People often compare terrible experiences to root canals, saying they’d favor time in the dentist’s chair over one thing or another.  I found it fortuitous, then, that I actually had a root canal scheduled the same day that friends and I intended to see The Last Airbender.  Having heard how terrible the film was supposed to be, I had to find out for myself if there was any truth to the saying.

The film, written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, is based off of the hit Nickelodeon animated series, Avatar: The Last Airbender.  The show was a brilliant mix of playfulness and serious drama.  It was too much to hope that Shyalaman had actually understood what made the show great in the first place, because it really felt like dentistry gone awry.

The movie begins with the first of far too many voice overs by Katara (Nicola Peltz), who explains that everything was peaceful and awesome back in the day (of course).  In this world there are people, called benders, who can control an element (Fire, Water, Air, or Earth) using Tai Chi and special effects.  Katara herself is a novice Waterbender. Only one could control all four and thus keep the world balanced: the Avatar.  One day, the Avatar disappeared and everything went to Hell in a hand basket.  Now, the world is being slowly taken over by the brutal fire nation and their infernal machines. This opening narration is akin to the dentist sitting you down in the chair and explaining what’s going to happen while the anxiety of impending discomfort sets in.

Katara and her hapless brother, Sokka (Jackson Rathbone), discover and free Aang (Noah Ringer), the titular hero, and his flying bison from an iceberg-an act that pushes the ramshackle plot into motion.  I’m not going to go into too much detail about the plot here.  It still hurts my brain trying to figure it out.  It involves a troubled father/son relationship for Prince Zuko (Dev Patel) and Fire Lord Ozai (Cliff Curtis ). Meanwhile, Zuko’s uncle, General Iroh (Shaun Toub ), is trying to give lessons in tactical spiritualism while Commander Zhao (Aasif Mandvi ) is being awesomely obnoxious. This of course, is the part of the visit where the dentist tries to distract you from the fact that you are actually paying him to inflict pain.

I have a sneaking suspicion that there was supposed to be more plot in the movie.  At least Katara’s never-ending narration told us so.  (Remember kids, the key to making a story not suck is to show, don’t tell.)  There was a wee bit of a romance between Sokka and the white-haired Princess Yue (Seychelle Gabrielle ) of the Northern Water Tribe. There was even a large, climactic battle with a lot of Tai Chi and special effects. The battle and the romance, like the rest of the movie and its attempts at preaching about responsibility and spiritualism, were lost to terrible dialogue, awful editing, horrible acting, and even worse attempts at storytelling.  It was like hiring Steve Martin to do your dental work, Shyalaman liked watching us suffer.

On the plus side, where everything else failed in the movie, the music by composer James Newton Howard, was fantastic and the special effects weren’t half-bad. Though to be honest, it’s not like great music is going to really distract you the fact that there’s a dude drilling into your skull.  It’ll make it more pleasant, but the whole thing still sucks.

So, was seeing The Last Airbender better than getting a root canal? Just barely.  It only won because I snuck in a vodka flask (my attempt at Novocain), there was no drilling involved (just spiky hats for getting through some ice…don’t ask), and I liked the music better than the Muzak in my dentist’s office.

First of all, let’s get one thing straight. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.

No.

The god-damned movie is called Eclipse. Your movie isn’t a “saga” just because it makes tons of money. Now, onto the review.

Everyone is back for what promises to be an Epic Final Showdown with the Cullen family and their uneasy allies, the Quileute werewolves, on one side; and the recurring Evil Redhead, her dupe (Xavier Samuel, who looks like a young Willem Dafoe), and a small army of newborn vampires on the other. “Newborn” as-in freshly turned, not vampiric infants. That’s a whole other brand of movie.

