WARRIOR.

The ingredients here congeal into a gooey mess that is not without amusing moments thanks to a what-the-hell attitude that seems to have permeated the set. Certainly, the designers, cinematographer and digital crew went to town with an exotic ambiance, a kind of Arizona by way to the Mongolian desert that features arresting matte paintings and fabulous skies behind a desolate town that looks like nobody could possibly live there. The actors, other than South Korean star Jane Dong Gun, take turns mugging for all they’re worth, with Geoffrey Rush and Danny Huston going toe-to-toe in a scenery-chewing contest. You can almost see wood splinters and nails spewing from their mouths.

The multicultural mash-up pivots around the Korean star playing an Asian warrior and the world’s greatest swordsman. He flees to the American desert to escape his own murderous clan when he refuses to slaughter the last remaining member of a rival bunch, a baby girl. He is, a narrator explains in the beginning, “a warrior with empty eyes,” which may also be a description of Jane acting style. To be fair, this is his first English-language movie, and when he occasionally speaks, he acquits himself adequately before the movie reverts to combat mode.