As Paul Walker ’s concluding ruined film before his ill-timed demise last year in a car wreck , it would be nice to say that Brick Mansions is a fitting epitaph to his motion picture career . It would be dainty , but it would n’t be true .
As a remake of the Luc Besson - written and -produced 2004 action pic District B13 — which introduced the world to the astoundingly nimble parkour founding father David Belle — Brick Mansions is as ploddingly clunky as basically every other human seems when equate to Belle .
The problem is not that the movie ’s secret plan makes no sense , because it copy the original moving picture ’s ridiculous tale pretty much verbatim , with Paul Walker standing as for the undercover cop , Wu - Tang Clan ’s RZA as the drug - dealing headpin , Detroit as Paris , and Belle as essentially the same drug - destroying slum vigilante he played in the first place . The job is that Brick Mansions inexplicably decelerate down to focalise on that storey or else of filling the screen with relentless legal action and Belle ’s superhuman stunt .
The plot is nonsensical , even for the Escape from New York let’s - wall - off - the - slums genre , as Walker is get off into the “ Brick Mansions ” ghetto with Belle ’s drug - destroying vigilante to defuse an experimental neutron bomb which was “ lost ” in a scheme so convolutedly stupid that it bowl over the mind . Additionally , Raekwon ’s mobster pop Paul Walker ’s cop dad and stole Belle ’s x - lady friend in retaliation for Belle destroying 20 kilos of his diacetylmorphine , so they have that to deal with , too .
Again , that ’s more or less the same story of the original movie , but where the original movie let Belle literally run raging , distracting everyone from the fatuity of the plot , Brick Mansions instead brings the level to the forefront , or focuses on the characters , who it turns out are not that compelling when they ’re not leaping off rooftops or beating the hell out of each other . In fact , other than an fantabulous opening episode where Belle gets to show off his Brobdingnagian acquirement as he runs from Raekwon ’s goons , the rest of Brick Mansions ’ action episode are depressingly workaday .
To be fair , Walker , while in excellent shape , does n’t hail close to the strenuosity of his co - hotshot , so other than a few quality stunts , Walker ’s legal action scenes are mostly limited to punching , shot , and , most unfortunately , a few clash - filled railroad car chases . But Belle made District B13 a cult action at law - hit , and he ’s the reason why the movie was successful enough to guarantee this American remake . It ’s also why he ’s play the same function . Paul Walker is manifestly the star here , but metaphorically hamstringing Belle is n’t doing anyone any favors , peculiarly the consultation .
And thus Brick Mansions end up being an inferior remake of a really cracking natural action picture show . My advice : Go view District B13 , and hope Fast and the Furious 7 gives Paul Walker a better epitaph .
Movies
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