Pitchfork

Some folks will tell you that the English Channel is the murky, frigid sleeve of water that divides Great Britain from France. I tend to think of it as the giant crack in a massive "Best Friends" necklace, with the Chunnel representing the continual efforts to rejoin the Be-Fri to the st-ends. I mean, did you see the two of them at the Iran nuke negotiations? Darling. The pretend hatred between these two is cuter than Nick and Jessica by a country mile. It was only a matter of time before the ocean-sized heartache between the French and the English manifested itself in a collaborative artistic masterpiece. Until that happens, we'll have to settle for shit like the Danny the Dog soundtrack.

First of all, the film, produced by Luc Besson and directed by some guy named Louis Leterrier, aka "The Terrier", is a martial arts rehash of Le Femme Nikita starring Jet Li as a man raised as a pitbull, aka a terrier. Eeeeeyeah! If you aren't totally psyched already, you can download the trailer that features Hong Kong's most exciting action star eating ice cream with an irritating teenage girl. If the soundtrack is any indication, the movie will alternate between sleep-inducing banality, weepy sentiment, and dumb stunts.

Once upon a time, around the same time actually, brown-nosed critics worldwide were lauding Besson and Massive Attack as the Second Coming in their respective fields. They were changing the direction of art on a grand commercial scale, critically praised, artistically imitated, and publicly consumed. They arguably produced two or three classics apiece, and their money men gave them carte blanche. Besson crapped out The Fifth Element, and Massive Attack took four years to release the outstandingly mediocre 100th Window. Oopsy. I'm not even sure how artists fall this hard. Hopefully, it at least involves a lot of expensive drugs and high-priced whores.

Now, like two wounded nobles with hungry commoners storming the castle from all sides, Besson and Massive Attack have banded together. Unfortunately, they are slaughtered and the commoners play soccer with their heads.

Massive Attack's efforts here range from the plodding downtempo on the titular "Danny the Dog" to Crystal Method outtakes like "Simple Rules". In between, is a whole mess of leftfield horse tranquilizers. The internets tell me that the soundtrack is sequenced chronologically, exactly how it appears in the film. If that's true, 90% of the movie will be Jet Li staring out of a window onto the rainy streets of gay Paris, the reflections of the streaking raindrops serving as metaphors for his inner turmoil.