For whatever reason, there are only two good movies about elephants: Dumbo and The Protector. It speaks volumes that the plots for both of these movies are silly as hell. The second (you should know damn well what Dumbo is) starred Tony Jaa – the man with the world’s deadliest elbows – as a quaint, rural pachyderm enthusiast who goes on a roaring rampage of revenge when somebody steals his elephant. Fantastic fight choreography and screams of “Where’s my elephant?!” were plentiful. What can I say? I like that movie. It reminds me of elephants.
The Protector 2 on the other hand is not a good movie about elephants. It is however a very fun one. Tony Jaa may have started his career as a deadly serious Jackie Chan, throwing himself in one unthinkable physical predicament after another and impressively pulling off astounding feat after astounding feat, but The Protector 2 is less about trying to actively kill Tony Jaa on camera and more about putting him in a silly plotline with neat fight scenes and low-rent visual effects.
It’s that last part that seems to be pissing people off. Yes, Tony Jaa has to dodge CGI knives when a little trick editing would have sufficed. Yes, it appears that when the walls surrounding Tony Jaa and his enemies ooze flammable liquid and catch fire that the “fire” is actually a computer-generated veneer. No, that doesn’t make the movie any less stupid or awesome. Although I’m still not sure how dunking your feet in dirty water makes them electricity-proof and charges your punches like Raiden in Mortal Kombat.
Whereas the plot of the original The Protector (originally Tom Yum Goong) was refreshingly simple – “Where’s my elephant?” + Fighting = “There’s my elephant!” – the story this time is convoluted and strange. Once again, someone has stolen Tony Jaa’s elephant. He tracks down the obvious culprit but gets framed for the bad guy’s murder, fights off the victim’s flying knick-knack martials arts nieces (JeeJa Yanin and Theerada Kittisiriprasert), and runs afoul of an arms dealer played by The RZA who collects fighters and likes to rank them through non-stop fighting tournaments for his own personal amusement. His #20 fighter, Only God Forgives’ Rhatha Phongam, has the word “twenty” branded into her chest. What happens when she defeats #19, or if that guy dies of natural causes? Is The RZA going to have to cross the number 20 off and brand a new number next to it?
The RZA’s fiendish scheme would be very funny to describe but much more fun to discover for yourself. Suffice it to say it ends with The RZA pummeling Tony Jaa as our hero desperately tries to keep his pet elephant’s tusks from falling off. Normally I’d say that’s a spoiler, but knowing that this little moment is coming can only make The Protector 2 a more enjoyable experience. There are also nifty motorcycle chases that go on forever and projectile acupuncture enthusiasts.
If it seems like The Protector 2 is a departure from Tony Jaa’s anger-fueled stunt showcases of yore, it is, and I don’t mind. It would be even more phenomenal if Jaa had pulled off these sequences with less editing and no post-production visual effects, but the fight choreography is still impressive and the campy tone is a welcome change of pace after his dour, cynical sequels to Ong-Bak. It may not be the kind of film for which Tony Jaa will one day be remembered, but The Protector 2 is at least consistently fun, which is more than anyone can say for this weekend’s “other” action movie release, The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
