At first I thought it was going to be the sort of romp seen in previous Jackie Chan movies with plenty of tongue in cheek and humour punctuated action. However about a third of the way through I began to realise that this movie is actually trying to be serious in spite of the appalling script and ridiculous plot. The messages it tries to send about friendship, race relations and honour are naive, if not childish, in their portrayal and out of context in the attempted Machiavellian machinations in the storyline. By the end of the film, I was overloaded with cliché and plot twists as untwisty and transparent as to be eye-wateringly unbelievable in their absurdity. On numerous occasions throughout the movie I felt embarrassed for actors such as Adrian Brody and John Cusack and wondered how they would explain their part in such drivel to their friends and relatives without dying of shame. I can only imagine the money they earned was worth the ridicule should their participation in this abomination become widely known. I'm now going to go and curl up in a ball, rock gently backwards and forwards and try to forget having been assaulted with over two hours of this equine excrement.

Amazing that something like this would do over $100 million in China, especially considering that I believe movie tickets there are roughly $5. First the good. This is probably the most expensive set and costume design I have ever seen in a martial arts flick, that is why it got 2 stars. If you like sword fighting, then you might enjoy this. Now for the bad, quite the long list. LOTS of subtitles, including signs and songs, probably 70% of the movie is in Chinese. Yes SONGS, I guess they are supposed to be inspiring or something. The movie opens with two guys sticking their swords in the ground as a truce, then shortly after that those two guys stand off for a "fight to the death, no way to avoid it" situation. Boy, I wonder who is gonna win? Why would you put a flash forward to ruin that scene? That is typical to the way this thing is put together. To top it off, the plot makes zero sense. Chan and his men are sentenced to hard labor rebuilding a city on the Great Wall, within 10 minutes of getting there Chan is now in charge? WTF? All of a sudden they have 15 days to rebuild giant stone walls and buildings or they will be executed. This is supposed to be 50 BC and the work they have to do would take a modern crew of 100 masons probably 3 months or more. But with the help of the Romans, we can do it! What a crock. And in the middle of this building frenzy, Chan decides to have his guys put on a demo of their martial arts, so the Romans also do a demonstration, followed by two individual stick battles, followed by a Roman giving a Chinese guy a sword because it was a great fight. WTF AGAIN! Yes they are supposed to be bonding, but it is just stupid. And over and over, like it was written by a 5th grader with ADHD. Not buying John Cusack or Adrian Brody as top class soldiers either, sorry guys, even though the use of stunt doubles is not obvious. Half the time during fights everyone is just slapping the other guy with their swords. Even the fake blood looks like raspberry jam for some reason, making that look real is not tough to do. Chan accidentally removes some important lady's scarf while she is trying to kill him, so he MUST apologize, when he does so in private, she drops everything to be naked in front of him, what? He of course does his awkward embarrassed act and backs away, that seems like an even bigger insult to me, but I guess NOT! The Roman kid could not be more annoying, what an incredibly lame plot device, egads. I think you get the idea, don't bother unless you really like lavish sets with sword fighting. I think the sign at the end: "make friends from enemies" is supposed to be the moral of the story or some crap, but the entire thing is pointless. Maybe it should read "How I turned a Million Dollars in Real Estate into $100 in Cash", to steal a joke from Steve Martin.

The first 30 minutes of this two hour film builds up the character of Huo An (Jackie Chan) the leader of the protection squad of the Silk Road in ancient times. About 30 minutes later we get introduced to our second major character, General Lucius (John Cusack) and for the next 30 minutes they unite to fortify a city and practice their fighting skills, because all the fighting in the first thirty minutes was just Asians. Then after an hour we have the Battle for Mordor against Tiberius (Adrien Brody) an ominous figure.

The film is a "could of" happened type pseudo-history. I found the plot to be bogged down and the fight sequences ridiculously long and plentiful. Now I will admit they spent money on sets and costumes but kept the dialogue exceeding dry. The Romans native tongue was Latin, and the Chinese spoke Chinese and everyone spoke English, with Huo An speaking broken English...why?

The film is a fight film for tweens and teens, particularly those who like martial arts and war films.

Guide: No f-bombs, sex, or nudity.