It was probably a mistake, in boxoffice terms, to release "Ong Bak" under it's original Thai-language title rather than something a little more domestic-sounding in the U.S. However, is it too much to ask that the Weinstein Bros. had been a little more creative in rechristening the film's followup, "Tom Yum Goong," with a title SLIGHTLY less generic than "The Protector?"
"Ong Bak," of course, was the worldwide debut film of martial-arts wunderkind Tony Jaa. A brawny kung-fu slugfest with a decidedly old-school vibe ("lone Buddhist warrior vs. armies of big city thugs,") it was an immediate sensation with genre fans and coaxed grudging admiration for it's hard-working star from even the most fun-phobic critic (even as they acknowledged the film's determined primitiveness in matters of story structure.)
"Protector" re-unites Jaa with "Ong Bak's" director Prachya Pinkaew, which is good. It also re-unites him with his sidekick from "Ong Bak," Petchai Wongkamlao, which is amusing. It also re-unites him with the plot from "Ong Bak," which is... well, it is what it is. For those who missed it (or saw it and just didn't feel the need to pay attention) "Bak" cast Jaa as a master of Muy Thai Kickboxing who leaves his peaceful rural village in Thailand for big city Bangkok to retrieve a holy statue stolen by gangsters. He's once more the kickboxing country-boy here, a caretaker of sacred Elephants who heads for Australia when his prized pachyderms are swiped by the creepiest poachers this side of Cruella DeVille.
Built heavily on Jaa's now-legendary popularity in his homeland, the film (just like "Ong Bak") is awash in nationalistic cheerleading and religious zeal: His character, Kham, is a descendant of the warriors charged with raising and training Thailand's mighty War Elephants of old. His enemies, by contrast, are Aussies, English-speaking Chinese gangsters, nonspecific Caucausian muscleheads and even a dreadlock'd Capoeira fighter. He encounters a Sydney that's entirely corrupt and bigoted, and finds allies only in the city's racially-oppressed Thai immigrant community. At one point, he wails on a succession of enemies using the various sacred items in a Buddhist temple. All of this is presented with a complete lack of irony or commentary, and the effect is frequently charming.
The big improvement over "Ong Bak," aside from a demonstrably larger production value and more self-assured direction from Pinkaew (we no longer see Jaa's every "cool" move repeated nine times for effect,) is that Jaa is up against villians who are both colorful enough to match his exuberant physicality and truly hateful enough to warrant the beating he dishes out: Female wannabe Triad-boss Madame Rose's (played by superstar Chinese ballerina Jin Xing in full pre-breakdown Lady MacBeth mode) evil scheme is the kidnapping of animals for her illegal underground resturaunt where endangered species are served to wealthy clients. Seriously. (Interestingly, the film seems to have Xing playing the character as a traditional whip-cracking kung-fu femme-fatale; with no reference to her more famous real-life identity as a male-to-female transsexual.)
The unavoidable absurdity of a vengeance-crazed kickboxer (literally) tearing armies of men apart with his bare hands in a blood-soaked quest to liberate... cute baby animals (I dare any "Simpsons" fan not to guffaw uncontrollably when they realize that Jaa spends most of the film screaming "Where's my elephant!!??" at the bad guys) winds up like a kind of "nuttiness-virus" that infects the rest of the film, and whether or not you can "roll" with that kind of disjointed surreality will be a big factor in whether or not you'll have fun with it.
Jaa and Pinkaew clearly had their fun, using the terminal-nuttiness diagnosis to stage setpiece scenes of maniacal invention: At one point one of Madame Rose's underbosses, having been cornered in a warehouse by Kham, pulls a chain that blows a giant siren-horn... causing mountain-bikers, rollerbladers and other extreme-sports thugs to come running from all over Sydney to beat Kham up with flourescent lightbulbs. They also find time to execute the most impressive use of single-shot steadicam in awhile, a nearly five-minute unbroken shot following Kham as he pummels his way through the levels of the resturaunt.
