Cinematographer-turned-bad director Andrzej Bartkowiak's third interchangeable mixed-genre picture (half blaxploitation, half chop-socky--call it "soul fu") is the amazingly weak, inexplicably named Cradle 2 the Grave. An auteurist discussion of the unfortunate Bartkowiak would reveal that a complete lack of coherence between title and content doesn't seem much of an impediment (Romeo Must Die, Exit Wounds), and that he likes to pair someone who doesn't speak much English (Jet Li, Steven Seagal) with someone who doesn't speak English well (Aaliyah, DMX). Worse, the man appears intent on breaking records for the ways in which he mishandles his fight sequences; making Li seem as lugubrious and ordinary as Seagal is sort of an amazing accomplishment. If only such a thing were praiseworthy.

A member of Taiwan's equivalent to the CIA, Su (Li) is a glowering, largely expressionless black-clad supercop who appears to have broken his left hand and thus keeps it in his pocket for most of the film. Fait (DMX) is a high-tech jewel thief with an irritating daughter (Paige Hurd) and a Daria (Gabrielle Union), a lover or partner or both or neither. After Fait steals a bunch of coveted black diamonds (the question of how they happen upon them in a giant vault a-riddled with boxes, never posed/never answered), Su and archrival supervillain Ling (Mark Dacascos) torture DMX with kidnapping, blackmail, partnership, and uncomfortable banter until a bizarre plutonium subplot erupts to lay waste to what wasn't such great shakes in the first place. Chi McBride makes an impression as a jailed crime boss with a long memory and Tom Arnold as the guy he played in True Lies presents the Yang tubby white corollary to Anthony Anderson's (playing the guy he played in Kangaroo Jack) comic relief Yin.

The problem with an action hero who banks largely on the extent to which he thinks things are boring is that, after a certain point, the audience will agree. Li, robbed of his power and grace by hyperactive edits (though thankfully not a surplus of CGI this time around (see: The One, Romeo Must Die)), with his left hand resolutely in pants pocket, dispatches any number of foes with a sort of shrugging insouciance that isn't so much awe-inspiring as gloriously disinteresting. As there are only really three fight scenes (one in an alleyway with DMX somehow Li's equal, another in a wrestling cage that raises midget abuse to a delirious new level, the last the requisite showdown/finale), Cradle 2 the Grave is essentially a really boring heist plot married to an amazingly boring terrorism plot, timed with regular plot complications.

Better than wondering how a radioactive suppository of unbelievable power can turn a guy to ashes in seconds--but not affect anyone else (diving on a nuclear weapon not the same as diving on a grenade, one presumes)--is to wonder how it is that the legends of Hong Kong cinema have been relegated to B-list and amusing sidekick roles by an industry that insists on casting them in humiliating and substandard roles. A distinct possibility is that with stars like Li, Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-Fat, and so on, the main box office is thought to be an international one thus denigrating the need for dialogue, story, subtlety, and much purpose for existence save a cheap investment, a short domestic run, and a worldwide return.

That these films don't perform nearly so well as the Chinese performers' home-grown product speaks volumes to the uniform ineptness of the fight choreography and direction that relegates crapulence like Cradle 2 the Grave to the status of cultural orphan: unwanted, unfocused, and uncouth. It's a product of a heartless, soulless machinery--an embarrassment for another behind-the-camera crew dutifully squandering another nation's treasures not even a worthy prelude to Zhang Yimou's upcoming Hero.-Walter Chaw