Cradle 2 the Grave

Director Andrzej Bartkowiak once again pairs Romeo Must Die's rapper-turned-actor DMX with Hong Kong kung-fu legend Jet Li, and this time it seems the formula might work--at least until the diamond-heist-and-kidnapping plot is jettisoned in favor of an imbecilic nuclear weapons twist that turns the film into radioactive waste. Stylish and exciting, if sometimes farfetched, the movie's fights and stunts are creative and invigorating--or would be if Bartkowiak weren't busy hacking them up into thousands of nanosecond-long shots--and Li gracefully wallops his opponents (he kicks one guy's butt without taking his hands out of his pockets), while DMX fights street-dirty but fights well. Cradle 2 the Grave could have been a gratifying B-movie, but when the asinine plutonium plot-switch puts the flick into an unrecoverable tailspin (cartoonish technology, mock-scientific mumbo-jumbo, laughable Eurotrash arms dealers), nothing can save this Cradle from the grave. Not a necessary purchase. [Note: Available in either widescreen or full screen versions, DVD extras include the eight-minute featurette “Ultimate Fighting Champions” profile on the UFC ringers who played brawling extras in the film, a seven-minute “Choreography of the Camera” featurette on the multi-angle fiery fight sequence of the “Su vs. Ling” face-off, a three-minute featurette on “The Descender Rig” camera device created especially for the film, costar DMX's music video “X Gon' Give It to Ya,” cast and crew filmographies, two hidden Easter Egg featurettes (on rear projection [3 min.] and a montage [2 min.]), a trailer, and DVD-ROM features. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a routine action flick.] (R. Blackwelder)