Review: The Protector 2

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Kham (Tony Jaa) finds himself in all manner of trouble when his elephant goes missing. You see, someone tried to buy Kham’s elephant, but Kham refused. However, the interested buyer soon turns up dead, and the dead man’s martial arts enthusiast nieces (!) assume Kham to be the killer. It’s actually gangster RZA behind the killing, and his chief enforcer known only as No. 2 (Marrese Crump) kills one of the girls, beats up Kham and takes him and the surviving niece away to meet LC (RZA). There he is given the task of killing a politician, or both the girl and his beloved elephant will be killed.

 

In a fair and just world, Tony Jaa and Scott Adkins would be the biggest action stars on the planet. Jaa made a helluva splash initially with the straightforward martial-arts flick “Ong-Bak”, whilst Adkins has the looks, fighting skills, charisma, and acting ability to stand out from the pack. Whilst it seems like it may be too late for this stardom to happen, at least one can rejoice in the news that Adkins is making “Undisputed 4”, as well as previously turning up as a bad arse henchman in “The Expendables 2”. I’m definitely excited to see where Yuri Boyka takes us next. Mr. Jaa’s career trajectory, however, is far more troubling because aside from “Ong-Bak”, his status as a second-tier action star is possibly even under threat. It’s great to see his stint in the monastery was only brief, but he’s just choosing poor project after poor project. There was the disappointing “Ong-Bak 2” and “The Protector”, as well as the supposedly self-indulgent mess of “Ong-Bak 3” (which was apparently what drove him to the monastery in the first place), and a supporting role in a Dolph Lundgren flick (“Skin Trade”) that proved he could at least speak some English, but was hardly the film to get him noticed. He has a role in the latest “Fast and the Furious” film, but if “The Expendables 2” didn’t lift Adkins out of the B/C-grade action movie market, I doubt seeing Jaa in a car-based ensemble flick will see much of an improvement in his status.

 

Unlike Adkins, though, I think Jaa himself is mostly to blame here for his own situation, and this 2013 sequel from director Prachya Pinkaew (“Ong-Bak”, “The Protector”) and screenwriter Eakasit Thairatana is a prime example. Once again, the supremely talented martial artist has chosen an inferior product that fails to show him in the best light. I mean, his elephant gets stolen again? Didn’t we already see this movie? At one point, someone remarks: ‘Is it an elephant or a kitten? Why do you keep losing them?’ Amen, brother. A-fuckin’ men. It’s such a silly idea for an action film to be based around in the first place, let alone two damn films. I mean, is Tony Jaa the new Sabu? Geez, change his character’s name from Kham to Mowgli and be done with it. Sadly, the comparisons to the first film don’t end there. Every problem I had with that film is here again tenfold. When two martial arts teenagers and some dirt bike-riding young hooligans turn up you wonder if Jaa isn’t subbing for an injured Jackie Chan in one of his lame, comedically-oriented chop-socky flicks. Only the stunt-work saved the bike-riding nonsense from being truly eye-rolling. The amazing thing is, this whole sequence in the film goes on so long it goes from fun to boring to tedious to somehow wonderfully, overly-indulgent. It may be the longest action sequence of the last 30 years or so that I’ve seen.

 

But there is no shaking the feeling that this is a Jackie Chan flick minus the irritating silent movie facial contorting. Jaa should be well above this piffle, and at least last time out we got Jon Foo and Lateef Crowder strutting their stuff against Jaa. There’s slim pickings this time. We get an enjoyably brutal but strangely bloodless fight between Jaa and a huge African-American dude (newcomer Marrese Crump, possibly the 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th Wonders of the World) but even then the fucking Mothra twins really needed to bugger right off. They are cloying and cutesy additions where no such nonsense was needed, let alone beneficial. The big climactic fight between Jaa and Crump is even worse. Set on electrified train tracks, it’s just plain dopey.

 

The performances are pretty awful, as are most in Chan’s Eastern made (but often Western-set) 90s flicks for that matter. Chief among the offenders is hippity hop icon and martial arts fanboy RZA, who is completely out of his depth as the main villain. Acting seems completely foreign to him, and sadly it’s a large role. As for femme fatale Yayaying Rhatha Phongam as the supposedly lethal No. 20, I found it hard to get past her outfit to be honest. I like a good female martial artist, but that red fetish outfit takes a genuinely sexy lady and makes her look completely unsexy. It’s horribly unflattering on her body, I’m afraid, and a real distraction of the worst kind.

 

Cheap, wrongheaded attempt to transplant Jaa onto a subpar 90s Jackie Chan action flick with muted violence, poor production values and not much fun. I guess if you like 90s Jackie Chan flicks but would prefer it if they had less comedy, this might be your thing. I was bored, and even the flame-set three-way fight is rendered lame due to cheap CGI. Mr. Jaa, you are an amazing talent, but you really need to be more careful with your career choices, my friend. This just won’t do.

 

Rating: C