This is the kind of thing I go to the kung-fu movies hoping to see, and I had a ball with it. Go in with the right frame of mind, and I bet most of you will, too. And, again, how can you not root for a guy who's willing to take on a roomful of about thirty or more armed attackers just to protect a baby elephant?
FINAL RATING: 7/10
Saturday, 9 September 2006
Friday, 8 September 2006
What if Michael Bay HAD directed "Superman?"
By now we've all seen the pics of the re-designed "Transformers" from the Michael Bay movie, with their predator faces, big-floppy bird feet and Optimus Prime's flame decals. Sigh.
Aren't ya glad Bay didn't get to make "Superman" after all?
Thursday, 7 September 2006
About "The Path to 9/11"
You've probably heard in the news right now that there's some kind of controversy bubbling up about ABC's upcoming miniseries "The Path to 9/11." The "docudrama" is framed as a recounting of the various events in the decade prior to the WTC/Pentagon attacks that eventually were seen as precursors to the attacks themselves.
Short version: The early screeners of the film engendered very positive word of mouth, but various "conservative"-leaning pundits (including the ubiquitous Rush Limbaugh) were positively ecstatic over it because of certains scenes which they believe "show" the various bunglings of the Clinton administration vis-a-vi Osama bin Laden (I'm told by others that the film has it's share of scorn for Bush administration officials, notably Seccy of State Condoleeza Rice.)
::Sigh::
So... remember when CBS was going to run that less-than-hagiographic Reagan miniseries a few years back, and the "conservative" blogosphere threw a childish hissy-fit over it? Well, This story got picked up and run with by the "liberal" blogosphere, who took time off from sticking pins into their Joe Lieberman dolls to work themselves into a childish hissy-fit of their own: Stir in some "remember me?" soundbites from angry folks like Madeline Albright, who doesn't like the way she's said to come off in the movie, raise to a boil and in no time at all "miniseries critical of prior handlings of terrorism" has somehow morphed into "ABC IS RUNNING A MOVIE THAT SAYS CLINTON CAUSED 9/11!!!!!!!!"
And still people ask me why I won't register for either party...
Now, as you may know, the general math on these blowups is that if either side of the political blogosphere bitches about something for longer than a week, the real-world politicians of that "side" are obliged to either start caring or start pretending to care. So now the DNC, in the form of an official letter to Disney/ABC boss Robert Iger, are calling for the miniseries itself (which is already undergoing edit-room "tweaking" in response to claims of innacuraccy) to be either "corrected" or canceled.
Here's the letter:
http://democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=262624&
Here's Daily Kos, the consigliere of the "liberal" blogosphere, patting themselves on the back for another mole-hill successfully mountainized:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/9/7/18512/83596
And, by way of balance, here's the folks at the "conservative" movie blog Libertas- on which I am a frequent agitator because, let's face it, the only way you become a great debator is to mix it up with those whom you generally disagree -giving their take on the events (neatly summarized as: "THE SKY IS FALLING!"):
http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/?p=2356
And here's ME:
Dems... I feel your pain. However... ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? Really? With re-claiming the Senate looking more and more likely every day.. REALLY?? You're going there? Bad form.
You're Senators. You've seen that idiot Brent Bozell come and speak enough times to know already what I'm about to point out to you: Even IF you have a point (I haven't seen the movie) when you start browbeating filmmakers because they're work stands in opposition to your political beliefs you will always look like the BAD GUYS.
Frankly, I'd be even MORE annoyed with you if I didn't see how transparent a bit of pre-election posturing this is. Lemme spell it out for the boys and girls at home: The Democrats, however better and bolder they're getting in their quest to grow a pair and actually WIN SOMETHING in November, are currently living in fear of their own "fans" in the blogosphere. Especially the "established" guys, who are all scared to death that they'll be the next one's kneecaped a'la Joe Leiberman. This is a sop to Kos, etc., a recognitionary wave of "we're listening!" to the blogosphere designed with the same cynical purpose as the Republican's once-every-election-year push for a gay marriage ban: to gin up the base and get them excited.
And it'll work because either way they win: If ABC/Disney "blinks" in any way: "Hey kids, we won!" If not: "Kids, you were right! Better work EXTRA hard at electing us so we can fight even harder next time!"
