Unleashed (**1/2)

Jet Li movies generally suck. There. I've gotten it out of the way. Aside from his villainous role in Lethal Weapon 4, I haven't been impressed with anything he's done since (although my friend Zach would disagree--he deemed 2001's Kiss of the Dragon the "kick ass movie of the summer." It wasn't). So I was happy to find that I actually enjoyed his latest in spots. Maybe it's because he stays silent for the most part. Or maybe it's the fact that the filmmakers have surrounded him with fine actors like Morgan Freeman and Bob Hoskins. Or maybe, and this is probable, it's the way he kicks the ass of everyone in range of him whenever that collar comes off. The beginning of the film is probably the best because it shows Li at full martial arts fury--his style of fighting is animalistic and intense. The movie then goes into redemption mode and moves away from the action. I like that it had higher ambitions, but those ambitions weren't high enough. Li's move from animal to human, from killing machine to family man is not as profound as it should be, and there's the distraction of a really annoying actress who plays the brace-faced stepdaughter of Freeman. Turns out, Unleashed, though decent, is not the kick ass movie of the summer either.