Cage Fight

I must have heard about Jiu Jitsu (2020) before the pandemic hit: a martial arts movie with Nicolas Cage, Tony Jaa and space aliens. But when it came available about a year into "social distancing", I didn't really care how good or bad it was. I just queued it up.

It actually stars Alain Moussi, who we first see running through the forest while futuristic shuriken go whizzing by. Futuristic shuriken are very inaccurate. Cornered on a cliff, he leaps into the sea and cracks his head. He is fished out and patched up by Burmese peasants, who drag him to a nearby American army base. He comes around with amnesia, but Marie Avgeropoulos spends a while interrogating him anyway. She doesn't seem to be too good at it.

When they get a little rough with him, he beats up the entire squad of soldiers. Except it is blatant mo-cap CGI, looking very computer gamey. Soon, he's beating up everyone, until Tony Jaa shows up and tells him "Time to go." Tony Jaa fights his way out, and he is NOT mo-cap CGI.

Jaa takes Moussi to meet the gang, which includes Frank Grillo, Rick Yune, and Juju Chan (who seems to have been his girlfriend). They could use Moussi's amnesia to do some exposition, but instead just keep saying stuff like. "At least you remember the plan, don't you? It was your plan!" But we kind of know what's going on, from reading the subtitles from the Burmese peasants: In ancient times, a space alien came to Earth to teach us Jiu Jitsu. Now he returns every 6 years to challenge 9 Earthlings to a Jiu Jitsu fight with vague rules and consequences. But if you fight fair and bravely, he'll only kill you. If not, he'll destroy all life on earth. The Army would have known this, but their interpreter, Eddie Steeples, is comic relief.

So this alien, who of course can become invisible, gets in a series of fights, mostly killing his opponents after toying with them. Nic Cage finally shows up as a guy who chickened out of the fight, ran away and has been acting crazy ever since. Imagine, Nic Cage acting crazy.

So, more or less Predator rip-off, with a touch of Street Fighter, also a touch of WTF. Pretty much all we were interested in was the fighting. Which was very mixed. Tony Jaa, incredible, and very underused after his first scene. Everyone else, mostly just fair. Nic Cage has a fight that is largely floor work, and I'm pretty sure it's Cage's face mo-capped onto a 3-D model. Since he's fighting with a 3-D model alien, it makes sense.

But, you know, we didn't hate this movie at all. It didn't take itself very seriously (Steeples' goofball soldier act was pretty funny), and having Cage around just drove that home. We turned off our minds and enjoyed the spectacle.