To me, this movie is perfection.

Don't Believe the Hype

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

This is an interesting short thrilling film of Jet li.Story is about a Taiwan cop and a small time thief who join hands to find extraordinary gems after which many people are, including an international criminal, who has taken the thief's daughter as hostage.The story line is fast paced, action scenes are good, Jet li's karate work is awesome, many of the stunts are well taken. Jet li and DMX are the best actors.But some of the stuff is highly exaggerated, like a helicopter bursting mid air, and a man emerging from that unscathed. also the film has few explicit scenes.Jet li fans will like it.

Cradle 2 the Grave is set in Los Angeles & starts as a team of professional hi-tech thieves lead by Anthony Fait (DMX) carry out a daring robbery on a top security underground vault used to store valuable diamonds. Fait & his team are after very specific black diamonds which he has been told by his contact are worth a fortune (& all the other millions of $'s worth of diamonds aren't?). However it seems that the black diamonds are in fact mini nuclear weapons that evil Taiwanese baddie Yao Ling (Mark Dacascos) wants to sell to the highest bidder & kidnaps Fait's young daughter Vanessa (Paige Hurd) to try & blackmail Fait into giving them back but the black diamonds have been stolen so he doesn't have them. Fait has no option but to team up with Taiwanese secret service officer Su (Jet Li) in order to get Vanessa back & get the black diamonds & save the world...Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak this is the third & final film in his loosely connected action trilogy coming after Romeo Must Die (2000) also staring Jet Li & the Steven Seagal flick Exit Wounds (2001) which also starred the man named after a make of bike DMX, oh I'm sorry that's BMX isn't it? Right where do I start? First of all I have to admit to rather enjoying Cradle 2 the Grave for what is, basically a loud flashy Hollywood action flick that ignores realism & plot & goes for the wow factor. There are a couple of things that really stand out about Cradle 2 the Grave for me, first the story is so poor & weak it's untrue. There's no real plot to speak of, just a loosely connected precession of overblown ever more outrageous action set-pieces. The second thing are those action set-pieces which are often marvellously entertaining, from quad bike chases through Los Angeles to spectacular fight scenes to exploding helicopters to daring heists to shoot-outs to all sorts of vehicular mayhem & carnage the one thing that Cradle 2 the Grave delivers is on the action front. How can I hate a film that has so many cool action scenes & moves along like a rocket? I can't. Sure the story is secondary, the character's are bland apart from Tom Arnold's funny performance as Archie & there are some seriously questionable moments storytelling wise (someone killing an inmate in prison & then just walking out, how did DMX get out of the car park after his escape by quad bike through Los Angeles since it was surrounded by police & DMX knows where the black diamonds are because he can 'feel' it) but it's entertaining & passes 100 odd minutes. Keep watching as the end credits play since there's a comedy sketch between Tom Arnold & Anthony Anderson just like they did at the end of Exit Wounds & actually end up making a cheeky little reference to that film & director Bartkowiak.Like most of Jet Li's US output there's plenty of martial arts fights & I would have thought there would have been plenty of wire removal during post production. The fights are well choreographed & often look very flashy. There's car chases, plenty of crashes, bangs, shoot-outs, explosions & action scenes. The film has a fairly light hearted tone with some comic relief & it's nowhere near as gritty or violent as say a Die Hard (1988) for instance. The film looks very flashy with nice camera moves & angles, the hip-hop rap style music irritated me though.According to the IMDb this had a budget of about $25,000,000 which doesn't sound a lot by Hollywood blockbuster standards at all, in fact there's a lot of action on screen here for a relatively low budget if that is the case. Apparently main villain Mark Dacascos was cast in Cradle 2 the Grave after a poll on Jet Li's website asked fans to vote who they would like to see Li fight & Dacascos won which is somewhat surprising. I would have voted for Pee-Wee Herman! Li isn't a great actor & when he isn't fighting he just sort of stands around here & barely says a word. A special mention for Tom Arnold here who puts in a very funny performance.Cradle 2 the Grave is a very entertaining Hollywood action flick & if that's what your looking for then I suppose it delivers in spades but if your looking for any sort of tight exciting story or character's to care about then forget it. Overall I liked it.

I watched and i have to say, i did not like it at all, the plot was stupid and cliché, and the actors performances wasn't the best either, Anthony Fait's (DMX's) daughter gets kidnapped, and with a surprise there is money involved and a plan to destroy the earth, this movie goes from Ghetto to James bond, it's really pointless actually. If you see this movie for 2$, don't buy it, in fact i wouldn't even get it if it was free. Sure it got some descent action sequences, but the plot was way to bad so you didn't even notice them. This movie still gets a weak 5/10 from me, some actors did a great job, but DMX don't belong among those actors, in fact he doesn't belong in the actor world at all. STICK TO THE MUSIC MAN!, if you wan't to see a boring action movie, fine. But just a tip, don't pay to much for it...

Will someone kindly explain to me and others about how DMX, who plays a thief and hitech burglar in this movie, can happily walk in and out of jail under police protection? And who included that utterly lame "faith" bit? This movies does have some entertaining moments like Tommy hitting on the security guard. That scene was hilarious. It was also interesting to see improvisations being made during the burglary. Jet Li tries too hard to throw a punch, contradicting a lot of Kungfu impressions which make soft blows give a hard punch. I guess physical fitness really does matter afterall. Maybe he needs to learn a bit of Wing Chun instead of his traditional style. This movie is polished in bits and pieces but the overall impression is nothing great. Just turn off brain and enjoy.