[Relaxing Dragon]

As a straight, over-the-top action movie, I really enjoyed this one. The gunplay was good, the violence was excellent ('too violent'? Completely ridiculous, there's no such thing), and the gore was nice and thick. I also found a good amount of the humor enjoyable (especially the parkour moment. Full agreement that it needed to be brought down a bit, even though I still think it's really cool).

Though you are right, most of the story and characters are little more than filler (at least it seems that way). The occasional plot hole doesn't help either (anyone else notice the Russians just completely disappear at one point?). But I let it slide in the end, mainly because Ray Stevenson did such a great job (he owned that character. Much better than Jane, and I'm a Jane fan). Plus I liked his sidekick played by Newman.

Also (and I may be alone here), I felt this was different from most comic book movies in that it didn't even try for realism. While all the others are trying to make it all seem like a comic book situation that could actually happen in real life, this is one that just said "fuck it" and went nuts. Sure, it doesn't make for 'good' movies so to speak, but it makes some really entertaining stuff. Like this, which did far poorer at the box office than it deserved.