District B13 (2006)

I admit, I haven't seen this film in full. Don't get me wrong -- I watched it from beginning to end. But the copy I managed to procure was sans subtitles. I'm gonna go ahead, though, and assume I didn't miss any big plot subtleties or nuances, since by the looks of it this Luc Besson production is about as elemental as action gets. The bad guys have a warhead, the good guys have to stop them, and there's another level of conspiracy above it all -- what else do you need to know for the film to work? An asskicking is the universal language, and the parkour-heavy fight scenes in B13 are awesome regardless of the nationality or comprehensibility of the flying feet. (Of particular note is the penultimate fight wherein the two heroes take on a massive Easten European fella named The Yeti; the capper, where one of the heroes flies through the air wielding a brick, is rewind-worthy.) This is, of course, what Besson has been working towards all his career -- action cinema as a neutral language, multiple-nation influences combined to create a work understandable in every part of the world. It's encouraging, in a way, to know that his tireless work hasn't been in vain.

Grade: B-