The Art of War III: Retribution (2009)

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

To be honest, the first ART OF WAR film was bad enough, and the sequel worse. This final, clunking addition to the series loses the star (Wesley Snipes) and replaces him with the weak 'Treach', a rapper-turned-actor with all the presence of a lounge singer.The narrative is set in Seoul, and sees our hero and his associates attempting to stop a gang of bombers from blowing up a peace summit at the U.N. What this means is that Treach and a couple of others hang out for a while in parks and hotel rooms and occasionally take part in some ill-devised action sequences which showcase both cast and crew at their absolute worst.The pitiful action in this movie has to be seen to be believed; choreography doesn't get much worse than here. Even the C-grade likes of Gary Daniels movies have better fights than this. Director Gerry Lively also made the execrable DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: WRATH OF THE DRAGON GOD so it's no surprise that this effort here is so terrible. Watch out for the red lights flickering at the end of the toy guns they use in the shoot-outs.Add in some clichéd supporting cast members, including the wannabe-funny British sidekick and the kind of Asian actors who've eked out a living playing racial stereotypes in Hollywood fare. Groan as Treach bashes some goons with some sub-par martial arts abilities and cry at the boring climax. Even B-movie fans will hate ART OF WAR II: RETRIBUTION. Even writing this brief review is spending too much time on it.

I have seen the original "The Art Of War", as well as the first sequel, and I found both of them to be passable exercises in entertainment. However, the third time is not the charm. The budget has been slashed, which probably explains why Wesley Snipes did not return. Anthony 'Treach' Criss is not a satisfactory replacement for Snipes. While he's not awful, he's awfully bland and lacking Snipes' charisma. But the reduced budget also gives the movie a cheap feeling. It is VERY obvious that the South Korean set story was not actually filmed in Korea (I should know - I lived in South Korea for a year.) The action sequences are sloppy and lacking excitement. As for the script, there's a real sense of deja-vu here, even if you can't immediately think of where you've seen these plot elements before. There is a twist near the end, though many viewers will be able to guess it before it occurs. If this is what the series has been reduced to, I really hope there is not a part four.

The "Art of War" franchise has produced 2 good, fun films. Wesley Snipes has been largely responsible for how good they are, but there are also smart script-writers and effective directors involved.Somehow, the 3rd film has run badly off-track. Since Mr. Snipes isn't in it, my guess is he saw the script in advance (they'd have been fools not to ask him), and gave it a big, big pass. Judging from what we now see on the screen, he was wise to do so.The subject of the film is, generally, illegal arms trading. Namely, selling a nuke to North Korea. The primary focus is a UN-sponsored meeting on the issue in South Korea. The Secretary-General (a woman, which has not yet happened and may not since none of the Islamic nations, which have a vast, unreasoning fear of women, would vote for her) underplays a pivotal role here, and needed to have appeared a lot more.Unfortunately, the film treats this subject in a somewhat fuzzy manner that obfuscates the seriousness of the issue. We know that the tyrant of North Korea wants a nuke so badly he can taste it. But my guess is that having it would be a prestige item much more than a threat – the Nuclear Club is a very exclusive one. Using a nuke invites retaliation – and North Korea's infrastructure is so fragile that a single hit – certainly more than 2 – would leave the state unable to manage itself. It can barely manage now. (By contrast, even if Seoul is completely flattened, South Korea would still be viable.) We should mention that the major characters are: Neil Shaw (or Agent #1), played by Anthony Criss (billed as "Treach"); Jason (or Agent #2), played by Warren Derosa; Sung Hi Lee, played by Sung Yi; and the aforementioned Secretary-General, played by Janet Carroll. Criss, who is pushing 49 and doesn't really look it, has had a robust film/TV career and manages to play his role as if he half-way believes it. The dynamic between Criss and Derosa is exactly the same as that between Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith in "Men in Black" – who gets to drive, who gets the big gun, and so on. It would have helped to play this bit for comic relief, but you're not working with first-rate movie-makers here. Sung Hi Lee is an anomalous character who's found with the bad guys early in the film, but then plunges in to cooperate whole-heartedly to help the good guys.The story is developed through a lot of shooting and fisticuffs and implausible misses by the bad guys, who can't seem to hit the good guys with a hail of bullets. The fights are too obviously staged. The ultimate mystery here is the identity is the main bad guy. Some red herrings are dangled, but on the precedent of previous films it has to be somebody under our noses. Main candidates: Derosa's and Lee's characters. He is always seem to be a squeaky wheel and she, the sweet innocent, turns out to know her way pretty well about kung fu. Of course, since they're so obvious, the bad guy may be someone else entirely. The Secretary General? Kim Jong-il? Wesley Snipes? I'd tell you, in order to spare you having to go through this thing in order to find out, but there would be the usual bad-movie-masochists who will complain I committed the "spoiler" heresy. Hell, this film was spoiled the moment it went onto celluloid.Some of y'all will just love the senseless violence. For the rest, avoid this turkey. Sayonara, "Art of War" franchise.

The title sound perfect but there where the things ends.The fact that the stunts seems to made up by some 5 year old coordinator and the dialog is so predictive and boring that you can see the final sequence of the movie. My god, what the director and the whole crew members where thinking when they ware shooting the sequence when the main actor shoots at the two Koreans from 2 meters and runs out of bullet after depleting the gun trows at them with the pistol and hit one in the face.Come on guys even a 3 year kid will not buy something like that. Is so pathetic that not worth watching until the end really. How hard is to make something good when the budget doesn't allow it.