout the movie. Which as you might expect, makes for a very anticlimactic ending. It's sad that a movie with a decent budget, and such promise, could end up so disappointing.

So unless you're a diehard fan of the movie, I'd suggest skipping it, or if you're real curious, renting it. But I'd only rent it's on sale, or nearly free. The concept was great, but the execution was a huge letdown.


The DVD

Video:
The One is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. There really isn't anything wrong with this transfer. In fact, it's one of the very best I've seen. The picture is clean, sharp, and free from nearly all signs of pixelation. If I get real picky, I can see some minute (and I mean minute) traces of edge enhancement, as well as some graininess present. But other than that, it's golden. Colors dip on the dark side, and don't really pop off the screen, but this movie is mostly shot in the dark, so that's to be expected.

The original release of The One was pretty darn good to begin with, so there was not a whole lot to improve upon. And as you might expect, the improvements were slight. They were slightly noticeable on my big screen, but weren't nearly as visible on my smaller TV set. So if you have the original release, don't bother buying the superbit version. Besides, who'd want two copies of this movie anyway?

Audio:
As with all superbit titles, we get our choice of a Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS audio tracks. Both tracks sound nearly identical, so go with whichever one catches your fancy the most. The soundtrack is generally fantastic as the surround speakers are almost always active, though not overly abused. Dialogue is as clear and audible as you'd expect from a superbit title, and the musical accompaniment is always loud and clear. The soundtrack won't knock you off your feet, but it will heighten the movie watching experience, which is a good thing since this movie needs all the help it can get.

Extras:
Superbit DVD's utilize all disc space for the sole purpose of video and audio excellence at the cost of losing space normally reserved for extra features. This ensures the highest possible quality for picture and sound currently available on the DVD format.

Final Thoughts:
I had high hopes for The One, and unfortunately my hopes were dashed. The movie could have been so much better, and so much more engaging. Instead we're left with a high budget computer game that leaves us feeling gypped that we just wasted a little over an hour of our life and can never get it back.

But if you like the movie, you can be confident that this is one of the better-looking DVD's out on the market today. The increased bit rate has cleaned up what little imperfections were on the disc before - not that there were many to complain about. Skip It