CNET Networks Entertainment GameSpot | GameFAQs | SportsGamer | Metacritic | MP3.com | TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

83 Alexandra
67 Alice's House
65 American Teen
39 August
61 Baghead
80 Band's Visit, The
76 Beauty in Trouble
79 Before I Forget
47 Bella
80 Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
60 Blind Mountain
72 Boy A
55 Bra Boys
61 Brick Lane
64 Brideshead Revisited
63 Bustin' Down the Door
xx Canary
70 Caramel
49 Children of Huang Shi, The
83 Chop Shop
83 Chris & Don. A Love Story
78 Counterfeiters, The
54 CSNY: Déjà Vu
75 Days and Clouds
48 Death Defying Acts
54 Diminished Capacity
47 Doorman, The
64 Dreams with Sharp Teeth
74 Duchess of Langeais, The
85 Edge of Heaven, The
28 Eight Miles High
54 Elsa & Fred
81 Encounters at the End of the World
62 Expired
64 Fall, The
59 Felon
51 Finding Amanda
57 Flawless
86 Flight of the Red Balloon, The
63 Foot Fist Way, The
60 Fugitive Pieces
72 Full Battle Rattle
47 Full Grown Men
31 Garden Party
55 Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
69 Go-Getter, The
73 Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
59 Gunnin for that #1 Spot
10 Harold
68 Heartbeat Detector
36 Holding Trevor
68 Honeydripper
55 Irina Palm
66 Jellyfish
58 Jihad for Love, A
61 Kabluey
62 Kiss the Bride
63 Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
80 Last Mistress, The
38 Life Before Her Eyes, The
72 Lou Reed's Berlin
70 Love Songs
67 Mad Detective
66 Man Named Pearl, A
82 Man on Wire
64 Married Life
30 Meet Bill
33 Miss Conception
53 Mister Lonely
74 Mongol
52 Mother of Tears, The
52 My Blueberry Nights
71 My Brother Is an Only Child
84 My Winnipeg
44 No Regret
61 On the Rumba River
69 Operation Filmmaker
76 Order of Myths, The
61 OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
70 Outsourced
83 Paranoid Park
68 Praying with Lior
72 Priceless
51 Promotion, The
55 Quid Pro Quo
29 Red Roses and Petrol
79 Reprise
71 Roman de gare
78 Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
56 Sangre de mi sangre
51 Savage Grace
76 Shotgun Stories
66 Son of Rambow
70 Standard Operating Procedure
57 Stone Angel, The
61 Stuck
72 Surfwise
25 Take
81 Tell No One
56 Then She Found Me
xx Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
71 To the Limit
54 Tracey Fragments, The
70 Transsiberian
71 Trumbo
71 Tuya's Marriage
xx Two Tickets to Paradise
83 U2 3D
55 Unknown Woman
86 Up the Yangtze
59 Very British Gangster, A
79 Visitor, The
61 Wackness, The
37 War, Inc.
65 Water Lilies
66 When Did You Last See Your Father?
55 Without the King
72 Woman on the Beach
64 XXY
67 Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75 Young@Heart

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Forbidden Kingdom, The
Lionsgate

Forbidden Kingdom, The reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 57 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
7.8 out of 10
based on 27 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 43 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for sequences of martial arts action and some violence

Starring Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Michael Angarano, Collin Chou, Crystal Liu Yi Fei, and Li Bing Bing

While hunting down bootleg kung fu DVDs in a Chinatown pawnshop, Jason Tripitikas makes an extraordinary discovery that sends him hurtling back in time to ancient China. There, Jason is charged with a monumental task: He must free the fabled warrior the Monkey King, who has been imprisoned by the powerful Jade Warlord. Jason is joined in his quest by wise kung fu master Lu and a band of misfit warriors including Silent Monk. But only by learning the true precepts of kung fu can Jason hope to succeed--and find a way to get back home. (Lionsgate)


