The Art of War

Wesley Snipes comes off like a bad-ass, black-belt James Bond with some ghetto in his blood in the opening scene of this incoherent espionage thriller. Dressed to the nines to blackmail Chinese government officials at a Hong Kong shindig, he eventually has to kung-fu his way out and parachute off a skyscraper to escape. Wes lands safely, but the movie crashes face first into the pavement. From that point on, The Art of War becomes a convoluted yarn of international conspiracies thinner than the paper the script is printed on and full of they-can't-be-serious spy picture concepts, such as the basic setup, in which our stoic stud hero is a United Nations black ops agent who does dirty work for the power-hungry Secretary General (Donald Sutherland) until he's framed for an assassination. When the movie isn't busy imitating Jet Li and John Woo flicks in the empty UN building (yeah, right!), it follows Snipes attempts to discover who set him up. Not recommended. (R. Blackwelder)