Cars 2 (2D) by Rodders 1 Star
It’s been a long time since I’ve been here – I apologise.
My absence was spent in rehab recovering from a combination of excessive drinking of paint thinner mixed with just about every pharmaceutical out there. I was on a Nicolas-Cage-Leaving-Las-Vegas-type binge heading directly for the grave when I had an epiphany.
“Wait a minute.. I just saw ‘Cars 2’ and there’s that crappy blog I used to write for. I should review this movie and put it up on that! I DO have a purpose after all!”
So here I am and to quote Chuck D of Public Enemy, “Back once again is the incredible..”
The Plot
If you remember the first movie (which I’m assuming you won’t really. I’m sure you remember purchasing that ‘Lightning McQueen’ race car toy for your little nephew or niece 4 years ago though..) the story was pretty simple. Up and coming rookie race car with eyes where the windscreen should be gets side-tracked (pun intended) on the way to the big race in a small town where he learns to value community and relationships over corporate sponsorship and the big city lights.
This is pretty far removed from that.
There’s quite a bit going in this movie and its set up like a Bond film – less the human actors and sex scenes. There are quite a few additional characters which you don’t get much of an introduction to. Michael Caine does an adequate job of voicing Finn McMissile (Bond-type character) and is a step up from that lame-ass corpse Paul Newman who is briefly acknowledged when we’re basking in the glory of Lightning McQueen’s past victories in the Piston Cup which they rename the Hudson Hornet Cup in his honour. Thankfully, they got rid of the “He did what in his cup!?” joke from the first movie and didn’t replace it with anything else as pissing in things and getting drunk are jokes kids really aren’t going to (or rather, shouldn’t) be entertained by. Their alcoholic and valium munching parents on the other hand, might.
Look, to make this more succinct, this movie fails on so many levels as a kid’s movie. The little blighters were climbing over the seats and banging the back of my seat after 5 minutes. It’s like they’ve lifted the story from one of the least popular Bond movies and cut-pasted that into a weak story about a seemingly socially conscious car-actor Sir Axelrod (see what I did there?) who develops a clean energy fuel source that can replace oil-based petrol called “Allinol”. He then invites the world’s best racers to compete in a global event to promote the fuel – dubbing it the World Grand Prix. I tend to think this was to promote globalised ownership of an energy source – you know to get the idea popular among young families and the kids, especially. As if to say, “Look kids! Big companies are gonna take care of you in the future. We’re making clean gas (petrol as we call it) now that won’t harm the environment!”
Just stop right there. There is no mention of what the fuel is or how it is produced – we’re just supposed to accept this as fact. The fanciful concept is yanked quickly from our reality and we’re distracted by the main story which is Mater (Tow truck from the first one) looking forward to be re-united with his best friend Lightning McQueen who has returned to Radiator Springs to spend the summer following his recent success with him and his girl-car-friend Sally. Most of this film revolves around Mater played by Larry the Cable Guy. Yep, that’s the actor’s name. Don’t know who he is? I saw the first one so I remember him from that, but I don’t know any of his work as a comedian or anything. He does the simple-redneck-from-a-small-town act okay I guess but the dimly-lit padded cell that is his brain vocalising words just gets excruciatingly annoying throughout.
Mater ends up being the focus of this one and I have to say that was a bad, bad move John Lasseter. I thought Owen Wilson was frustrating to listen to but this dill-pickle country hick of a character was way more annoying than aforementioned, deformed nose-having jizz guzzler Wilson. Fucking hell what are we to expect from Hollywood these days? The stupid mother trucker is the town fucktard that unwittingly becomes a secret agent alongside McMissile and Holly Shiftwell, the Bond um.. car-girl(?) that crusty old McMissile doesn’t get to fire into. Even for an animated family flick this was difficult to digest as the impostor characters proceed to drive the crazy bus to the Hollywood asylum.
One bit did make me cringe severely injuring a cheek muscle. The Japanese talking toilet scene. What are we to make of this.
I'll have a crack.
Simple folk, like our friend Mater, are scared of technology. They wont even be able to use a public toilet in the future. This is the agenda being pushed onto the kids. Mater is shown confused to a dribbling mess when faced with the computer squeaking instructions in Japanese and lights blinking rapidly all over the place. After which he cops a burst of water directly up the clacker amid his disorientation. Punishment is the only explanation for this, as Mater clearly has no place being in such a pristine piss palace. Are we to believe that dear old Mater is part.. Lemon? What the blazers is going on here?
