Cradle 2 the Grave is a great action movie, but don’t expect anything more. The plot of the movie is pretty much the same as other Andrzej Bartkowaiak (Romeo Must Die, Exit Wounds) movies.
Tony Fait (DMX), a criminal mastermind with devoted friends/accomplices, and truck loads of high tech hardware Santa Claus could only dream of, steals a bag of black diamonds that are not what they seem. Su (Jet Li) is a Taiwanese intelligence officer sent to US to retrieve the diamonds before they fall into the hands of the Asian rime lord Ling (Mark Dacascos, Brotherhood of the Wolf). The plot thickens when the diamonds turn out to be a new form of plutonium, giving a new meaning to the phrase "made in Taiwan", leading to the kidnapping of Fait’s daughter and the famous saying "You are the world’s foremost arms dealers."
Sadly, the acting does not live up to the name of the movie. DMX displays only a faction of what he does behind of a microphone. His lines are spoken with no emotion. As a criminal it wouldn’t matter, but when it comes to being a caring father to an eight-year-old daughter, the scenes almost made me laugh.
Fait is the type of criminal that can only exist in movies, taking care of his daughter and setting a prostitute (Gabrielle Union) straight by dating her. He acts purely on instinct and rarely uses logic to make his decisions, but still manages to luck out 100%. Fait only steals from drug dealers, and makes sure his crew never uses a gun. This movie went out o its way to make Fait seem like a good human being.
The action packed fighting scenes more than make up for the bad plot and acting. Li delivers an awesome performance as always, doing gravity defying stunts and fending off massive amounts of opposition without breaking a seat. One of my favorite parts in the movie has to be when LI uses a pissed off midget as a weapon against 15 fighters. However, the rules of action movies still apply. When outnumbering the opponent, the bad guys will always wait in line. The final fight, where there were three simultaneous kung fu filled battles going on, is not something that I will forget. Jet Li’s final confrontation with Ling is surprisingly similar to the final fight in Romeo Must Die, surrounded by a ring of fire, and matrix fighting moves with a realistic twist. Some parts of the movie seem to go against the law of physics, but then again, what kind of an action movie would Cradle be if no one ran up any walls?