District 13: Ultimatum: movie review
As sequels go, Patrick Alessandrin鈥檚 鈥淒istrict 13: Ultimatum,鈥� which follows 鈥淒istrict B13鈥� and was written by Luc Besson, isn鈥檛 half bad. In the first film, a French ghetto inhabited by warring racial gangs was on the verge of an urban makeover. Now it鈥檚 two years later, and the bad guys in the government want to nuke the place altogether.
The sole good guy, it seems, is the president, who just can鈥檛 get himself to push the red button. His stalling sets the stage for a team of multiethnic gangland rescuers 鈥� blacks, Chinese, Arabs, gypsies, and skinheads 鈥� led by the original film鈥檚 dynamic duo, elite cop Damien Tomaso (Cyril Raffaelli) and reformed vigilante Le茂to (David Belle).
It鈥檚 easy to call this film a video action game starring real people, but that 鈥渞eal鈥� part means a lot. I鈥檇 rather see a world-class martial artist like Raffaelli do his thing instead of a CGI simulacrum. As for Belle, he is renowned as the inventor of Parkour, a type of urban martial art that involves keeping in constant forward motion while bouncing off walls and ledges and people鈥檚 noggins. Some days I know just how he feels. Grade: B (Rated R for some violence, language, and drug material.)