The story jumps around like a severely scratched piece of vinyl spinning on the turntable in Pixar’s imaginarium. It’s boring, filling the air with the stench of product placement and corporatocracy and I want to vomit in rage in telling you that seeing this felt like a huge waster of my precious time. We don’t care about any of the characters here – they’re bland filler material masking an even blander attempt at prolonging this useless attempt at providing over merchandising of pointless crap for the kids with silver spoons dangling from their pie-holes.
I’ve got my paint thinner concoction to mix up dammit! Oh wait, I quit that didn’t I? The purpose of the making of Cars 2 is pretty clear now. The “Brotherhood” or the “Network” or whatever they’re calling themselves these days is aiming blatantly inane movies specifically at me to turn me back on to my life-shortening addictions and silence what is to be considered the one truth, the only truth and nothing but the truth. We’re all being mind-fucked beyond comprehension by these productions that aim only to condition our brains to make decisions we wouldn’t otherwise make had we not endured them. Slavery is alive and well I can tell you, my friends. No-one is paying me to tell you this; I’m telling you this as a favour to YOU. Wake UP BROTHERS AND SISTERS!
2D or not 2D?
At the cinema I went to, they didn’t have the 3D version of Cars 2. I didn’t care because sitting there drinking my wake-up shake of acai berry and magnesium I thought to myself, “It’s just gonna cost more and these kids running around hopped up on fruit loops and Ritalin are gonna distract me enough in addition to some blurred 3D effects..” Am I right or am I right? I’ve yet to see a good 3D movie and I’m damn sure you shouldn’t fish in your pocket for your hard-earned to see Cars 2 in 3D. You can if you want but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
The first Cars movie wasn’t 3D, so I decided it’d be better, for continuity’s sake, to see the sequel in the 2D format also. This should give you an idea of my train of thought before sitting down to view Cars 2. Walking from the theatre, I could have scooped some rubbish from the gutter and eaten it to feel better about myself. Who am I? What is my purpose of being? It’s certainly not hanging out with a bunch of writhing, sugar juiced-up mongrels and their lazy, humdrum parents who attempt to further their child’s development by plonking them in a dark cinema on Saturday morning for 2 hours of weird looking car people with eyes where the windshield should be. The drive behind the eye concept is to make the cars able to show more emotion apparently. This is acknowledged in Paris where Mater meets a street vendor selling yep, you guessed it, car headlights. Her eyes are in place of her headlights and this totally wigs Mater out. The insipid characters in Cars 2 creep me out as much as the cars in the first one and I dislike intensely all of them with the exception of Fillmore (voiced by Lloyd Sherr – George Carlin unfortunately passed away) Luigi and Guido – who doesn’t speak English except for the words “Pit” and “stop” – and yet is more engaging than the main cars. Ramone (Cheech Marin is still hittin’ them corners in a Lo-lo girls) is pretty good too but you see them mostly in the first one. I’m just gonna call them cars now. Less letters than characters.
John Turturro is alright as the F1 car I suppose. He’s the Alpha guy, but even for this type of movie he’s pretty lame and the rivalry between him and Lightning juxtaposed to the Bond rip-off part of the story is merely a dirty, miniscule fly buzzing around the pile of manure your brain has become to this point.
The “Lemons” are painted as the baddies in Cars 2. You know what a lemon is when we’re talking about cars right? They’re cars that are discontinued due to them being superseded and rendered obsolete. Cars that if they break down, they’re essentially fucked as replacement parts are not readily available for them should they need repair.
So, let me get this straight. The “Lemons” are the bad guys in a world consisting of cars? Cars that are essentially outcast from mainstream society are the bad ones are they? If we’re to believe that the shiny modern cars are mainstream and the Lemons are not, how do we assume Pixar studios view human beings in society? Well, I’ll tell you. If you can’t compete in today’s societal system, you have nothing but a life outside the law to look forward to. That’s what the established companies are conditioning the kids to think as they have been doing for the last 60 years. Launch yourself at and support conglomerate mass-producers, update your parts and get into the race or you’re on the highway to hell baby.
In Conclusion
Even though Disney is inherently evil, I like watching animated movies from Pixar in general because you’re sitting there thinking, “Anything is possible in this movie. It’s all CGI so they can literally do ANYTHING.” When I sat in the theatre watching Cars 2 even with the pounding on the back of my seat I noticed they’d managed to improve the reflective capability of the car’s chassis in its environment, something the original pioneered effects-wise. So visually, I’d give the movie a star because the fire, water, explosions and overall visual aspects of the movie are quite stunning in places in regard to their realism.