GENRE(S): Action  |  Adventure  
WRITTEN BY: John Fusco
Ch'eng-En Wu
 
DIRECTED BY: Rob Minkoff  
RELEASE DATE: Theatrical: April 18, 2008 
RUNNING TIME: 113 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

83
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Kung fu purists may scoff, but escapists with a sense of humor should romp through The Forbidden Kingdom.
Read Full Review
75
ReelViews James Berardinelli
For martial arts action fans, The Forbidden Kingdom may be the best fantasy story since the genre was opened to a wider audience by "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
Read Full Review
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
The result is joyous and exhilarating.
Read Full Review
75
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
To see the two of them on screen together, even past their primes, is a delight.
Read Full Review
75
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The Forbidden Kingdom may be nothing but disposable fun, but it is a great, heaping, overflowing helping of fun. If you're 10, it may also seem like "Citizen Kane."
Read Full Review
70
The New York Times A.O. Scott
A faithful and disarmingly earnest attempt to honor some venerable and popular Chinese cinematic traditions.
Read Full Review
70
New York Magazine David Edelstein
Once past the clunky prologue, the film is great fun, with a good balance between computer effects and athleticism.
Read Full Review
70
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Lavish in its approach -- it attempts some rather extravagant battle scenes -- yet it still seems modest in its goals: It's more interested in being a Saturday-afternoon entertainment than a blockbuster.
Read Full Review
67
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
The plot is negligible, but that's fine since it's really only a way to get from one set-piece to another.
Read Full Review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Although veteran choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping ( Kill Bill, The Matrix) handles the wire action, the camera work is merely okay and the sequences are on the familiar side. Still, it's fun to see Chan resurrect his loopy, staggering "drunken master" fighting style.
Read Full Review
63
New York Post Kyle Smith
It's good-natured myth-making cut into kid-size pieces.
Read Full Review
63
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
The special effects are effective, though not terribly special. While director Minkoff pays homage to past masters of the genre, the past masters were better at this game than he.
Read Full Review
63
Boston Globe Ty Burr
Unashamed about giving its audience a good time, and the high spirits go a long way toward counterbalancing the cliches.
Read Full Review
60
New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
The wisecracking Chan and the stoic Li play off their on-screen images with good humor, and if they don't have the agility they once did, it's still a joy to watch them make the most of Yuen Woo-ping's impressive choreography.
Read Full Review
60
Film Threat Matthew Sorrento
A dance of combat and humor saves a contrivance from drowning. Or, rather, Chan and Li elevate it enough to make it into a good time.
Read Full Review
60
Empire Helen O'Hara
The missing link between '00s wushu, '80s kids' fantasy and '70s chop-socky, this manages to be thoroughly entertaining - and the face-off between Chan and Li is worth the entrance price alone.
Read Full Review
60
Village Voice Nick Pinkerton
Taken as a whole, though, it's an amiable lost-and-found of epic-adventure tropes. As I still illogically treasure "Willow," many a 10-year-old who sees Forbidden Kingdom will remember it fondly in spite of its flaws.
Read Full Review
58
Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
Minkoff lets the fight scenes go on for a while, which is nice, and all the best bits are in the middle, when Jackie and Jet spend a lot of time playing off each other.
Read Full Review
50
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
There's nothing really wrong with all this in theory, but the overall doofiness of the execution is finally too much to overcome. The filmmakers come off like their protagonist, wide-eyed tourists in an exotic realm. If you've been looking for a martial arts film to take granny and the kids to, this might be the one, but a Jackie Chan-Jet Li collaboration deserves better than that.
Read Full Review
50
San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
Feels a bit too much like six hours of movie packed into 113 minutes - imagine if New Line had made Peter Jackson cram the entirety of "Lord of the Rings" into one film.
Read Full Review
50
Variety Dennis Harvey
On its own terms, it's a handsome albeit unexceptional juvenile adventure shot on some magnificent Chinese locations.
Read Full Review
50
The Hollywood Reporter Stephen Farber
Will please its core audience but won't enthrall anyone over the age of 16. (Even that might be stretching the point.)
Read Full Review
50
Chicago Tribune Tasha Robinson
It's perhaps best suited for genre vets who can be satisfied with spot-the-reference games and Chan and Li's chemistry, or for undiscriminating kids who'll enjoy the "Karate Kid" vibe. But it's less a culmination of Li and Chan's careers than a passable footnote to better things.
Read Full Review
50
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
At best, The Forbidden Kingdom counts as an amiable time-waster for kids, but much more should be expected from the momentous union of two kung-fu titans.
Read Full Review
50
Chicago Reader Joshua Katzman
Pairing Jackie Chan and Jet Li would seem like a slam dunk, but this big-budget martial arts drama, which borrows liberally from "The Wizard of Oz," is something of a disappointment.
Read Full Review
40
Washington Post Desson Thomson
A movie that jumps between two worlds can be a powerful experience, as any fan of "The Wizard of Oz," "Back to the Future" or "The Terminator" can tell you. But this phoned-in epic is simply a celebration of the inauthentic.
Read Full Review
25
Entertainment Weekly Adam Markovitz
This kingdom really should be forbidden.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 43 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Andy A gave it a9:
The cast says it all and it lives up to every bit of it. If you like these movies you will get your moneys worth.