::Sigh::
Senate Democrats... guys... speaking as someone who's usually grudgingly pulling for y'all to win ("lesser of two douchebags" and all that)... this is seriously lame. It's not quite Bush/"Terri's Law" lame, but it's within sight of the ballpark. You look thin-skinned, grumpy and paranoid on this one, bottom-line.
Footnote:
Lest anyone have the idea to accuse me of "siding" with the right-wing hyperbole over this thing, I want to be very clear about something: If you are a "conservative" who is mad about these developments but you didn't have the SAME level of rage over the right-wing blogosphere harassing CBS over the "The Reagans" movie... SHUT UP. You have not one iota of moral standing in your supposed disgust with ABC in this case. None.
Short version: The early screeners of the film engendered very positive word of mouth, but various "conservative"-leaning pundits (including the ubiquitous Rush Limbaugh) were positively ecstatic over it because of certains scenes which they believe "show" the various bunglings of the Clinton administration vis-a-vi Osama bin Laden (I'm told by others that the film has it's share of scorn for Bush administration officials, notably Seccy of State Condoleeza Rice.)
::Sigh::
So... remember when CBS was going to run that less-than-hagiographic Reagan miniseries a few years back, and the "conservative" blogosphere threw a childish hissy-fit over it? Well, This story got picked up and run with by the "liberal" blogosphere, who took time off from sticking pins into their Joe Lieberman dolls to work themselves into a childish hissy-fit of their own: Stir in some "remember me?" soundbites from angry folks like Madeline Albright, who doesn't like the way she's said to come off in the movie, raise to a boil and in no time at all "miniseries critical of prior handlings of terrorism" has somehow morphed into "ABC IS RUNNING A MOVIE THAT SAYS CLINTON CAUSED 9/11!!!!!!!!"
And still people ask me why I won't register for either party...
Now, as you may know, the general math on these blowups is that if either side of the political blogosphere bitches about something for longer than a week, the real-world politicians of that "side" are obliged to either start caring or start pretending to care. So now the DNC, in the form of an official letter to Disney/ABC boss Robert Iger, are calling for the miniseries itself (which is already undergoing edit-room "tweaking" in response to claims of innacuraccy) to be either "corrected" or canceled.
Here's the letter:
http://democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=262624&
Here's Daily Kos, the consigliere of the "liberal" blogosphere, patting themselves on the back for another mole-hill successfully mountainized:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/9/7/18512/83596
And, by way of balance, here's the folks at the "conservative" movie blog Libertas- on which I am a frequent agitator because, let's face it, the only way you become a great debator is to mix it up with those whom you generally disagree -giving their take on the events (neatly summarized as: "THE SKY IS FALLING!"):
http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/?p=2356
And here's ME:
Dems... I feel your pain. However... ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? Really? With re-claiming the Senate looking more and more likely every day.. REALLY?? You're going there? Bad form.
You're Senators. You've seen that idiot Brent Bozell come and speak enough times to know already what I'm about to point out to you: Even IF you have a point (I haven't seen the movie) when you start browbeating filmmakers because they're work stands in opposition to your political beliefs you will always look like the BAD GUYS.
Frankly, I'd be even MORE annoyed with you if I didn't see how transparent a bit of pre-election posturing this is. Lemme spell it out for the boys and girls at home: The Democrats, however better and bolder they're getting in their quest to grow a pair and actually WIN SOMETHING in November, are currently living in fear of their own "fans" in the blogosphere. Especially the "established" guys, who are all scared to death that they'll be the next one's kneecaped a'la Joe Leiberman. This is a sop to Kos, etc., a recognitionary wave of "we're listening!" to the blogosphere designed with the same cynical purpose as the Republican's once-every-election-year push for a gay marriage ban: to gin up the base and get them excited.
And it'll work because either way they win: If ABC/Disney "blinks" in any way: "Hey kids, we won!" If not: "Kids, you were right! Better work EXTRA hard at electing us so we can fight even harder next time!"
