I think this movie was marketed as an adventure movie when it came out. I can imagine that some people were disappointed if they were indeed expecting a real adventure movie. I remember being one of those people when I first saw this movie.
However, if you approach it seeing what it is, that is a comedy or at least an action-comedy, then it is actually a quite enjoyable movie. The entire movie is utterly ridiculous. The screaming, posturing Asian martial art champion parodies especially so.
Everything in this movie makes you laugh as long as you do not try to take the movie seriously. The action scenes are often absolutely hilarious. They are also quite well done and choreographed actually. The special effects are of course utterly outdated but they are good enough for this movie.
There is a story as well but it doesn’t really matter much. It is just there to tie the funny scenes together, especially the action scenes. Acting? Well, let’s just say that it matches the comic nature of the movie.
I actually just picked this movie as a trial experience in using Netflix (which finally came to France last Monday) on my PS3 for the first time and I did not want to start something were I would be pissed off if it turned out that it stopped working halfway through. I have to say that I had much more fun watching this movie this time than the first time I was watching it…and Netflix worked perfectly on my PS3.