Ong Bak 2, which bears absolutely no relation to the film that preceded it other than a title and a lead actor, is cinematic proof that you can indeed have too much of a good thing. Let’s face it, no one goes to a movie like Ong Bak 2 for the story. We go to watch Tony Jaa defy gravity and half a dozen other natural laws. However, while we begin the film enthralled by Jaa’s stunning physical abilities, we end it in a state of mental exhaustion, as pummeled by the flying fists as the bad guys Jaa stacks up like so much fleshy cordwood.

Jaa is Tiang, a young Taiwanese nobleman who, as a boy, witnessed the massacre of his entire family at the hands of a wicked warlord. Left for dead, the scrappy boy is raised by a band of guerilla bandits who train him in a wide array of martial arts and weaponry. Now, finally old enough to avenge his family, Tiang sets out to use everything he’s been taught to wreak havoc on those who wronged him.

Ong Bak 2 is little more than a series of extended fight sequences glued together with a few lines of middling dialogue and some beautiful jungle cinematography. Jaa proves once again why he has been dubbed the new Bruce Lee — his mastery of a sweeping range of martial arts is simply breathtaking. Watching him move is like reading poetry written by musculature (it’s easy for the camera to love him when he doubles here as co-director). Without the use of CGI or wire rigs, Jaa battles interminable enemies, leaps from one structure to another and even vaults over the backs of rampaging elephants. Kids, don’t try this at home.

If, as Einstein apocryphally theorized, humans use only 10 percent of their available brain power, Jaa belongs to a select group of Asian action stars who shame the rest of us by revealing that the human body has untapped potential most of us can only dream of. However, Jaa drastically underestimates how much of his fighting physique we can tolerate. What is exciting at first soon grows maddeningly tedious. If Jaa does not dispatch his enemies as fast as we know he ought to be able, it is only because we know he is enjoying showing off.

Beyond the fights and some nice visual flourishes (Ong Bak 2 is deeply and sensuously elemental with grotesque characters continually bathed in pouring rain or sprayed mud, more often than not captured in slow motion), Jaa and his co-director Panna Rittikrai have created a film in which the heavies are allowed to cackle like cartoon villains and main characters — especially Tiang’s love interest — are introduced only to be brushed aside and forgotten without any resolution whatsoever.

Beyond the physical verbosity, however, Ong Bak 2’s primary offence is that it gives us a main character who is profoundly unlikeable, nearly as vile as those he dispatches, and so twisted by his history and thirst for revenge that, while we understand his transformation, we cannot possibly abide it. Neither, apparently, can karma, which leads to a conclusion of such jaw-dropping gall and audacity that it must be seen to be believed.

© Copyright 2009 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.