It’s the closest thing that Tsui will make to a Marvel movie. Big emotions exchanged by larger-than-life characters conceived on a big enough scale that it occasionally eclipses its ungainly plot’s hard emotional core.

The film does manage to impress in a limited sense in terms of the action-oriented, spectacular CGI...and the...melodramatics may land for some viewers. But neither is adept enough to salvage a blockbuster that was destined from conception to disappoint.

It does not quite match the director at his very best, but even second-string Tsui represents a solid night out at the movies.

One can’t argue that he has forever changed the landscape of modern action cinema and has redefined the artistic qualities of a genre that, before he showed the world what he was capable of, was labeled as nothing more than “popcorn entertainment.”