::Sigh::
Senate Democrats... guys... speaking as someone who's usually grudgingly pulling for y'all to win ("lesser of two douchebags" and all that)... this is seriously lame. It's not quite Bush/"Terri's Law" lame, but it's within sight of the ballpark. You look thin-skinned, grumpy and paranoid on this one, bottom-line.
Footnote:
Lest anyone have the idea to accuse me of "siding" with the right-wing hyperbole over this thing, I want to be very clear about something: If you are a "conservative" who is mad about these developments but you didn't have the SAME level of rage over the right-wing blogosphere harassing CBS over the "The Reagans" movie... SHUT UP. You have not one iota of moral standing in your supposed disgust with ABC in this case. None.
Sunday, 3 September 2006
REVIEW: The Wicker Man (2006)
Possible spoilers:
The original British "Wicker Man" is hallowed ground for horror fans, a literate and intelligent mystery flick the merits of which cannot be denied and the "horror" of which still packs a fiendish wallop. The sort of film, in other words, where anyone who attempts a remake is asking for trouble.
Trouble, unsurprisingly, is exactly what direct Neil LaBute gets.
Both versions share the same skeletal structure: A police officer is asked to find a little girl who's vanished on an isolated island community called Summersisle. Once there, he finds that the citizens of the island are members of a neo-pagan religious cult and begins to suspect that the girl's dissapearance may be connected to a mysterious sacrificial ceremony due to occur soon.
The similarities largely end there. The original story's hero was a Scotland Yard detective, who's own deep Christian faith brings him into immediate conflict with the Druidic Summersisle dwellers, and who's sexual frustrations (egged on by a comely inkeeper's daughter) begin to drive him mad. Summersisle's peculiar form of worship is framed as a retro-fitted version of basic Celtic nature worship based on historic record of the same, and the film has a certain amount of playful fun imagining an otherwise typical English farming village as flavored by old-school Witchcraft (a pharmacy stocks eye-of-newt, schoolchildren learning about earth goddesses and phallic symbols with the chipperness of Sunday School, etc.)
In this updating, the locations are moved to the American west coast. Our policeman hero, played by Nicholas Cage, doesn't seem to have any discernable spiritual hangups of his own: His inner torment comes from nightmares about having failed to save a woman and her child from a car crash. He's summoned to Summersisle by his ex-fiancee to find her missing daughter.
Neil LaBute's stock-in-trade as a narrative filmmaker has been, largely, an interesting infatuation with the notion of women in general and modern post-feminism in specific as a source of satire and/or evil. So it's not that jarring that this is the fresh spin he attempts to put on Summersisle: It's a fiercely matriarchal society, wrapped up in a singularly-goofy made-up religion that appears to worship honeybees. There's fun to be had in the sense that LaBute uses this setup to take a blunt, somewhat mean-spirited (but probably overdue) swipe at the modern conflation of radical-feminism and new age neo-paganism, but ultimately yields little in the way of depth or menace. It also sets up an unintentionally funny stumbling block for the 3rd act, creating a situation where the only action can (and does) center on Nicholas Cage (at his gone-unhinged best) punching a succession of Renaissance Faire-costumed women square in the face.
Pity poor Ellen Burstyn, who turns up at midpoint as the presumptive Queen Bee supervillianess, Sister Summersisle. The original film's villian was a slyly-underplayed aristocrat, memorably inhabited by dialed-down Christopher Lee, whom plainly implied that his interest in keeping Summersisle devoutly paganist was mostly done for personal gain. Burstyn, on the other hand, is saddled with as far less interesting characterization, as Sister Summersisle is presented as a one-note full-believing cult leader; Osama bin Laden in an orange wool smock. She turns in what will probably go down as the single worst performance of her career.
Robbed of any sense of real dread, incompetently staged and hamstrung by a satirical framework that it just can't bring itself to really go after full-bore AND a laughably-awful script, the film can only drag on until it reaches it's climax. I won't spoil it, because to do so would spoil the original film which you'd all be VASTLY better off seeing instead of this.