The showdown angle is actually the decent movie hidden deep in the recesses of an all new chapter of this overwrought teenage love story, and while I have praised the previous films for being focused, this one is-by comparison-quite overstuffed. Bella (Kristen Stuart) is still vapid and useless, unable to decide which boy’s emotions she’d rather toy with. I know there’s some subtext here, but seriously, girl, pick one! She’s not sure yet if she loves Jacob (Taylor Lautner), while he’s more or less insisting she loves him but doesn’t know it yet. Edward (Robert Pattison) on the other hand, is acting fittingly like a 100-year-old man. The whole thing builds to its dramatic climax when Bella finds herself succumbing to hypothermia while hiding out from the rogue vampires, and Jacob has to keep Bella warm with his puppy-man body heat.

Eventually Ed and Jake have a little chat.

JACOB: I lurv Bella, even if she is a dumb girl ::ab flex::

EDWARD: I lurv Bella, even if she is a puny hoo-man. ::sparkles::

JACOB: You’re a dick.

EDWARD: No, you’re a dick.

JACOB: ::glowers::

EDWARD: ::glowers::

What’s really irritating about Jacob is that he sounds like he’s 16 years old, but his ripped as all hell, it’s really weird to see.

On top of this nonsense, Eclipse is the edgy flashback chapter of the Twilight movies, revealing the dark and angst ridden origins of two the Cullen Family “children.” One was a confederate major in the Civil War, and the other was some sort of gangster’s moll. There’s also a flashback to the reason why the local werewolf tribe hates vampires, featuring Peter Murphy. Yes, “Cuts-You-Up” Peter Murphy. All of these little vignettes actually add some much needed tension and horror to the story.

Then they remove all that tension by making the act of killing vampires look like breaking statues. During the long-awaited Epic Final Showdown, a whole lot of vampires die, and if it were any other movie, this would have been a scene full of well-earned gore and violence. The choice to not have more than an ounce of blood ruins the tension they built between scenes from the romantic comedy “Everybody Loves Bella.” It even feels like they edited the fights for TV. Honestly, I thought for a second that I needed to rent it on DVD, as this cut sucked. I then realized to my dismay that I was in a god-damned movie theater.

One thing they’re starting to get right when they make these movies is that it’s a comedy gold mine. There is a hysterical scene where Bella’s dad (Billy Burke) tries to give her “The Talk,” and insist she use condoms, because he’s just that clueless. Lesson learned: Always, always, always ask your daughter if she is dating some sort of supernatural humanoids. That’s just good parenting.

Gentle readers, let me ask you: “You down with O.P.P.?”

Before you respond, allow me to clarify: I am not quoting the ever-so-catchy Naughty by Nature song from 1991. No, I want to know if you’re down with other people’s poop. Because, if you’re not, Director Tom Six’s The Human Centipede may not be for you.

And if you are…dear God, why?

Anyway.

American tourists Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie) and Lindsay (Ashley C. Williams) are enjoying a vacation in Germany until they get lost in the woods (literally) and seek refuge in the home of Dr. Josef Heiter (Dieter Laser). Dr. Heiter is a world-renowned expert at separating conjoined twins.  However, at some point between his retirement and the beginning of the film, he went irretrievably insane and now is more interested in creating conjoined twins. Thus, it was Dr. Heiter’s good fortune that two potential portions for his pet project fell into his lap.

There is no getting around the premise of the film.  As Dr. Heiter explains to the girls and soon-to-be lead portion, Katsuro (Akihiro Kitamura), in specific detail-he will surgically mutilate and then attach each of them mouth to anus to form one disgusting creature. Why? Because he’s crazy!

What’s worse is that he actually performs the surgery. That’s right, The Human Centipede is not a film that jokes around, or merely hints at what could be. No, the title of the film is The Human Centipede and, by gum, Tom Six gives you a human centipede! But then the story continues for another 45 minutes! Over the course of which the audience learns that, while being part of a human centipede is one of the most disgusting ideas put on film, it is not the worst thing that could happen to you.

One difficulty in watching the picture, other than keeping your last meal down, is that it’s difficult for the audience to sympathize with these girls. One does sympathize, of course, because no one should go through even half the things that happen here. However, Six could have tried to make these girls a bit more competent in horror movie survival. Think back to every horror film you’ve watched. Combine all the of the mistakes characters make, and you’ve got these two girls. Getting out of the car on a deserted road on a rainy night, wandering in the woods with a flashlight, going back in the house instead of running for help, hiding in a corner, not checking what’s in your drink, and-worst of all-not running in the opposite direction when a scary/Germani/Mengele/Christopher Walken opens the door.

