So, the second film I saw at the mini festival was District B13: Ultimatum, which was fairly disappointing. On it's own, it was a just mediocre action film, but as a sequel to the excellent District B13, it was a complete and utter failure. The fight scenes were ok, but all the the beautiful parkour (the French art of urban acrobatics) that made the first movie such a thrill ride was gone. Perhaps star David Belle, one of the founders of the sport, is getting too old for it, but I doubt it. I suspect it was the fault of writer Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) who no doubt saw the 2005 civil unrest in the ghettos of Paris mimicking the movie he'd made a year earlier and saw this sequel as a chance to promote a message of peace and unity, that instead of fighting each other, the oppressed need to talk things out and put political pressure on the people in power. Sadly, despite trading out most of the stunts for endless talking, the already sketchy politics of the first movie were reduced to ludicrous rubble by the poorly thought out ending of this one.
assmonkeydiary) wrote, 
