The latest film from producer and writer Luc Besson, Brick Mansions is a US-set remake of his 2004 French parkour actioner District B13 and takes place in a dystopian Detroit where a zone of the city is contained by a giant wall perimeter to keep the rest of the city safe from its crime. When the government task undercover cop Damien (Paul Walker) with recovering a stolen bomb, he reluctantly teams up with Lino (parkour co-founder David Belle), who seeks to get back his kidnapped girlfriend from drug kingpin Tremaine (RZA).
This is a film that personifies the phrase all style and no substance. And that would be fine – the original wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of dramatic complexity – if the style it presents wasn’t so generic. With borderline nauseatingly quick-cut editing (a trend frustratingly ubiquitous in Hollywood action movies these days) and an over-reliance on slow-mo at every kick and punch-laden turn, it’s never anything more than ordinary in the action stakes.
The parkour (AKA free-running) so essential to why the original was so impressive barely plays into things here as after an opening chase sequence that sees Belle (who basically reprises his role from the original) escape from Tremaine’s henchman via some nifty action escapology, that aspect becomes an afterthought and so takes over the generic action and overly convoluted conspiracy plot that gets in the way.
The through-line of the film is the odd buddy cop-like relationship between Walker’s headstrong, well-meaning cop and Belle’s skilled, determined criminal but they lack the chemistry to carry off the antagonistic banter, making it slightly annoying whenever they stop for breathe between all their running around. The sadly late Walker obviously has a natural charisma about him – and to be quite honest the morbid curiosity factor of seeing his last ever completed film is about the only reason to check this one out – but he’s ill-served by often woeful dialogue contained within a lackadaisical script that feels like it’s just going through the motions. Belle struggles to repeat how well he carried off the role in the original, which is probably an equal combination of the duff script and the fact that English isn’t his first language.
We also have the charisma vacuum that is RZA, a rapper-turned-actor who proved himself the opposite of an engaging screen presence in 2012’s The Man With the Iron Fists. He is equally terrible here as the supposedly threatening drug lord Tremaine who’s about as intimidating as a slice of frozen carrot, and just as animated. Add to him a wildly over-the-top right-hand woman in the form of Rayzah (Ayisha Issa) and lead henchman K2 (Gouchy Boy, playing another role found in the original) and you have a distinctly dull set of villains against which our heroes have to battle.
The once reliable Besson, the man behind such great films as Leon and The Fifth Element, has been behind some lacklustre fare since with the likes of Colombiana, Taken 2 and most recently The Family. Occasionally he delivers something of extreme worth, particularly the hugely underrated The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, but sadly Brick Mansions isn’t one of them. He has chosen his regular collaborating editor Camille Delamerre to take the helm of this American do-over but he fails to translate the creative and stylish vim of the original with a curiously flat and unengaging action flick. It’s passable for hardcore action fans and the genre has certainly seen worse but a disappointment considering the gleefully over-the-top premise and the action-packed promise it holds.
