THE ONE

If one Jet Li is good, then two of  'em must be dynamite, right? That's probably what the producers of THE ONE (2001) must have thought when putting together this mess of a B movie that's part martial arts slug fest, part science fiction thriller.

Unfortunately, it's neither a decent martial arts movie, nor a good science fiction film. Jet Li stars in a dual role, one character good, the other bad. Geez, that old trope again? The twist is that there are actually 125 different iterations of Jet Li in the multiverse, an infinity of parallel universes. Only 125 versions of one guy in a literal infinity of universes? Seems kind of limited to me.

The bad Jet Li has discovered a way to travel from universe to universe. Within in each respective universe, he finds and kills the Jet Li of that universe. With each succeeding death, the bad Jet Li grows stronger. He's killed 123 other Jet Li's (the last one being in a universe where Al Gore was elected president). Now, he's in our universe and he's out to kill our good guy version of Jet Li, who is a deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office.

Hot in pursuit of the bad Jet Li are two multiverse patrolling cops (Jason Statham and Delroy Lindo), who are trying to apprehend him and banish him to a remote, hellish prison planet in yet another universe.

Of course, the two Jet Li's meet and fight repeatedly, finally squaring off in a knock down, drag out fight in a seemingly abandoned power plant. The digital effects are seamlessly done allowing two identical (except for their clothes) Jet Li's to appear in the same scenes and battle one another.

All of this is accented by an absolutely dreadful musical score by Trevor Rabin. Every time an action scene is about to begin, the soundtrack suddenly starts blaring really bad heavy metal rock and roll. It's as tired an audio cliche (the eighties called, they want their crappy music back) as the whole idea of good guy/bad guy twins.

The special effects are good. You never spot any seams in scenes where both Jet Li's appear together. But the trouble is, two Jet Li's just aren't as good as one Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee. Give me the good old stuff any day over this claptrap.

Thumbs down.