Freerunner

Parkour can be best described as a discipline that emphasizes getting from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible. Google the term or free-running and you can see for yourself some of the crazy things that the people who use parkour can do. Parkour was developed by David Belle, but the history of parkour's movements go back decades. They just haven't had a name put to them. For most people, the only way they have heard of parkour is through film. District B13 was among the first action films that employed the sport. Parkour was also used in the opening scenes of the James Bond reboot, Casino Royale. As a result of it's effectiveness in movement, parkour has been used by governments as a tool to help train their military. The sport has gained in popularity as it's been featured not just in films like District B13, but also video games like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Mirror's Edge. Free-running is similar but emphasizes more self-expression and more acrobatic creativity. When movies base themselves around a specific sport, the results can be.....mixed.

Free-runner opens on a bunch of...well free-runners in a race for money. Jumping over people, cars, and each other, they try to reach the finish line. During one of the races, the group are kidnapped by a ruthless billionaire who pits them against each other in a lethal race. With collars attached to explode when an hour passes, the group are forced into a life-or-death race to the finish. If you're going to make a movie based specifically on a sport like free-running, actually make the movie ABOUT free-running. Don't add in a retarded plot like a bored billionaire pitting athletes against each other to make more money. It doesn't work. It also doesn't help that the acting is uniformly awful. The mustache-twirling billionaire without a mustache is particularly grating. There's a lot of stuff in here that just screams....ripoff. For instance, you've got a token black guy with a pirate patch over one eye. Who does he resemble, I wonder? Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury from The Avengers? No....couldn't be. What about the Vulcan neck pinch he employs to paralyze his victims? I kid you not, this guy literally grabs people by the back of their neck and squeezes and they go into convulsions. Really?! Not only that, the unnecessary gore gets in the way.

What about the action scenes? When you can actually see what's going on, they're actually pretty spectacular, since they don't use wires, except for safety reasons. The scenes where they jump through windows and off buildings? They actually do that, no special effects involved or green screens. It's pretty awesome. But the problem is, is that you can barely see what's going on, because the camera work sucks. They don't focus on anyone in particular and the camera shakes like a chihuahua on crack. It's amateurish at best. The stunts and fight scenes aren't half-bad, but as a result of crap camera-work, you don't really see a lot and in a movie dealing with parkour/free-running, you want people to see what's going on. Freerunner is just a bad movie overall, and nothing really comes together. Crap plots involving a hospitalized grandfather and kidnapped girlfriend? Padding. For a movie that runs only 88 minutes, it felt longer. Had they cut out all the stuff in between action scenes, the film would probably be only thirty minutes or so, but that would be worth more than what we got. If you want to see a movie about parkour or freerunning, check out District B13 instead. You get much more bang for your buck with that movie, and best of all, you can see what's going on. Overall, Freerunner gets a 5/10. It gets a 5 because when you finally see some of the stunts, they're awesome, but the rest of the movie is a complete joke.