But jeez that tow truck Mater needs to be confined to the impound lot, because Larry the Shit Shovel is clearly NOT able to carry a movie. His twangy accent and pure ignorance during this ordeal is astounding to say the least. Cars 2 possesses the same problem as Cars 1 and that is simply that no emotional connection is able to be made with any of the cars even in the slightest. There’s way too many and the kids rathered going to sleep, throwing ice and generally fidgeting over watching the movie only to hear a slight chuckle on behalf of the adults. [Spoiler alert] There’s one bit near the end where Fillmore makes a joke to Sarge regarding the fact that he endorsed the “Allinol” as safe earlier in the movie before the final race.. I won’t write what the punch is but it’s a good one. Captures what George Carlin would have liked to have delivered had he been available to voice in Cars 2.
I’m really hoping there will be no Cars 3. Give it the boot, Pixar! The humour is rank and sparse, characters are convoluted yet distant and in no way engaging apart from a couple of exceptions. They seem to multiply from the beginning too so it’s like the movie bombards you with all these different cars hoping that you’ll be dazzled at the amount of recognisable actors (not many really) and shiny things on the screen. Note to Pixar: Quantity does NOT equal quality you ratfinks.
They got rid of the tyre track clouds in the sky and some of the other intricacies of the original and made anything that has a windscreen in this have eyes so I was in torment most of the time doing my utmost to not rip my eyeballs from their sockets, turn around and make that kid’s birthday REALLY memorable. Allinol (wow, I’m on fire!) this is visually tolerable mainly because it’s from Pixar and if you don’t mind the eye thing however it seems to me that movies like this are definitely perpetuating the agenda of the Elitists contributing to the dumbing down of human beings and in particular, the kiddies. I can’t sit here and be silent about it. Movies like this are aberrant and should be boycotted – DO NOT SUBJECT YOURSELF OR YOUR CHILDREN TO IT. Not even those ones in the crawlspace and basement – they’ll only become more evil and eat your face.
Fuck you, Pisstar and Dogsney. Right here, buddy.
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The Action
Lets start with a relatively straightforward aspect of the film: the action scenes. And it has to be said that Sucker Punch's action scenes are pretty awesome. They are well-choreographed, creative, and extremely pretty.
There are also more up-skirts than you can poke a tube of KY at. Pre-pubescent "Palm Pilots" are going to want to get this one in full HD, trust me.
The problem is that the movie is always distracting you from a completely adequate game of spot-the-flange by insisting that each action fantasy scene actually represents another event in the real world. Or, even worse, an intellectual idea of some kind.
Either way, it's more than a little confusing. The random fight scenes are a visualization of our main character, Babydoll, in a whorehouse dancing for some male customers. OK. But wait, the whorehouse is a fantasy world too, right, one she created to avoid the realities of being raped and lobotomized.
So what exactly is being communicated here? That, within the first escapist fantasy, Babydoll needs to fantasize to a second level to escape the harshness of her own fantasy world? Well then why did she make the first fantasy so shit to begin with then?
Nice one Babydoll, why not just go ahead and fantasize grinning midget clowns riding on oversized tricycles?
So the action scene where she kills a bunch of giant robots is actually euphemized representation of her dancing for customers in a whore house, which in turn represents her getting violently raped and lobotomized in a mental institution in the real world.
Got it? We're watching a rape. With Samurai swords. And you found this enjoyable? You're a sick fuck.
See how it gets distracting? Perhaps Snyder would have been better served by just stringing all his cool action scenes together and dropping down the frame rate a few notches to bump the running time up to feature length? Wait, the action scenes were already shot in the slowest slow-mo possible without using a surge of 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to power the camera crank.
All the better to up-skirt you with, my dear.
The Feminism
I went into Sucker Punch vaguely expecting to see a John-Woo-esque "girl
power" femo action movie, but thinking that I would probably be able to forgive it because I'd get to see the girl's undies every time they high-kicked a dude in the face.
I generally try not to take the feminist aspect of these kinds of movies too seriously. Thelma and Louise, Jennifer's Body, Charlie's Angels, Chicks With Guns 4; I just try my best to ignore the patronizing neo-feminist mesages in these films because... well... it's not really FOR me, is it? Or is it? Fuck, I don't even know.
It's not that I don't fully support giving young girls self esteem and a healthy sense of empowerment, but it kinda irks me that these movies seem to be saying that it's ok for girls to hit dudes in the face or kick them in the balls, often with very little justification - like leaving the toilet seat up, or rape - and that the audience should cheer for such violent behavior.
To be honest, this issue has compounded for me in recent times. It can't be
completely unrelated to this girl-power trend in movies that I have been getting slapped across the face more and more in the real world. Screw you, Hollywood, for teaching helpless girls how to fend me off. Stalking used to be much easier. Sigh.
