Maria ★★½

FILIPINO action film Maria commits a couple of cardinal cinema sins.

Sure, steal a couple of sequences from other films, but at least try to disguise it.

See if these sound familiar.

Example 1:

The mob boss arrives at a warehouse where one of his gang members is hanging upside down. He’s been accused of stealing from the boss. The boss is handed a baseball bat and everyone starts to talk about how the most important thing is ‘loyalty’. The boss suddenly bashes another of his men from behind with the bat.

The Untouchables – check.

Example 2:

The heroine takes on an entire gang in a gunfight at a construction site in the rain. She’s outnumbered but suddenly a couple of her foes are shot by somebody else. Her mentor is sniping with a rifle and tells the main villain he’s just there to make sure it’s a fair fight.

Jack Reacher – check.

Originality is not the strength of Maria and it’s writer/director Pedring Lopez, which is a shame because it is at times quite stylish in execution.

There are some strong action sequences, both with blades and guns, and the use of CG blood is quite effective, always a difficult thing to achieve.

The acting is okay with veteran Ronnie Lazaro the stand-out as Maria’s assassination mentor Sir Greg.

The visual style, set to a heavy metal soundtrack, is solid but the script is the weakness, relying too much on repetition of events (there are a lot of torture scenes) and dialogue.

The story may not be a blatant rip-off but it’s still pretty generic with a former assassin faking her own death to have a quiet new life and identity only to have her old bosses find out and come after her.

At least it’s still novel to have ruthless women, here played pretty well by Christina Reyes, now beating the crap out of the bad guys.