Donnie Yen is in my opinion the best martial arts movie-star out there right now, especially since Jackie Chan and Jet Li have slowed down and Tony Jaa is only just now getting off to a shaky start with the poorly reviewed Tom Yum Goong 2.
That being said, it's a major disappointment that Donnie Yen's latest, "Iceman", is a miss for the now middle aged (not that you can tell) martial arts master.
Iceman is directionless, confusing, poorly paced, and makes very poor use of Donnie Yen's truly impressive and astonishing martial arts skills. The script is a fish out of water/man out of his time type story, that we've seen before, with nothing new to offer. Some other reviewers have drawn comparisons between this and the Marvel Comics character Captain America, and I can assure the only similarity is that both are frozen men who wake up in different time periods. Rip Van Winkle is the same story but is that also similar?
No, Iceman is in a league of it's own poor storytelling, a remake of a previous film with the same premise from the 80's, this rehash has totally juvenile humour that always misses it's mark, a contrived love story, and a main character capable of ridiculous things with little to no explanation. Captain America is at least explained to have a DNA altering serum in his body, learning Kung Fu doesn't make you superhuman.
They don't even make good use of the fish-out-of-water story and Yen's character adjusts to modern times with ridiculous ease and little incident. Granted, some of the humor may have been lost in translation for me, however I'll say that other foreign comedies, like those of the great Stephen Chow, are always great for a laugh in my book.
Absolutely don't go into this thinking you'll see Donnie Yen kick any kind of butt in major degree, the few fight scenes this movie does have are poorly constructed, filled with bad CGI, and nothing new or close to his potential.
Iceman is like the ice-age altogether, worth avoiding.
