Short Review: Not as bad as you'd've thought.
Long Review: An amazingly gripping 84 minutes. Yes, it's all from the perspective of a handheld video camera, and yes, there are a couple of Blair Witch moments, but on the whole, director Matt Reeves manages to keep the nausea-cam to a minimum and has the timing to pare down some of the downtime so the whole thing keeps moving. Suffice it to say that the only thing that really stretched my willing suspension of disbelief to the breaking point was the idea that everyone who showed up for the party that starts the movie was either a model or model material; apart from that, it was consistent within its own twist on reality.
Also, as Warren Ellis pointed out, it's nice to know that we've reached enough of a healing point that we can handle watching New York get trashed in a movie, even if there were still some uneasy parallels to the Towers collapsing.
Caveats: plenty of jumping moments, lots of blood, plenty of critter violence, and the occasional character idiocy, but not too much of any of these. A thumb-up, at least once.
1.19.2008
1.18.2008
Review: Shoot 'Em Up
Short review: sheer gun-fu pornography.
Long review: If you're the kind of cat who thought that the main thing holding back The Matrix, The Professional, La Femme Nikita, Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, The Way of the Gun, and A History of Violence was too much plot and not enough unadulterated Over The Top gun fu, congratulations, someone out there heard you. (Also, your meth dealer is on line two.) Shoot 'Em Up not only doesn't bother with a plot, it goes on to shoot holes in any plot that has the audacity to try to sneak into the film, and not just any holes, no, Sir, big, fat, juicy, bloody holes that probably have Zombie Sam Peckinpah reaching for his fork and knife. The only thing this movie is interested in is finding more bodies for its main hero to perforate and puncture, and believe me, it very rarely misses it quotas.
For some reason, the director thought he needed actual stars, so Clive Owens stars as the mysterious and frankly inexplicably talented Mr. Smith, Monica Belucci stars as a prostitute who specializes in suckling grown-up babies, and Paul Giamatti stars as a hands-on murder squad leader intent on finding Smith and a certain someone that Smith rescues (hint: he needs the lactating Ms. Belucci more than her clients do). Owens is great, Giamatti's great, and Belucci's a great body, so why does this movie feel like it should be starring Treat Williams, Virginia Madsen, and Michael Ironsides? (Answer: Because Smoking Aces only managed to sucker in Andy Garcia and Ray Liotta.)
The thing is, Shoot 'Em Up is so way, way Over The Top that I literally couldn't breathe from laughing out loud at how ridiculous, how ludicrous, how... INSANELY (forgive me, there are no other words) OVER THE TOP the entire exercise is. I wasn't too keen to see the deleted scenes, but Yoko persuaded me: "What," she said, "could they have possibly thought needed to be left out given everything they left in?" What, indeed. If you really want a so-bad-it's-good kick in the teeth, you could do a damn sight worse than Shoot 'Em Up.
ObCaveats: contains violence, sex, violence against the laws of physics, sucklings in peril, violence against your incredulity, torture, violence against your ability to suspend disbelief, and carrots. Look, I'm warning you about the carrots. Really.
Long review: If you're the kind of cat who thought that the main thing holding back The Matrix, The Professional, La Femme Nikita, Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, The Way of the Gun, and A History of Violence was too much plot and not enough unadulterated Over The Top gun fu, congratulations, someone out there heard you. (Also, your meth dealer is on line two.) Shoot 'Em Up not only doesn't bother with a plot, it goes on to shoot holes in any plot that has the audacity to try to sneak into the film, and not just any holes, no, Sir, big, fat, juicy, bloody holes that probably have Zombie Sam Peckinpah reaching for his fork and knife. The only thing this movie is interested in is finding more bodies for its main hero to perforate and puncture, and believe me, it very rarely misses it quotas.
For some reason, the director thought he needed actual stars, so Clive Owens stars as the mysterious and frankly inexplicably talented Mr. Smith, Monica Belucci stars as a prostitute who specializes in suckling grown-up babies, and Paul Giamatti stars as a hands-on murder squad leader intent on finding Smith and a certain someone that Smith rescues (hint: he needs the lactating Ms. Belucci more than her clients do). Owens is great, Giamatti's great, and Belucci's a great body, so why does this movie feel like it should be starring Treat Williams, Virginia Madsen, and Michael Ironsides? (Answer: Because Smoking Aces only managed to sucker in Andy Garcia and Ray Liotta.)
The thing is, Shoot 'Em Up is so way, way Over The Top that I literally couldn't breathe from laughing out loud at how ridiculous, how ludicrous, how... INSANELY (forgive me, there are no other words) OVER THE TOP the entire exercise is. I wasn't too keen to see the deleted scenes, but Yoko persuaded me: "What," she said, "could they have possibly thought needed to be left out given everything they left in?" What, indeed. If you really want a so-bad-it's-good kick in the teeth, you could do a damn sight worse than Shoot 'Em Up.
ObCaveats: contains violence, sex, violence against the laws of physics, sucklings in peril, violence against your incredulity, torture, violence against your ability to suspend disbelief, and carrots. Look, I'm warning you about the carrots. Really.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)