Review: 'District 13' is a blow to the head

Crazy French guys jumping off buildings and kicking people in the face.

That might be a one-line summary of "District 13: Ultimatum," the follow-up to the just-as-subtle "District 13," which featured the same two crazy French guys jumping off buildings and kicking people in the face.

In all truth, those duties are pretty much split between stars David Belle (jumping off buildings) and Cyril Raffaelli (kicking people in the face), although Belle does punch people and Raffaelli bounces about as needed.

Belle is the inventor of the crazy French sport of Parkour, which involves performing stunts of amazing agility in a usually urban environment, and Raffaelli is one of the top stunt men in the business. The truth is, they are both fun to watch.

This is good because the basic movie here is a big ball of cheese. It takes place in the near future, when a section of Paris -- District 13 -- has been abandoned to lawlessness. This is where the high-jumping outlaw Leito (Belle) lives.

He is friends with the top cop in the outside world, Tomaso (Raffaelli), since they were previously together in a movie that made money.

In "Ultimatum," they discover there's a corporate conspiracy, aided by corrupt police, to destroy District 13; so our heroes gather a bunch of punks together and proceed to beat the heck out of those police.

Simply put, if you're wearing a uniform in this movie, you're going to get hammered. And you're going to be too dumb to just draw your pistol and shoot one of the stars.

"District 13: Ultimatum" is jumpy, chop-socky nonsense, but then there's an audience for jumpy, chop-socky nonsense. May they enjoy.

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