Well, this belongs to the realm of completely unnecessary remakes, since the source material also was found wanting to begin with.
With that out of the way, a description can be made of the changes for this remake of 'Banlieu 13' or 'District 13':
The only person who seemed to be giving it all here is RZA, who chomps into his suave-looking bad guy role with gusto that could have been served better by its writers/makers. He did the same job in 'Protector 2', which was probably worse. Hope he gets better material in his next go-around.
The CGI's bad, the writing's bad, the production design's possibly some of the worst you can get, and this ideally should've been ignored on cable as well.
Feel sad for David Belle, and worse for 'Parkour'. Watch 'Banlieu 13' instead, or even the unnecessary sequel, and give this one a miss.
With that out of the way, a description can be made of the changes for this remake of 'Banlieu 13' or 'District 13':
- Cyril Rafaelli, who was cast in the unnecessary sequel as well, is missed here, since he was an able Parkour counterpart to Belle in the original. Walker's visible lack of martial-arts talent is made more conspicuous because of this. The'sister' is now the 'ex-girlfriend'. - There is now a lady lesbian villianness. The 'dad' angle. The not-too-evil baddies. Badly choreographed Parkour and non-Parkour action sequences. Really sad, since this was the movie's apparent USP. An older, unenthusiastic David Belle.
The only person who seemed to be giving it all here is RZA, who chomps into his suave-looking bad guy role with gusto that could have been served better by its writers/makers. He did the same job in 'Protector 2', which was probably worse. Hope he gets better material in his next go-around.
The CGI's bad, the writing's bad, the production design's possibly some of the worst you can get, and this ideally should've been ignored on cable as well.
Feel sad for David Belle, and worse for 'Parkour'. Watch 'Banlieu 13' instead, or even the unnecessary sequel, and give this one a miss.