Of the many ridiculous elements of Dragon Blade, a Chinese epic about a 1st-century clash between Romans and Chinese factions, perhaps none is greater than the fact that John Cusack is supposed to be a Roman army’s greatest warrior. Cusack, the 49-year-old actor whose increasingly droopy face and matching comportment made him a perfect star for 2010’s Hot Tub Time Machine, is Lucius, the commander of a Roman battalion traversing the Silk Road in 48 B.C.—to see the actor attempt to affect the stature and physicality of a fearsome soldier is to witness perhaps the worst miscasting of 2015. His body slouched, his face inexpressive, his speech stilted, Cusack seems as if he’s wandered onto the wrong set, been dressed in ill-fitting battle armor and been suddenly thrust in front of the cameras to read off cue cards opposite his foreign colleagues.
Writer/director Daniel Lee’s film may hit its most off-key notes whenever Cusack is on-screen, but there’s plenty of goofiness to go around in this lavish production, awash as it is in CG sunsets, slow-motion shots of blades and arrows penetrating bodies and necks, and computer-assisted pans around the Silk Road and its surrounding desert. After a clunky prologue in which two modern-day scientists discover the ruins of an ancient Roman city built in China, the film flashes back to the first century, where it focuses on Huo An (Jackie Chan), the leader of the Protection Squad, which is tasked with maintaining peace between the thirty-six warring clans vying for control of the Silk Road. Huo An is a man who preaches non-violence, but since he’s played by Chan, he’s also a martial-arts master, and his intro scene, wherein he squares off against a beautiful adversary, is perhaps the material’s highlight, affording its headliner the opportunity to engage in the sort of combat-slapstick that made him famous decades ago.
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