Dieter Laser is the real find here. Having the burden of about 60% of the dialogue all by himself (it’s hard to talk with a mouthful of…yeah) and competing with one of the more striking visuals in recent horror movie history, Laser commands the audience’s attention at all times. He’s creepily fascinating and cannot wait to see him in future films.

The Human Centipede is an impressive picture. Aside from some minor pacing issues in the second half and the overall brutally disgusting subject matter. It delivers exactly what it says it will, and is far more interesting that I ever thought it would be. That said, I can’t think of a person I’d recommend it to, and would require a signed and notarized consent and waiver before I show it to anyone.

Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is in way over her head. Edward Cullen (Robert Pattison), the pretty mopey boy she fell for, decides to break up with her the day after her birthday because he’s an awesome boyfriend.

Bella, being an 18-year-old, decides that the break up is the end of the world so she wails like a banshee in her sleep. Her father (Billy Burke ) now forever loathes Edward for giving his daughter what sounds like post-traumatic whooping cough.

Bella starts hanging out with Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner); local Native American, Vidal Sassoon poster boy, and Edward’s arch nemesis. They have an awkward and sad relationship, as Bella uses him so she doesn’t feel alone. She rebuffs his advances, so he cuts his hair and joins a gang whose sole focus appears to be showing off their rippling abdominal muscles. They have an exchange that goes something like this:

JACOB: I ARE TEH KILLAR MONSTER! (ab flex)

BELLA: I’m sorry I used you.

JACOB: RAWR!! (ab flex)

BELLA: I miss Edward! She is so beautiful!

JACOB: (pout ab flex)

Business as usual in Forks, Wash!

Jacob and his new gang of underage underwear models spend most of their time killing the vampires that stray onto their land, one is being the former girlfriend of the guy who tried kill Bella in the previous film. She is unhappy. So much so that she kills veteran character actor Graham Greene while Thom York’s “Hearing Damage” drains the tension out of all the action.

Edward’s hot goth sister, Alice (Ashely Green),  shows up to tell Bella that Edward believes Bella to be dead; so he’s off to Italy to ask Vampire Tony Blair (Michael Sheen ) to kill him, as he can’t go on without Bella. Ain’t love grand?

The Vampire c Council is the best part of the movie. It barely lasts 20 minutes, but Vampire Tony Blair is a sight to behold. He’s unctuous as all get out, speaking Italian and leering at Bella like she was as if she were a pert, firm teenager. . . as everyone else has been doing, really. Dakota Fanning is also here, playing one of those really young-looking vampires. Also present is professional Creepy Kid Cameron Bright , all grown up!  Vampire Tony Blair wants to kill Bella unless the Cullen family agrees to turn her into a vampire. They all shake on it, and then the group gets back in their mystery machine and head heads back to Forks.

Edward swears to never leave Bella again, so he and Jacob have a final face off, but nothing comes of it; they just glower at each other. Edward then asks Bella to marry him. The end! No really, Bella gasps and then they roll credits.

I must praise this movie, however, for having excellent internal continuity. New Moon definitely continues the story started in the first film. Sadly, that story is as a tortuously slow tale of teenagers falling hopelessly in and out of love, which is boring, even when they’re not creatures of the night.

New Moon, like its predecessor, feels completely unnecessary. The film doesn’t stand on its own, as everything that happens was set up in the first film, making it a true sequel like Lethal Weapon 2 …only lame.

Brace yourselves for a startling revelation:

Twilight isn’t terrible. It’s not good, really, but it’s not terrible.

Director Catherine Hardwicke knows her way around the camera, and there is almost no green screen. Instead, she uses the gorgeous Pacific Northwest as backdrop, a very refreshing touch in this day an age. The acting is also quite good, but that’s really the worst part, because the main players are supposed to be teenagers and they do a damned fine job of acting annoying and naive.

Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is the new girl in the small town of Forks, Wash., moving in with her dad (Billy Burke), and everyone already knows who she is, including mysterious and sexy Edward Cullen (Robert Pattison), i.e. the prettiest “girl” in school.

Bella sits next to Edward in her first biology class, so he freaks out and asks to have the class changed. Bella’s about to ask him what the hell his problem is, but he keeps her from getting crushed by a car. What’s going on? How did he do that? Why is he being such a jerk all the time?…Bella has herself a Google-based research montage, and figures out that Edward is a vampire, which solidly answers at least two of those questions. So they have a conversation like this:

EDWARD: I ARE TEH KILLAR MONSTER! sparkles

BELLA: Snuggles?

EDWARD: RAWR!! sparkles

BELLA: SNUGGLES!

EDWARD: I are teh bad guy. . .

BELLA: So, how ’bout them snuggles?

This goes on in various levels of subtlety and then they decide to start dating.

Everyone around Swan tells her, “That Cullen boy is no good;” including Jacob Black, a local member of the  First Nations who gets in teenage boy glowering contests with Edward whenever they meet.

While all this teen angst silliness has been going on, another group of vampires have been killing people in the area around Forks. One of them bears more than a passing resemblance to Brad Pitt and decides it’s time to hunt Bella after he interrupts the Cullen Family baseball game. I think because he’s an idiot, he believes he’ll get away with trying to kill this girl on his own when there’s a “family” of seven vampires protecting her.

Brad Pitt Lite tricks Bella into meeting him alone and tortures her by breaking her fibula with the hope of driving Edward into a rage. Edward and the rest of the Cullens show up, tear him apart, burn him and save Bella.

She wakes up in the hospital, and they go to prom. That’s pretty much it, really. Nothing in this movie is terribly hurried, which is actually kind of nice when so many other movies are crammed to the gills with characters and subplots within subplots.

Really, the chief offense of this movie is draining the life, pun intended, out of some of the oldest monsters in history. I’m not really sure why we need another Vampire/Human love story, as it’s been done with more gore or more heart in so many other places.

That being said, Twilight is so self-serious it BEGS for Cavalcade. Between the weird subtext of a 100+ year-old having a romantic relationship with a seventeen-year-old, and the oceans of internet hype for and against it, this movie will definitely entertain anyone who has a few drinks and has seen Bram Stoker’s Dracula .

If, for some reason, you are interested:

It’s about goddamned time I had fun watching a movie. The Hollywood adaptation of 80s TV staple The A-Team is a laugh riot, and in a good way.

We start it off right, somewhere in Mexico, where we meet Hannibal (Liam Neeson), B.A. Baracus (Quinten Jackson), Howling Mad Murdock (Sharlto Copley) and Face (Bradley Cooper) in a completely silly but awesome sequence. We jump ahead 8 years (and 80 successful missions) to the final days of withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, meaning it takes place in the future, I suppose.

The boys are tricked by a barely competent, completely evil C.I.A. agent named Lynch (Patrick Wilson),  who dupes them into . . . standing too close while someone else blows up some counterfeit money and the team’s commanding general. That someone else is, in fact, the ultra-competent military contractor Pike (Brian Bloom), the first villain since Ledger’s Joker to pose a credible threat to a protagonist. He’s just a great screen presence and actually presents a real menace.

The plot really isn’t worth mentioning, as it’s poorly done and more than a little silly. There’s actually a reveal that’s straight out of Scooby Doo . What is worth mentioning: this movie is freakin’ hysterical. At it’s heart, The A-Team is a comedy, but unlike most comedies, things explode a lot. There are scenes that are just sublime in their humor, especially those devoted to making fun of the CIA and their legendary incompetence. Between Pike being a rather scary guy and Lynch being arrogant, yet incompetent in a way we haven’t seen since Cobra Commander, their dynamic yields as many laughs as the heroes’ shenanigans.

