feeling listless

Film Perhaps the most surprising things about 'The One' is just how far off form the work of writer/director team Glen Morgan and James Wong is. This is the team which brought us some of the best episode of 'The X-Files', created 'Space Above and Beyond', mad 'Millenium' into something watchable and brought us 'Final Destination'. So how they could squander what is a potentially fascinating idea for an action film is beyond me.

This is the same territory as 'Sliders', Marvel Comics 'What If?', DC Comic's 'Elsewhere' series and a hundred other sci-fi tv series (although oddly 'The X-Files' hasn't done one). Parallel universes. The main difference here being that that one or two of the universes are aware of there non-uniqueness and have formed a force to police the dimensions.

The expectation is of a cross-dimensional chase as Jet-Li tries to save his other selves from himself. Instead we see one reality in which Al Gore is president which looks like our own, and then our own. All of the other Li's are dead already.

So instead we have a re-run of 'The Enemy Within' episode of Star Trek and a certain other episode of Buffy. I know it's a cliche, but you wish someone had said 'Kill him, Spock' just to get it out in the open.

Instead we find the minimal actorial charisma of Li, protected by a cast who are (for the most part) at least trying. Carla Gugino (last seen in 'Spy Kids') shows again how she should really be more famous than she is (watch it again and see if you're look else in frame when she's on) but Delroy Lindo looks embarassed, frankly. The only time this charade picks up is at the end ... but I'm not going to give that way in case you really must sit through this...