Aaron F. gave it a10:
I think it was absolutely brilliant. The style was a lot of fun to watch, and they handled a plot that could have been incredibly cheesy with a lot of finesse and believability. From a critical standpoint, they did a great job with this movie in the atmosphere they intended. In reviewing any movie, you have to consider what the intent of the movie was before you decide if it was good "for you". More critics (at least profession ones) need to learn to review from the point of view of the intended audience, not the reviewer him/herself, to decide whether the movie was good.

Paul S. gave it a6:
I wanted to like this movie -- I really, really did. Jackie Chan and Jet Li are (well, were) the best at martial arts action films, and the prospect of them as a kind of chop-socky Odd Couple was irresistible. I'd been looking forward to it for months, and went to see it on opening day. What I didn't realize was that this was neither a martial arts comedy (like Chan is known for) or an epic (like Li has done) but rather, at its core, a children's movie. It's like The Karate Kid meets The Neverending Story -- complete with training montages, "real world" bookends, and a gawky hero that was a little too aggressively banal to like. There are moments of excellence; Jet Li's exuberance as the trickster Monkey King is genuinely delightful, and both the good-girl and bad-girl characters are ridiculously attractive. In the end, though, all I could think about was how much I would've enjoyed the film if I were 11. To be fair, parents of 11-year-olds should definitely consider this one for a Saturday afternoon. The rest of us, however, should save our money.

Miguel A. gave it an8:
Though the storyline, as well as some choregraphy seem recycled from older movies, it's a breath of fresh air in the kung fu flick genre. It's great to see that Jackie and Jet are working together as well, and together, they made art in the style of martial arts. My only problem is the teenage boy who seems to ruin the movie at certain points.

John M. gave it a4:
Fighting is fine, but not a believable story. Don't take your watch with you, you'll be looking at it regularly.

P L gave it a10:
This movie is so entertaining that I want to see it again. It is hilarious and doesn't take itself seriously. Beautiful cinematography and well done CG, with awesome kung fu. Simply put, I love it. It should've been marketed as summer blockbuster movie. I highly recommend it.

Jack R. gave it an8:
While the dialogue in the movie is cheesy at times this movie is definately entertaining.

Read more user comments...

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: World News | Fantasy Football | Amy Winehouse | Baseball | E3 | Batman | Firefox 3 | iPhone 3G

About CNET Networks | Jobs | Advertise

© 2008 CNET Networks, Inc., a CBS Company. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use