One, The

Chicago Tribune Loren King

Hits the ground running and never lets up.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

It's more thrill ride than movie and Wong plays it that way: no sentiment, no complications and no pesky story to get in the way of an arsenal of flashy special effects.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Overall, this sci-fi/martial arts hybrid has the stale aura of a product assembled out of bits of other action movies.

San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham

It's called One, and the hemorrhaging begins with the so-called story, which doesn't quite add up to one.

Miami Herald Charles Savage

When one actor plays both hero and villain, the viewer knows that what is being shown is not an authentic dance.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

It's hardly much of a thrill to see The One recycle, on a lower budget, the slo-mo bullet dodges from "The Matrix," along with unspectacular variations on several other of that film's time-bending demolition-ballet effects.

Austin Chronicle Russell Smith

A “thrill ride” movie with all the predictability, brevity, and industrial efficiency that cliché implies.

LA Weekly Hazel-Dawn Dumpert

There's nothing like a feature-length video game to make you feel you're being played.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

The problem in The One isn't the black holes in the universe, to which the characters refer at periodic intervals, but the black hole on the screen. The One is a zero.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie offers brainless high-tech action without interesting dialogue, characters, motivation or texture.

Los Angeles Times Jan Stuart

Li's far too unthreatening a presence to cause much of a stir amid the din of hard rock music and the pall left by fight choreography that has had every last bit of life digitally drained away.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

So narratively garbled and its screenplay so underwritten that you have to strain to piece together the story.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Pseudo sci-fi gobbledygook aside, X-Files alumni James Wong and Glen Morgan's script is little more than an excuse for Jet Li to kick his own ass, which he does energetically and often.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A stunt that fails.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

An almost comically unsuitable title. There's absolutely nothing singular or special about this slapdash sci-fi film featuring martial-arts megastar Jet Li.

Baltimore Sun Staff (Not credited)

The One is all sound and fury, and nothing else.

Village Voice Ed Park

In The One the maze of death leads only to exhaustion -- a solipsistic extension of Bruce Lee pacing the room of mirrors at the end of "Enter the Dragon."

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The story is so ridiculous and the acting so completely amateurish, the fights have no dramatic impact; you don't care whether good Jet or bad Jet wins – not that you can tell them apart anyway.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Whatever the title of the next installment, this movie is certainly One best forgotten.

New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky

A film bereft of emotion, characters and words with more than two syllables.

Variety Robert Koehler

The combo of cheesy effects and martial arts choreographer Cory Yuen's unimaginative staging results in something that's martial artless.