The Trailer:
Director: Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad,
Cast: Dominic Rains, Serinda Swan, Ray Park, & William Atherton
Synopsis: A man discovers he is from a long line of cursed men who must fight the evil jinn (beings made of fire by God). Will he succeed? Or fail like the others before him?
There is a lot to dislike about this movie. And I mean a lot. The plot is flimsy, the acting is a little wooden and unabashedly cheesed, and the whole movie seems a little wishy-washy like it doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it a sci-fi? Is it a horror? Is it fantasy? Is it suspense? After viewing it I'm not sure I can definitively say any of those genres. It's kind of just a messy, watered down conglomerate of all of them. Despite all this, I still found myself enjoying the movie.
Even though the acting isn't great it also isn't horrible. The main character, Shawn Walker (Dominic Rains), though dumb his lines may sound and most of his over dramatic actions may seem, he acted all of it well and made all the silliness seem intentional (which I desperately hope to be true... no scriptwriter would actually this movie in seriousness right?) Actually I was fairly impressed with all the actors portrayals. Ray Park as Gabriel, a good jinn determined to assist Shawn defeat the evil jinn, is wonderfully enchanting. His cool-guy demeanor and willingness to go against his own for the good of humanity is something to admire. William Atherton as Father Westhoff is perfection. He has this nurturing aura about him, but with harder edges so as to push Shawn towards his true destiny of fighting to the jinn. The only character I didn't care for much is Jasmine Walker (Serinda Swan), Shawn's wife. For me, she is the character with the most cheese-filled lines and overacting. She is absent for most of the movie, so I don't have much to complain about.
The one thing I appreciate most about Jinn is that it has this 80's fantasy, anime feel to it. My absolute favorite scene, and best example of this is, is when Gabriel battles against an army of evil jinn that have possessed mental patients. The whole scene is overly CGI'd, ballet-like choreographed, 100% ridiculous, and with this odd song as the background music, it just adds that extra amount atrociousness that makes it wonderful. In fact, most of the battle scenes are impressive, whether they are physical battles of mental ones, they are all over-produced. Which, in all honesty, I like.
Overall, this is junk-food cinema. There is nothing deep about it, though it really could have been. There are small gems of inspiration throughout, especially this idea of combining all the Abrahamic religions together or not having such harsh distinguishing lines between all the religion sects. If they had gone a little further with that line of thinking and crafted a quality film around it, it really could've been great. But really, Jinn is just an hour and a half long commercial for the Firebreather car, that just so happens to be designed by the director. Frankly, this movie tries to be different with it's mythology of the jinn rather than the demons of hell we're used to, but it is so generic and formulaic that it's basically like all the others. Even calling Jinn an enjoyable movie is kind of a stretch for most. I mean I like it's cheesiness and 80's fantasy production, but I do realize that most people don't feel the same way. Just check out the IMDb user reviews: all negative. If you're going to watch this movie, don't expect this great, action-packed, horrifying, suspenseful thriller. Would I watch it again? Of course I would, I love the strange fantasy of it. But do I recommend you to watch it? Nah. Watch at your own risk!
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