| 75 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
A furiously choreographed martial-arts spectacle wrapped in a fumbling narrative.
|
| 75 |
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
The Protector is about 84 minutes long, and only four of those minutes are devoted to plot.
|
| 75 |
Portland Oregonian
M. E. Russell
The Protector is the nuttiest movie I've seen all year, and I've seen the last 20 minutes of "The Wicker Man."
|
| 70 |
The New York Times
Nathan Lee
The Protector supersizes the formula of "Ong Bak."
|
| 67 |
Entertainment Weekly
Marc Bernardin
It's silly, at times laughable, sure, but Jaa has a reckless, bone-cracking grace that transcends the film's triviality.
|
| 67 |
Austin Chronicle
Brian Clark
But while every expertly choreographed Muy Thai bout delivers, the film suffers from haphazard editing. Entire sequences of explanation are missing, as if Pinkaew made a 2 1/2 hour martial-arts film and then cut everything but the fighting scenes.
|
| 67 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
Delivers a steady stream of cheap B-movie thrills, plus two positive messages for young people: Be nice to animals, and when in doubt, always aim for the tendons.
|
| 63 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
The movie is a series of ever more elaborate fight sequences and increasingly more and larger opponents.
|
| 63 |
New York Daily News
Elizabeth Weitzman
While the story's silly, the stunts, choreographed by Jaa and popular Thai filmmaker Panna Rittikrai, are spectacular.
|
| 60 |
Variety
Derek Elley
Boasting the same refreshing avoidance of CGI and wire work as "Warrior," slickly made production (largely by the same team) is more consciously aimed at the international market, with its Australian setting and multilingual dialogue.
|
| 58 |
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
Even a superstar needs to surround himself with better material than this.
|
| 50 |
Slate
Dana Stevens
In truth, only hard-core martial-arts fans will be able to keep from squirming in their seats with boredom through at least some parts of this 82-minute kablammo-fest.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
G. Allen Johnson
A bad film with a great star and some truly amazing action sequences.
|
| 50 |
LA Weekly
Luke Y. Thompson
Jaa has the skills for the job, and shows them off in numerous fight scenes; it's just a shame that the movie he's in is barely acceptable in any other respect.
|
| 50 |
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
Lives up to Tarantino's imprimatur, both in its cheesy grind house aesthetic and its occasional forays into brilliant, bravura filmmaking.
|
| 50 |
The Hollywood Reporter
Richard James Havis
A relentless focus on action over character and story will leave more mainstream viewers cold.
|
| 50 |
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
It's little more than a disjointed succession of kick-ass action scenes.
|
| 40 |
Chicago Reader
Reece Pendleton
A general lack of charm make this pretty tough to sit through.
|
| 38 |
Chicago Tribune
Robert K. Elder
Anytime Jaa isn't on screen, The Protector sputters.
|
| 38 |
Miami Herald
Peter Debruge
The movie is basically a love story between a man and his elephant, and if viewed as such, it's not nearly as ridiculous as the movie it first appears to be.
|
| 30 |
Film Threat
Michael Ferraro
Sadly, the greatness of Jaa's movements are drowned by an ocean of bad editing, terrible dubbing, disorienting action sequences, and repetitive fight sequences that feel as if they were copied straight from a side-scrolling videogame like "Streets of Rage."
|
| 25 |
New York Post
Kyle Smith
This ludicrous Quentin Tarantino-chosen low-budget movie features choppy editing and an amateurish script, and it switches strangely back and forth between dubbing and subtitles.
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