By EWAN McDONALD
(Herald rating: * * )
Work with me on this one, okay? According to the opening voiceover, there are a whole bunch of parallel universes or "multiverses". One of you exists within each one. Every time one of your other selves dies, his/her power is distributed among the survivors.
So if the villain (and the hero, and the bit players), Yulaw, kills 123 selves, he has the power of 124.
Early in the story Yulaw (Jet Li) beats Lawless, one of his other selves, then goes hunting Gabe, a sheriff's deputy in LA. Gabe doesn't know about the multiverses but is, under the rules, as strong as 60 men, and a good match for Yulaw.
Yulaw is also being hunted by Roedecker (Delroy Lindo) and Funsch (Jason Statham), agents of the Multiverse Bureau of Investigation. His wife, woman, girlfriend or sidekick in all of these worlds is played by Carla Gugino.
There are all sorts of profound metaphysical possibilities here but this is a Jet Li martial arts movie so we're only here for the bareknuckle, complete with great computer-generated effects.
In the end Jet Li has to fight himself. At least the Bad One wears a blue top so we can tell him from the Good One.
Rental video, DVD: Today
• DVD features: movie (80min); commentary by director James Wong; three features: Jet Li is The One, Multiverses Create The One and About Face; music video-like sequence, The Many Faces Of Jet Li; theatrical trailer; filmographies; animatic comparison that uses action figures and CGI in place of the actors.
