Load of rubbish!!

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Cradle 2 the Grave (2003) is the most underrated Jet Li's American action work he ever done before. I don't get the hate for this film and I don't get the praise for Jet Li's film The One (2001) that get's thumbs up, but this one get's thumbs down! I will never understand the hate for this film! I love it to death, It is a fun action film, it is Jet Li's second film timing up with polish Director Andrzej Bartkowiak and actors DMX and Anthony Anderson who previously worked with Jet Li on Romeo Must Die. Drag-On and Tom Arnold teams up from the film Exit Wounds (2001) they both worked together with Andrzej Bartkowiak. It is really a shame that Aaliyah died two years earlier otherwise she would be cast in this movie. I guess director Andrzej Bartkowiak did not wan't Steven Seagal for this movie anymore, because apparently they all did not get a long. DMX really had hard time working together with Steven Seagal on Exit Wounds. I love this film to death, it is my second favorite Jet Li action film it is my number 2 action film! I know more Jet Li's American work: Romeo Must Die, The One, War, The Expendables 1,2 and 3, Kiss of the Dragon and Cradle 2 the Grave and I absolutely love this film! I kept watching it as a teen and I still do!"I am Su." "I'm *not* Bruce." Plot: When his daughter is kidnapped and held in exchange for priceless diamonds, the leader of a crew of highly skilled urban thieves (DMX) forges an unlikely alliance with a Taiwanese Intelligence officer (Jet Li) to rescue her. Their race against the clock to find the precious stones ultimately unravels a plot to distribute a deadly new weapon of war.The basic plot about this film it is about a power, a black diamonds are stolen from a Jewel thief (DMX) and his team but a sadistic crime lord (Mark Dacascos) want's them back, so his men kidnaps Jewel thief's daughter for exchange of the diamonds. To get the diamonds back, jewel thief races against time, with his team to recover the stolen diamonds, with a help from Su (Jet Li) a Hong Kong cop. This film is more about a revenge and arms dealing and theft of a black diamonds it is a mystery of what is about. Crimelord (Mark Dacascos) was a Hong Kong cop and Jet Li's partner, but he betrayed Jet Li and he tried to kill him, Mark Dacascos come to America with a stolen black diamonds which he stole them, but he lost them. The diamonds are for a powerful laser weapon and Mark Dacascos is selling the weapon for a highest binder on an auction. The black diamonds belongs to the Hong Kong people not to the foreigners and Jet Li's role in this movie is to find to black diamonds and to stop his former partner. Jet Li also helps the jewel thief finding his daughter and he is teaming up with a jewel thief. I love this film to death! Their is plenty of action, martial arts from Jet Li and Mark Dacascos. Gabrielle Union from Bad Boys II is also in here and she did well in her lead role. I seriously love her character she did everything to help his friend finding his daughter. Anthony Anderson and Tom Arnold add comedy to all the excitement. Kelly Hu and Gabrielle Union flex beauty and strength as foes destined for a beat down. Also producer Joel Silver returns with director Andrzej Bartkowiak, who fused martial arts with hip-hop style in Romeo Must Die and Exit Wounds, take it to the next level with Cradle 2 the Grave.I love the songs of this film by Eminem - Go To Sleep I love this song I have been always been a fan of Eminem. My Life (Cradle 2 the Grave) from Foxy Brown ft. Althea Heart is another song that I love and X Gon' Give it to Ya from DMX which I love his songs and DMX is talented rapper. Because this film with Romeo Must Die had a lot of hip hop songs in it and I love it they are all beautiful songs. Everyone in this film did an amazing job! Overall: This is a fun action film, it is excited it has plenty of action, guns, explosion, tank in this movie and a lot's of martial arts from Jet Li. In my honest opinion Cradle 2 the Grave and Romeo Must Die are MILES way better films than Exit Wounds, The One and War I hate those three films. The rating is 10/10 because this film is very underrated and people does not appreciate this days a good action movie anymore! Cradle 2 the Grave is a 2003 American action film directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak, and starring Jet Li and DMX. The film was released in the United States on February 28, 2003.10/10 Grade: Bad Ass Seal Of Approval Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures Starring: Jet Li, DMX, Anthony Anderson, Kelly Hu, Tom Arnold, Mark Dacascos, Gabrielle Union, Tom Arnold, Randy Couture Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak Producer: Joel Silver Screenplay: John O'Brien Channing Gibson Story by John O'Brien Rated: R Running Time: 1 Hr. 41 Mins. Budget: $30,000,000 Box Office: $56,489,558

I guess when push comes to shove it's an action film that delivers the requisite supply of biff, bam and kerpow action sequences. Yet even allowing for the old "leave the brain at the door" requirement for such action comic malarkey, the script is too poor, the acting equally so, while the choreography is weak. The latter of which a big misstep when you have Jet Li and Mark Dacascos fronting the good guy/bad guy axis of the story.Plot pitches Li's ass kicking detective with DMX's urban thief together as an unlikely buddy buddy combo trailing missing diamonds and DMX's kidnapped daughter, and that's pretty much it. There's no attempts to expand the characters or add some emotional depth to what is meant to be a pretty critical situation.It often feels tired, like a recycling of so many other film's of similar ilk, originality is out the window here, hell they even get Tom Arnold in to reprise a watered down version of his character from True Lies. Gabrielle Union and Kelly Hu are on hand to add the sexy sizzle in thankless roles, while Dacascos barely registers as an uber villain.Lazy and redundant, all told, a waste of time for cast and viewers alike. 4/10

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.

China and Hong Kong aren't the only countries that can make cheap martial arts flicks. That's what Cradle 2 The Grave is. It's one of those "watch just for the action" type movies.The plot is extremely unrealistic at times. First off, Tom Arnold is a black market type dealer from the streets. How the heck did he get ahold of an M1 tank and why was he trying to sell to DMX? Wouldn't people be suspicious when they saw that thing rolling down the streets doing a drive by? Then he claims that guys who robbed him had special guns even he couldn't get. If you can get a tank, you can get anything. Also, there is a big-time crime lord gangster who's in jail. Thing is, he lives like a king there. His cell looks like an apartment, he's got a cook, he's got two guards who even deliver mail to him, and he's still running his business. There's some other ones but I won't name them all.This is how the story goes: DMX is Tony Fait, a small-time yet somewhat brilliant thief who's got a few friends in a gang with him. One of them is his girlfriend. He tries to be a "good" bad guy with his no gun policy. During a heist where he is stealing black diamonds for someone else, Jet Li gets in the way. Fait ends up barely escaping with the black stones. Fait goes to Tom Arnold, an underworld dealer, and gives him the stones to analyze them. However, the stones are stolen by a big gang run by the jail gangster. Then the man who originally laid out the plans to get the stones kidnaps Faits daughter and demands the stones. Fait reluctantly teams up with Jet Li to rescue his child.Although Jet Li's name is first on the movie cover, there is no way he is the lead role. He lacks not only the speaking lines, but just on-screen time in general. The action is a step up from Romeo must die. There is not that much wire-fu in this movie. However, Jet Li doesn't really have a whole lot of fighting time in this flick. In the beginning he has two brief one-on-one encounters. Then he briefly helps DMX in a fight. The main fight is when he takes on the 20 cage fighters in the underworld fighting club. The fighting was occasionally fake and weird, but not too bad. Jet's climactic fight with Mark Dascascos was pretty good, although they cut in and out of it too many times. As for DMX, he is good at times in the fight sequences, but his martial arts is obviously fake.If you are a major Jet Li fan like me, then see this movie and admire it for what it is. It is a cheap budget, low production, chopsocky Hollywood martial arts flick.