1911 (2011)

Even though this was advertised as Jackie Chan 100th film, it's a movie truly unworthy to be called that. With Jackie Chan changing the world of Martial Art movie for the better, who the hell thought it was a good idea not have Jackie Chan as the main star or director of his own monumental film and direct a film on the 100th anniversary of Chinese Revolution.

1911 is a historical drama based on the founding of the Republic of China when nationalist forces led by Sun Yat-sen who overthrew the Qing Dynasty. Now while watching this movie I never felt like I was watching a movie, it felt more reading a textbook because at random I would get barely readable text that would tell me what's going on. With the bad direction of this movie I'm not surprised and neither would you. The story could have been better and they could done something with some of the more sensitive issues going on around this time instead of avoiding them. What you get here is slightly above average story that should have been better. It really does not try too hard keep your attention and you'll likely fall asleep watching it like my girlfriend did.

What the movie does well works, like the battle sequences are the high point of the movie. Now while there're not anything impressive, they make the movie a little bit more bearable to watch. The sets are fantastic, the costumes look convincing, and the actors all do a great job in there roles despite the boring script and often times uninteresting characters. One thing I will hit on is that the editing is bad as we get rapid fast cuts that don't work and some continuity error.

I would be done at this point, but it's called Jackie Chan 100th movie and I want address a little more issues before any fan of Jackie Chan decides to watch this. He's not the star, he's in 1/3 of the movie and most of the time he's on screen he's just in action mode. Don't expect any humor from him either, don't blame him, blame the idiots who made the decisions not have him in the leading role or behind the direction chair. Does Jackie Chan fight at all in this movie, he does, but only briefly and the way it filmed doesn't properly do it justice. Also, if you're planning on seeing more of Chan dramatic performance, to bad for you because the subtitles are barely readable and your best chance is to watch the dubbed version, which is really disappointing for any fan.

1911 has great production value and good actors, it's just the technical part and the story of the movie that really brings it down. As a fan of Jackie Chan I have to say his 100th film brings us nothing we ever wanted from a Jackie Chan movie.