FINAL RATING: 2/10
The original British "Wicker Man" is hallowed ground for horror fans, a literate and intelligent mystery flick the merits of which cannot be denied and the "horror" of which still packs a fiendish wallop. The sort of film, in other words, where anyone who attempts a remake is asking for trouble.
Trouble, unsurprisingly, is exactly what direct Neil LaBute gets.
Both versions share the same skeletal structure: A police officer is asked to find a little girl who's vanished on an isolated island community called Summersisle. Once there, he finds that the citizens of the island are members of a neo-pagan religious cult and begins to suspect that the girl's dissapearance may be connected to a mysterious sacrificial ceremony due to occur soon.
The similarities largely end there. The original story's hero was a Scotland Yard detective, who's own deep Christian faith brings him into immediate conflict with the Druidic Summersisle dwellers, and who's sexual frustrations (egged on by a comely inkeeper's daughter) begin to drive him mad. Summersisle's peculiar form of worship is framed as a retro-fitted version of basic Celtic nature worship based on historic record of the same, and the film has a certain amount of playful fun imagining an otherwise typical English farming village as flavored by old-school Witchcraft (a pharmacy stocks eye-of-newt, schoolchildren learning about earth goddesses and phallic symbols with the chipperness of Sunday School, etc.)
In this updating, the locations are moved to the American west coast. Our policeman hero, played by Nicholas Cage, doesn't seem to have any discernable spiritual hangups of his own: His inner torment comes from nightmares about having failed to save a woman and her child from a car crash. He's summoned to Summersisle by his ex-fiancee to find her missing daughter.
Neil LaBute's stock-in-trade as a narrative filmmaker has been, largely, an interesting infatuation with the notion of women in general and modern post-feminism in specific as a source of satire and/or evil. So it's not that jarring that this is the fresh spin he attempts to put on Summersisle: It's a fiercely matriarchal society, wrapped up in a singularly-goofy made-up religion that appears to worship honeybees. There's fun to be had in the sense that LaBute uses this setup to take a blunt, somewhat mean-spirited (but probably overdue) swipe at the modern conflation of radical-feminism and new age neo-paganism, but ultimately yields little in the way of depth or menace. It also sets up an unintentionally funny stumbling block for the 3rd act, creating a situation where the only action can (and does) center on Nicholas Cage (at his gone-unhinged best) punching a succession of Renaissance Faire-costumed women square in the face.
Pity poor Ellen Burstyn, who turns up at midpoint as the presumptive Queen Bee supervillianess, Sister Summersisle. The original film's villian was a slyly-underplayed aristocrat, memorably inhabited by dialed-down Christopher Lee, whom plainly implied that his interest in keeping Summersisle devoutly paganist was mostly done for personal gain. Burstyn, on the other hand, is saddled with as far less interesting characterization, as Sister Summersisle is presented as a one-note full-believing cult leader; Osama bin Laden in an orange wool smock. She turns in what will probably go down as the single worst performance of her career.
Robbed of any sense of real dread, incompetently staged and hamstrung by a satirical framework that it just can't bring itself to really go after full-bore AND a laughably-awful script, the film can only drag on until it reaches it's climax. I won't spoil it, because to do so would spoil the original film which you'd all be VASTLY better off seeing instead of this.
FINAL RATING: 2/10
Friday, 25 August 2006
Monday, 21 August 2006
REVIEW: Snakes on A Plane
Like you really need to ask?
Let's clear something up here: There's been essentially two levels to the bizzare hype over "Snakes on A Plane." The first level was the honest one, born when New Line Cinema learned that their perfectly over-expository title has become a go-to laugh-line for web chatting movie geeks and elected to "just go with it." (In a way, it was no different from the way the producers of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" were working hard to turn the "did they or didn't they?" buzz about it's stars into ticket sales.)