Patrick Wilson does a fine job as Lynch. He’s the sort of guy you just want to punch in the throat. At one point, he says a video of a building actually being blown up looks just like Call of Duty, which is something a strawberry douche would say.

The action set pieces are absurdly awesome, as well. We’ve all seen the tank falling out of the sky via parachute in the preview, but how they get out of it is a site to behold.

Really, the best part of this movie, much like the Losers, is the characters just being goofy despite their lives being in constant danger. The real fun of this film is the endless string of great lines and the dynamic between the four main players. Even Quinton Jackson does a great job as Baracus, and well, I don’t expect much from MMA guys after the tragedy that was Universal Soldier: Regeneration.

Overall, this movie is worth the price of admission, but only if you approach it in the way it was intended. It is a comedy through and through. Although, unlike the original show, it does have a body count …the 80’s were, of course more innocent times. Couple this with The Losers, and it’s a recipe for a Cavalcade about people who just can’t take being shot at seriously.

If you’re interested:

Over the years, I’ve noticed there’s often a pair of movies with essentially the same plot, premiering within a year of each other: Wyatt Earp (1994)/Tombstone (1993) and Deep Impact (1999)/Armageddon (1999) ,to name a few.  In the summer of 2010, movie-going audiences will be treated to three films about spec-ops teams (that “happen” to be the best of the best). Betrayed, the teams leave their government duties behind to take on a suicide mission with personal significance.  Director Sylvain White’s The Losers holds the distinction of being first out of the gate before The A-Team (2010) and The Expendables (2010).

Based on the DC Comics book of the same name, Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his unit have been betrayed by the evil CIA super handler Max (Jason Patric ), and are believed to be dead.  With the help of mysterious femme brutale, Aisha (Zoe Saldana), Clay sets out on a plan to take down Max and reclaim their identities.  This is as complicated as the film ever gets.  Luckily, The Losers has more than enough colorful characters to distinguish itself from every other paramilitary action flick on the market.

Jason Patric’s Max is the type of villain we used to enjoy in the older Bond films.  He has plans for catastrophic destruction that will strengthen the U.S. while making him a sizable amount of money.  All the while, Patric brings a creepy, business executive quality that is never unentertaining.  Contrasting this is Idris Elba’s Roque, the standard tough guy.  It almost felt like a shame, since I know Elba has the ability to make the character much more interesting.  But I can’t complain because Elba playing a tough guy is still Elba playing a tough guy.

I hadn’t seen or heard of Columbus Short or Oscar Jaenada before, and was pleasantly surprised with their ability to command attention.  Jaenada especially, since his character doesn’t really speak. Chris Evans, however, totally steals the show as Jensen.  Between the outrageous t-shirts and inspired moments of nerdy awkwardness, I never got tired of him.

Action-wise, there are very few dull moments.  White paces the film well by interspersing explosions, gunfights, sex-fights, and accidental murders, with punchy Oceans Eleven -esque dialogue.  However, the movie does not provide any real surprises and follows the textbook action movie format, almost to a fault. But it’s still a fun time and holds up well.  It almost does a perfect job adapting the comic book, even covering what is essentially the first story arc collected in the trade paperback “Ante Up.” I appreciated the attention to detail in plotting and the arranging of specific shots from the comic.

Unfortunately, as mentioned above, the ending takes a more typical “Hollywood” tract, and thus avoids the more interesting and thought-provoking commentary on the military-industrial complex that writer Andy Diggle infused throughout the comic series-but who needs thinking when there are sweet explosions!

For those interested:

You can pinpoint the exact moment action movies started to suck as badly as they do today, and that point would be Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever.

Once upon a time, some dude got drunk and described the concept of an “action movie” to another guy at a bar. That guy, already tipsy, went to the local liquor store thinking; “How hard could it be?” He bought a handle of Jack Daniels, drank it, wrote a screenplay in crayon, and pitched it to Hollywood while hung over.

Somehow, he still managed to get this movie produced.

