154. The Iron Mask; movie review

THE IRON MASK
Cert 12A
117 mins
BBFC advice: Contains moderate fantasy violence, sex references

Where do I start with The Iron Mask?
The misleading poster, the crazy synchronised speech, the wacky special effects, the mangling of history or the bizarre plot?
You have to hand it to the director, Oleg Stepchenko, he chucked a heck of a lot into his movie.
He has an action movie with Jackie Chan and Arnie Schwarzenegger at his disposal and a storyline which stretches from England to Russia and across to China.
At its heart is a love story but there are also fighting scenes aplenty, monsters, magic and comedy.
So, what went so horribly wrong? It turns out that there are too many ingredients and they don't complement each other.
The Iron Mask is a Chinese/Russian collaboration and a sequel to a movie which starred Jason Flemyng and Charles Dance.
Both are back but, while Flemyng plays the lead role of cartographer Jonathan Green, Dance is only on-screen fleetingly.
He isn't the only star who flickers briefly - Rutger Hauer is easily missed in one of his last movie roles and Christopher Fairbank barely has a couple of minutes.
But most disappointing are the contributions of Chan and Schwarzenegger which are bizarrely short.
Chan plays an inmate in the Tower of London and Schwarzenegger is the prison boss who throws his weight around for sport.
Inevitably, there is an opportunity for Chan to show some fancy kicks and Arnie to prove he can still wrestle with the best but that is the limit of their time on screen.
Instead, the film focuses on Green's aforementioned journey from Russia to China with a mystery companion (Xingtong Yao) and his arrival at a city where a famous dragon is kept subdued and a witch is persecuting the locals.
The link between the various elements is convoluted and the audience's engagement isn't helped by woefully stilted badly synchronised dialogue.
The film is historically poppycock - Peter The Great (Yuri Kolokolnikov) is one of its central characters but is out of both place and time.
And don't get me on the love story between Green and English heiress Miss Dudley (Anna Churina). He is described as both her fiance and husband and yet he doesn't even use her first name.
That is one of many details which demonstrate that The Iron Mask's makers have taken their eye so far off the ball that they can't even see it.

Reasons to watch: Decent-ish special effects
Reasons to avoid: Makes next to no sense

Laughs: None
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 2.5/10

Did you know? The real man in the iron mask was nothing to do with Russia, China or Great Britain. During the reign of French King Louis XIV, he was locked away in the notorious Bastille and other French prisons. Held captive from the end of the 17th century to the beginning of the 18th century, his identity was never revealed.

The final word. Alexey Petruhkin, producer, said: "It features the best Chinese actors: Yao Xingtong, the Luu Brothers, Zhang Lanxin (2004 Chinese taekwondo champion). Moreover, Jackie Chan and his company Jackie Chan JCE, responsible for the shooting in China, are taking a very active role in the creation of the movie."

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