The second level is the one that's caused all of the silliness and overkill. That would be the level wherein the mainstream entertainment press, who's cluelessness as to the workings of "geek-based" internet buzz is matched only by their contempt-toward and hyperbolic paranoia-about it, got hold of the story. Or, rather, got hold of what they thought was the story: "Would you look at these NERDS so excited to see a dumb killer-snake movie?" The bemusement (poorly) masked a snide sneer, as if the "internet guys" falling in love with raw stupidity was a validation of everything so much of the traditional film press seems to believe about them... that the demographic they blame for foisting all those Hobbits, zombies and icky-icky-icky superhero movies on them really are just a bunch of weirdos with bad taste.
Which was, of course, missing the point. The crowd that fell hard for this story - about, for the record, a mobster who tries to kill a witness against him by releasing an army of venomous snakes onto the passenger plane the FBI is using to anonymously transport him - did so because it was assured to be a hokey, goofish B-movie. They're crap-detector is every bit as acute (in most case much more acute) as the average professional critic or entertainment writer, the key difference being that for the archetypal film geek the watching of a wonderfully-bad movie constitutes something of a sport. To put it plainly, if the words "Mystery Science Theater 3000" carry no meaning for you, you'll never understand what the big deal was about "SoAP."
This kind of thing has happened plenty of times before, like whenever Uwe Boll releases a new movie, and most memorably for me being a few years back when Vincent D'Onoffrio's insanely strange delivery of the insanely-awful line "..an ALIEN with a BOMB in it's RIB-CAGE!!!!!!!" from the (awful) 2002 movie "Impostor" became a summer-long running joke on message board everywhere. The difference was that this time, for really the first time, the studio decided to play along and turn "look at all the people talking about this" into a marketing device. And now that (surprise!) said marketing hasn't brought about the highest-grossing film in motion picture history, the vultures are out in force: "Y'see!? Y'see!? DOOOM is the fate of he who pays any mind to the web geeks!" Hoping against hope that this will be the one that "does it in," and they'll never have to sit through another major movie about a costumed vigilante or a giant gorrilla again.
Humbug and poppycock! The entertainment press, having already completely missed the point of the "Snakes" phenomenon now wants to condemn it for not being what only they ever worried it would be. Nevermind the fact that a mid-budget "how many ways can we find for a snake to kill someone" schlockfest topping the boxoffice is a pretty interesting occurance in it's own right, the film itself remains precisely what it's original pre-fans always hoped it would be: A knowing throwback to the high-concept larfs of days past, awash in copious gore, eye-rolling dialogue and deaths that film geek's love being able to see coming a mile away.
I love being able to see this kind of thing on a big screen with legitimate actors and real effort instead of as a not-even-trying entry on the SciFi Channel. I love seeing the inspired-silliness of the improvised snake-fighting weapons. I love star/original-biggest-fan Samuel L. Jackson's 100% straight-faced performance. I love that the first victims are, yes, the hypersexual drug-using young couple. I love how "doomed" the goody-good passengers already seem right off the bat. I love how determinedly the resident-asshole character begs for his own demise. I love that the "what next?" moment involves the arrival of a giant-sized Python. I love that the bad guy assures his underlings that he's "already exhausted every other option" (what I wouldn't give to know what was the runner-up to "put snakes on the plane.") I love how brazenly (yet not-unsubtley) the film plays on collective fears (and collective revenge/empowerment fantasies) about post-911 air travel. And I adore the sheer preposterousness of the eventual "how to get rid of the snakes" solution. Heck, I even love that the makers knew their material enough to end with a horrible snake-themed Nu-Metal power ballad... though I most-definately despise the song itself.
Set the hype (or, rather, the hype about the hype) aside. This is everything a junky time-waster should be, as fine a guilty pleasure as going to the store and finding a candy bar you'd thought they stopped making years ago. You know right away whether or not you're the right audience for a movie called "Snakes on A Plane," and if there's even a shred of a chance that you'll enjoy it you probably will.
FINAL RATING: 7/10
Let's clear something up here: There's been essentially two levels to the bizzare hype over "Snakes on A Plane." The first level was the honest one, born when New Line Cinema learned that their perfectly over-expository title has become a go-to laugh-line for web chatting movie geeks and elected to "just go with it." (In a way, it was no different from the way the producers of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" were working hard to turn the "did they or didn't they?" buzz about it's stars into ticket sales.)
