The underpowered fight scenes manage to make action stars Tony Jaa and JuJu Chan appear unimpressive, while the effects are shoddy throughout and the alien itself is a bland creation.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 20, 2024

Cage goes Obi-Yawn Kenobi as a neo-hippie martial arts mentor, but cedes the lead to Canadian stuntman, martial artist and charisma black hole Alain Moussi. Jiu Jitsu comes up short on every level, especially in the omnipresent fight scenes.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Sep 19, 2023

Jiu Jitsu has nothing to do with the martial arts craft of jiu jitsu, just like this movie has nothing to do with high-quality entertainment. It's just a messy parade of sci-fi action schlock with tacky visual effects.

| Apr 17, 2022

[Cage's] presence alone here manages to take Jiu Jitsu from what might've otherwise been a self-serious slog to a place far more adventurously weird.

| Jun 5, 2021

Nicolas Cage's few minutes of screen time are nowhere close to saving this confused, flimsy martial arts outing.

| Mar 23, 2021

A bit more plot and a better villain would have been nice, though martial arts fans and followers of Nicholas Cage and Tony Jaa should have a pretty good time

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 5, 2021

Indebted to arcade fighting hits that prize complicated button-mashing combos over serious characterizations and drama.

| Feb 3, 2021

Jiu Jitsu might have found a cult following, if only it had been released 24 or 30 or 36 years ago. In 2021 it feels out of time and place, another Nicolas Cage vehicle stuck in the mud, spinning its wheels.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jan 29, 2021

Feels like warmed-over Predator with high kicks and samurai swords.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jan 29, 2021

Only time will tell if Jiu Jitsu will achieve Showgirls-type cult status for its breathtaking badness but make no mistake: it's baaad.

| Jan 29, 2021

At the ends, I fully threw my hands up. It makes no sense...

| Jan 20, 2021

I couldn't tell how anything connected to ANYTHING...

| Jan 20, 2021

The action scenes were almost just as much nonsense as the story line. This is far from the bad but good Cage films we've come to willfully endure over the years.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jan 8, 2021

A lot of crazy things have happened in 2020, but the craziest in a cinematic sense has to be Jiu Jitsu starring the one and only Nicolas Cage.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 30, 2020

It's so much that it all starts to blur in your mind and so much that you completely lose track of the story and who the characters are meant to be.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Dec 28, 2020

The action sequences are weirdly extended and bland, like game-play action from a first-person game.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 17, 2020

A bland and confusing film that plays against its obvious fun factors, creating a rather dull action movie that won't stick in your memory for long.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 16, 2020

However, as soon as Cage enters the arena the whole thing begins to fall apart. The action gets sloppy and repetitive. The script gets even more ridiculous.

| Dec 16, 2020

For Cage completists and fans of '80s action, it's worth a shot, but Jiu Jitsu is a hash of badly managed ideas, technical flaws and Predator rip-offs.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 15, 2020

Jiu Jitsu is nonsense, but action fans will be satiated by a talented cast kicking butt across fairly nondescript landscapes.

| Dec 3, 2020