Antonio Banderas plays Jeremiah Ecks, down on his luck and unable find his wife because she got married to the master of evil, Robert Gant (veteran character actor Gregg Henry), a guy who intends to use nano-robots (AGAIN WITH THE GODDAMNED NANOROBOTS!) and Ray Park to do. . . something bad. No one ever says.

It starts out stupid, with Gant sending thugs from the DIA to pick up his son after he arrives home from Europe via a Gulfstream jet. If it doesn’t strain credibility that the kid just got back from Europe on his own Gulfstream, apparently we’re supposed to find the Defense Intelligence Agency scary. They’re the guys who copy-edit intelligence reports. They don’t have goons, and they certainly don’t have an endless supply of masked mooks in “armored” vests that make the Storm Troopers look like they’re behind three feet of steel. In transit, a Jedi Knight named Sever, played by with aggressive blandness by Lucy Liu, shows up and nabs the moppet in the hopes of moving the plot along.

No such luck, unfortunately.

Then some other DIA agents push up on Ecks as he’s polishing a bottle of Wild Goose or something at the local watering hole in Vancouver, Canada. Yes. The whole movie, supposedly chock full of American-flavored political intrigue, unabashedly takes place in Vancouver. They blackmail him back into action and we’re off! The Ecks Vs. Sever thing only lasts for about thirty minutes before they realize that the real bad guy is the one wearing the Nazi-like trench coat.

Cliché after cliché is layered in every way possible. Liu uses ALL guns in slow motion, from the dinky P90 sub-machine gun to the massive M60 Light Machine Gun, made famous by Rambo. All of this is set to the The Crystal Method and bands that sound like them, for reasons probably more commercial than anything else.

The crowning achievement of this movie’s astonishing inability to get anything right is giving Ray Park a heavy speaking role and almost no martial arts scenes. If there’s one thing Ray Park can do, it’s Wu-Shu, and he looks like a complete tool when he’s either using a gun (because he’s a martial artist), or trying to be menacing (because he sounds like Davy Jones from the Monkees).

This movie is the patient zero of terrible modern action. Everything that makes this movie bad has ruined other movies since. At barely ninety minutes you feel you have run some sort of bad cinema marathon. Couple this with another amazingly bad misfire, like Ultraviolet, and you have a recipe for a craptacular modern action night!

Nicolas Cage movies generally fall into in two categories: intentionally funny (Raising Arizona ), and unintentionally funny (The Wicker Man ). However, Knowing is neither of these. Knowing uses Cage as a regular actor to portray a regular guy…and that, my friends, the least entertaining path to take.

It all begins with in 1959 with a Wednesday Adams look-alike (the painfully cute Laura Robinson), with sad eyes and a large forehead, looking very worried. When her teacher presents a time capsule project for her class, the girl hears voices (of course) telling her to write down a series of numbers, instead of drawing the future like she was told.

Fifty years later, physics professor Johnathan Koestler’s (Cage) smarter-than-average (read: amazingly argumentative) son Caleb (Chandler Cantebury) gets the numbers, and things start getting nuts. Koestler figures that a lot of the numbers are the dates and body counts for natural disasters,but he’s not sure what the other numbers mean… yet.

By now we’re expecting a classic Nic Cage style freak-out (“HOW’D IT GET BURNED!?! “), and instead we‘re disappointed by him actually doing a rather decent job with a well-realized character. Koestler and his son have a strained relationship, as his wife died in a hotel fire, and naturally they both miss her dearly. They never talk about things like “emotions” outside of a painfully sweet exchange in sign language exchange, being men and all.

Koestler throws himself into trying to solve the mystery using the “Single Barrel“ Research Method, which involves crawling into a bottle and watching the news for any headlines matching the numerical pattern.  After doing this all night, he sleeps through a whole day and wakes up to his son calling, saying he has afternoon car-pool. CRAP! Off he goes to get stuck in highway traffic, still contemplating what all the numbers mean when he realizes, after looking at his GPS, those other numbers are map coordinates: latitude and longitude... like the one he’s on right NOW. A few seconds after this realization, a 747 crashes, dipping its wing into the Earths’ crust and cutting a trench through that very highway.

