A dreadful action film and another dud squandering the athletic ability and silver-screen potential of Thai martial artist and stuntman Tony Jaa. Certain flaws, such as an illogical storyline and a generic original score, are easily forgiven, and there are a handful of memorable stunts throughout, though far fewer than hoped for. The choice to heavily rely on computer-generated imagery is disastrous, however, and completely obliterates the straightforward, hard-edged, no-wires, no-B.S. charm of Jaa's promising debut, Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior, now a decade old. One climactic fight scene in a room awash in digital flames is so ineptly rendered as to be both hilarious and cringe-worthy. Another vast miscalculation: the decision to cast hip-hop icon RZA as the primary antagonist. His love of martial-arts cinema is well-documented, and he is clearly leveraging his wealth and Wu-Tang fame to live out a fantasy, but his performance here is as pitiful and tone-deaf as the one he gave in his toxic directorial debut, the infamous vanity project The Man with the Iron Fists. The interminable third-act fight between he and Jaa must one of the least convincing matches in the history of the genre.

D