The second level is the one that's caused all of the silliness and overkill. That would be the level wherein the mainstream entertainment press, who's cluelessness as to the workings of "geek-based" internet buzz is matched only by their contempt-toward and hyperbolic paranoia-about it, got hold of the story. Or, rather, got hold of what they thought was the story: "Would you look at these NERDS so excited to see a dumb killer-snake movie?" The bemusement (poorly) masked a snide sneer, as if the "internet guys" falling in love with raw stupidity was a validation of everything so much of the traditional film press seems to believe about them... that the demographic they blame for foisting all those Hobbits, zombies and icky-icky-icky superhero movies on them really are just a bunch of weirdos with bad taste.
Which was, of course, missing the point. The crowd that fell hard for this story - about, for the record, a mobster who tries to kill a witness against him by releasing an army of venomous snakes onto the passenger plane the FBI is using to anonymously transport him - did so because it was assured to be a hokey, goofish B-movie. They're crap-detector is every bit as acute (in most case much more acute) as the average professional critic or entertainment writer, the key difference being that for the archetypal film geek the watching of a wonderfully-bad movie constitutes something of a sport. To put it plainly, if the words "Mystery Science Theater 3000" carry no meaning for you, you'll never understand what the big deal was about "SoAP."
This kind of thing has happened plenty of times before, like whenever Uwe Boll releases a new movie, and most memorably for me being a few years back when Vincent D'Onoffrio's insanely strange delivery of the insanely-awful line "..an ALIEN with a BOMB in it's RIB-CAGE!!!!!!!" from the (awful) 2002 movie "Impostor" became a summer-long running joke on message board everywhere. The difference was that this time, for really the first time, the studio decided to play along and turn "look at all the people talking about this" into a marketing device. And now that (surprise!) said marketing hasn't brought about the highest-grossing film in motion picture history, the vultures are out in force: "Y'see!? Y'see!? DOOOM is the fate of he who pays any mind to the web geeks!" Hoping against hope that this will be the one that "does it in," and they'll never have to sit through another major movie about a costumed vigilante or a giant gorrilla again.
Humbug and poppycock! The entertainment press, having already completely missed the point of the "Snakes" phenomenon now wants to condemn it for not being what only they ever worried it would be. Nevermind the fact that a mid-budget "how many ways can we find for a snake to kill someone" schlockfest topping the boxoffice is a pretty interesting occurance in it's own right, the film itself remains precisely what it's original pre-fans always hoped it would be: A knowing throwback to the high-concept larfs of days past, awash in copious gore, eye-rolling dialogue and deaths that film geek's love being able to see coming a mile away.
I love being able to see this kind of thing on a big screen with legitimate actors and real effort instead of as a not-even-trying entry on the SciFi Channel. I love seeing the inspired-silliness of the improvised snake-fighting weapons. I love star/original-biggest-fan Samuel L. Jackson's 100% straight-faced performance. I love that the first victims are, yes, the hypersexual drug-using young couple. I love how "doomed" the goody-good passengers already seem right off the bat. I love how determinedly the resident-asshole character begs for his own demise. I love that the "what next?" moment involves the arrival of a giant-sized Python. I love that the bad guy assures his underlings that he's "already exhausted every other option" (what I wouldn't give to know what was the runner-up to "put snakes on the plane.") I love how brazenly (yet not-unsubtley) the film plays on collective fears (and collective revenge/empowerment fantasies) about post-911 air travel. And I adore the sheer preposterousness of the eventual "how to get rid of the snakes" solution. Heck, I even love that the makers knew their material enough to end with a horrible snake-themed Nu-Metal power ballad... though I most-definately despise the song itself.
Set the hype (or, rather, the hype about the hype) aside. This is everything a junky time-waster should be, as fine a guilty pleasure as going to the store and finding a candy bar you'd thought they stopped making years ago. You know right away whether or not you're the right audience for a movie called "Snakes on A Plane," and if there's even a shred of a chance that you'll enjoy it you probably will.
FINAL RATING: 7/10
Tuesday, 15 August 2006
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