The Hunted

I had this whole paragraph about the plot planned to go right here, but upon seeing this movie, I'll just say that if you've seen "First Blood", you already know what The Hunted is about.

But then again, maybe you're 12. "The Hunted" is about a military guy (Benico Del Toro), who's trained to kill, but wait, he can't stop his killing instinct and it gets better, he starts going after deer hunters! So who do you call? Tommy Lee Jones, who else. He's the guy who trained him to kill. So that's the plot, the rest of it is just a male cat-fight.

Despite being a total ripoff of "First Blood", it actually manages to be somewhat entertaining. The knife fighting scenes are interesting, the death-defying waterfall leaps are dumbfounding, and the photography (by Caleb Deschanel) is pretty beautiful. But the plot is stupid, and we've seen it before.

Don't get me wrong, all plots have already been done, it's always how-can-you-do-it-differently, and therein lies the problem-- the filmmakers don't understand the 'differently' part. That's an understatement, I just couldn't see myself caring for any of the characters. They tried to tell us that Jones' character is afraid of heights, yet, when that part of the plot happens (on a bridge, lyke whoa!), it passes so quickly that I couldn't care less about it. What's the point in making him throw up after getting off the chopper in the beginning, if it means jack squat later on? I guess it's for those people with vomit fetishes.

Another problem is the blood. I mean c'mon, if you're making a movie about knife fighting, realistic blood should be a pretty high priority. Sorry guys, I just don't understand all the red paint that was on Jones' face. The squirting blood was so-so (seemed too watery), and the rest was too bright a red.

But again, with all that said, I still wasn't really bored. Caleb Deschanel's photography is perfect and it totally kept my eye on it. He totally saved this movie from getting a big fat goose egg.