Jiu Jitsu

Indebted to arcade fighting hits that prize complicated button-mashing combos over serious characterizations and drama.

The action sequences are weirdly extended and bland, like game-play action from a first-person game.

While Cage finally appears about 40 minutes into the film as an eccentric expert swordsman who makes paper hats in his spare time, the levity of his very presence provides some measure of a relief.

Nicolas Cage has worn a lot of things on his head over the years, but the Burmese fisherman's bonnet we glimpse at the beginning of the action-adventure romp Jiu Jitsu is something new. It's one of the few things in the movie that is.

The makers of Jiu Jitsu should have gone full-Sharknado and admitted that they're banking hard on Cage's anything-goes image.

Jiu Jitsu's weakest link may be its lousy fight choreography which is shot wide and low with stunt doubles who seem like they could really use a good nap.

Cage goes Obi-Yawn Kenobi as a neo-hippie martial arts mentor, but cedes the lead to Canadian stuntman, martial artist and charisma black hole Alain Moussi. Jiu Jitsu comes up short on every level, especially in the omnipresent fight scenes.

Jiu Jitsu has nothing to do with the martial arts craft of jiu jitsu, just like this movie has nothing to do with high-quality entertainment. It's just a messy parade of sci-fi action schlock with tacky visual effects.

[Cage's] presence alone here manages to take Jiu Jitsu from what might've otherwise been a self-serious slog to a place far more adventurously weird.

Nicolas Cage's few minutes of screen time are nowhere close to saving this confused, flimsy martial arts outing.