I would pay $19.06 to watch this movie

     I figured I would review this movie, even though it isn't exactly new, because I have received flak over my review of "X-2: X-Men United". The reason this movie is important is because I watched it about four times the week before I watched "X-2", and thus I am seeing every action film in light of this movie now.

    This movie hits all my buttons, except for the big red button marked "Post-Apocalyptic."  Basically, this movie is almost perfect as an action film. OK, so it isn't exactly true to the story of the Beast of Gevaudan. In fact, it is pretty unlikely that this movie reflects much of anything more than costumes from the late period of the French monarchy. With that out of the way, this film has it all.

    The breakdown goes something like this: The acting is superb (witness Mark Dacascos NOT looking like a retard), the direction is stupendous (Dacascos doesn't LOOK bad), the editing is amazing (Mark Dacascos looks like he can fight), the soundtrack is good, the special effects are great in most parts, even though the beast was a wee tad cheesy, the plot is brilliant (Dacascos dies... and you DON'T smile) etc.... But the most fantastic part of this movie is the art direction, done by two random French guys who really don't have anything in their filmographies that rings bells for me, Francois Decaux and Thierry Francois. Well gee, I guess they are French... jeez. In any case, the film looks amazing, and you really see it in the scene where Samuel Le Bihan is walking through the evil people's lair. Also, the main baddie in this movie has a bone sword that turns into a flail... ook!

    The fight scenes are beautiful, and my biggest complaint about this movie is that they pared the first fight scene down to 1/3 of the original. I listened to the reasoning on this, and the most relevant excuse was that they didn't want Le Bihan fighting until the end, to sharpen the contrast between his character and Dacascos'. OK, Frenchie, this makes sense for a plot-driven movie, but this is a crossover movie which, as one of the crossed elements, contains martial arts film fu... too much fighting? No. Anyways, the movie still rules. Oh yeah, the reason I rated this movie at $19.06 is because that's how much I paid for it.