Koestler tries in vain to help these people, and we still don’t get that freak out we’ve been waiting for! His next step is to seek out Diana Wayland (Rose Byrn), the daughter of Worried Wednesday from the opening. She too has a daughter (Robinson again). Koestler tries to get Wayland to open up about her dead crazy mother and reveal the secret to life, the universe, and everything.

The exchange begins poorly, of course, but later they hit it off just in time for Koestler to figure out that there’s a massive Solar flare heading for Earth and everyone’s going to die unless. . . well, nothing. You can’t really stop the sun from reducing the Earth to a heavy metal album cover, but the movie still has forty-five minutes to go. What happens is a half interesting, half Deus-Ex Machina-but with a fiercely depressing twist.

Overall, this movie suffers from a case of “Not Quite Enough-itis.” While director Alex Proyas (I, Robot , Dark City ) is not short on directing skill or adorable brunettes in various stages of life, the plot is pretty much “figure out the code, realize it’s hopeless and do NOT give us a Nicolas Cage Freakout in spite of this.”  It’s competent enough, but asks heavy questions and presents some crazily optimistic answers, playing it fairly straight the entire time with no zany antics and few ludicrous moments. As such, it might not work for a Cavalcade, so go with NeXt instead.

Chocolate, the 2008 Thai action film brought to us by the directorial genius of Prachya Pinkaew, is a touching kung fu fairy tale about an autistic girl and her best friend trying to help her gravely ill mother. Pinkaew is more well-known to American audiences as the man who helmed Ong-Bak: the Thai Warrior and The Protector (a.k.a.”Dude, Where’s My Elephant?”) with the fantastic Tony Jaa . Like his previous films, it feels like there’s an underlying theme of mysticism woven into an intricate and bloody tapestry of glorious violence.

Through the magic of kung fu, the heroine in Chocolate conquers insurmountable odds and learns the true meaning of love and family…while kicking a whole lot of lotta ass. This is a Thai action film, after all. Here the main rules are they don’t pull their punches, and if your cast escapes filming uninjured, you’ve done something wrong.

Once upon a time, Zin (Ammara Siripong ) fell in love with Masashi (Hiroshi Abe). Star-crossed lovers, she was the girlfriend of Thai gangster,”No. 8″ (Pongpat Wachirabunjong), and he was a Yakuza boss. The tense opening scene establishes the animosity between these two factions as both guns and lines are drawn. Once that’s out of the way, the audience gets to watch a steamy montage where Zin and Masashi fall deeper in lust/love with each other…you know, like you do when you’re badasses on opposing sides of a gang war.

Ultimately, this comes to a head during a Compton-style drive-by where Zin jumps out of the car to get between the bullets and her beloved. Not to be outdone in the drama department, No. 8 literally shoots himself in the foot as a statement to Zin that this romance BS with Masashi can’t continue. After a night of hot sex, Zin sends Masashi packing back to Japan for their own good.

More montages find Zin pregnant, and the little girl, Zen, is a “special child.” Trying to tell the father ends with a painful meeting with No. 8, so like any good mother would, she pulls up stakes and moves herself and her little girl next door to a Muay-Thai martial arts school where becomes enraptured by the movements of the students, and develops her superpower: perfect muscle memory.

Years later, Zen (Yanin Mitananda) and her best friend, Moom (Taphon Phopwandee ), are earning money performing stupid human tricks to pay for Zin’s cancer treatments. They stumble across mom’s old gang debt book and decide to collect. Asses get thoroughly kicked in Zen’s path to collect, finally leading up to a battle with No. 8 and his transvestite hooker army.

Mitananda really shines as Zen, with all of her autistic quirks, bad-assery, and single-minded devotion to her mother. The rest of the cast is fantastic as well, including the scene-chewing performance Dechawut Chuntakaro , leader of No. 8’s transvestite hooker army. All in all, Chocolate is a delicious, heart-warming film with a fairy tale ending that’s just a little perkier than a Shakespearean tragedy, but totally appropriate and worth it.