You can’t kill what’s already dead (it's a cliche)

That’s according to the tagline of the independent Brit-horror “Outpost”, directed by Steve Barker and starring the charismatic Ray Stevenson (from “Rome”). Stevenson, disappointingly sans charisma in this instance, headlines as the leader of a group of mercenaries that accompanies a ‘company representative’ on a reconnaissance mission. What this guy's looking for he won’t say (it's not hard to guess though) and it doesn’t take long for the viewer to suspect that they Eastern European bunker they end up exploring is a place where things go bump, bash and die in the night.

After 45 minutes of very little happening, the enemy is revealed; after 90 minutes, the movie’s over and you’re not sure what the point was to it all: mercenaries in and above bunker, enemy force identified, mercenaries picked off one by one (in a typical formulaic, unimaginative manner). That, as they say, is that. At least the film has downer of an ending though the aftermath is unnecessary.

“Outpost” is a cheerless horror with very little tension, and is even plain illogical at times (even for an Eastern European military undead horror). A bunker with darkened corridors is an excellent location for generating apprehension (the vastly superior “Session 9”, set in an abandoned asylum, comes to mind) but Barker doesn’t pull it off. This is a case of a workable horror concept in search of a screenplay, and is really not worth the effort. You can't shake the "seen it all before" feeling while you struggle with the "wish I were watching something else" feeling.

Travel with me to the early ‘90s, kung fu style

Somehow, the pairing of Jackie Chan and Jet Li has never appealed to me as much as the paring of, say, De Niro and Pacino (I’m referring to “Heat” here, not the forthcoming “Righteous Kill”). Yet, apparently fanboys wanted the two martial arts icons to join forces and here they are, together for the first time, in Rob Minkoff’s placid, harmless “Forbidden Kingdom”. Here is a film with such mediocre effects and far-from-dazzling wirework that it’s hard to believe that it was released in 2008, and not 1993. “Forbidden Kingdom” is a (unintended?) throwback to the cheesy, insipid slap & kick movies of the early 1990s. Watching this, I was reminded not only of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” but also of the vastly superior ‘80s actioner “Big Trouble in Little China”. And knowing what Chan and Li are capable of, it’s hard to think of “Forbidden Kingdom” as anything but sub-par.

The story has something to do with a hero who doesn’t know he’s a hero; a drunken master; a silent monk; a white haired woman warrior with a whip; ancient immortals who take lunch breaks every 500 years; a magic staff and a Monkey King (also, embarrassingly, Jet Li). There is even a training montage where a character gets to know his inner warrior by exhibiting outer skill. And yes, someone actually says: “It has been foretold…” At first I thought that the film was conscious of its position in pop culture, but at the end I was not convinced. I suspect that all involved set out to make a film worthy of inclusion in the pantheon of martial arts movies, and failed.