Anyway, interestingly, I'm not sure Sucker Punch is a particularly feminist
movie. Or at least not a typical one. There are a lot of girls kicking ass,
sure, but all such action takes place in an escapist fantasy, and, as far as I can tell in the reality of the movie the girls have no power at all, as they are locked up in asylum, getting raped and lobotomized by the staff.
So if you were to take a message away from this, it might be "sorry girls,
you simply can't avoid getting raped by men, coz they are the strong ones, but, hey, at least have a couple of fun fantasies about being ninja assassins while your genitals are getting pounded into a bloody meat-pile."
The Story
You have probably gathered by now that there is a little confusion going on
here. It's all very dream-within-a-dream, but not in a good and satisfying
Inception kind of way, more in a bad and nauseating Vanilla Sky kind of way. The problem is, the movie never clearly communicates what is reality and what is fantasy.
You could argue that the movie is just leaving room for interpretation, like the spinning top at the end of Inception. OK, fine, but Inception only leaves you with ONE question at the end. A big one, sure, but it's just one piece of ambiguity.
In Sucker Punch, everything is ambiguous. For example, in the opening scenes of the film, Babydoll's mother dies, leaving her and her sister with an abusive step father. She is shown escaping out a window, then in the next scene she returns with a gun. At this point, the step father is seen bending menacingly over the sister, and might even have had a knife in his hand, I can't remember.
So Babydoll fires the gun at him, apparently misses, and hits a steam pipe
behind him. Next thing you know, the sister is bleeding and dies in Babydoll's arms. Did Babydoll somehow shoot the sister through the steam pipe? Did it ricochet off, but at the same time punch a whole in the pipe? And where the hell did she get the gun anyway? Last we saw her she was jumping out a window trying to escape.
Then at the end, she's still in the mental hospital at the exact same moment we launched into her original fantasy, but it seems certain elements of her fantasy actually happened in that reality too. They mention someone escaped, and the fire she set as a distraction.
I read a lot of theories on the internet and the only consistent thing about them is that they make less sense than a rambling, drooling, straight-jacketted politician. If any of the theories I read were what Zack Snyder intended, then he simply didn't communicate it well with his film-making.
A few more hints would have been nice, Zack. Or is it just the case that you
had as little idea what was going on as your audience?
It is indeed hard to believe that, with the level of painstaking detail and
visual creativity that went into every single frame of this movie, that its
maker wouldn't have put just a little thought into what it all might mean.
But I bet, at the same time, if you traced Zack Snyder's credit card
transactions, you'd find a bunch of them would link him to a website that allows you to purchase genuine Japanese schoolgirl panties.
Conclusion
I didn't hate Sucker Punch at all. I liked that it wasn't really feminist,
but might be ambiguous enough to make stupid people think it was. It had good action, good music, and lovely visuals. It kept me engaged throughout and actually made me think a bit.
And a decent smattering of panty-flashes.
3 stars.
PS: if this review has convinced you to skip Sucker Punch and see a different movie, I'd feel a little bit bad. So here's a few nice upskirt photos so you don't feel like you missed anything.
And, yes, I enjoyed researching that bit.
I apologize in advance for this review.
I will be using the words "homo", "retard", and most probably "mongoloid" in the text that follows. I will say things that may appear racist, misogynistic, bigoted and probably misopediastic too (yeah, I had to look it up, too; it's the term for someone who hates children).
Just remember, as we venture into this balanced and reasoned film analysis, that all the offense and indignancy you feel, along with any subsequent hatred you develop for me as a result, are unequivocally and categorically 100% the fault of the makers (or should I say re-makers?) of the new Karate Kid flick.
And we should all hate them for that.
The Re-Make
This is a re-make, so don't tell me it's not fair to compare this with the original. Of course it's fair! It's a re-make, I've seen the original, and this is happening whether you like it or not.
Hell, the movie even encourages the audience to draw comparisons by heavy-handedly shoe-horning several lame-ass homages to its predecessor throughout it's 2 hours and 20 minutes running time.
The playful wink to the audience as an quaint old Chinese guy trims bonsai trees in the background. The chopstick Mr Miyagi, I mean Mr HAN, is holding when we first see him... and there is a fly... and wait, is he going to try to... no! Oh how clever, he hit it with a fly-swat instead! Brilliant!
Movie: Hey, Audience, geddit!? This ISN'T the character you remember from the first film, wink-wink, ha-ha!
Audience: Thanks for that, Movie, and can I just say I think you're totally awesome!
Movie: Shucks, but yeah, you're right, I am.
No, Movie, you're not. Mr Miyagi was what made the first film great! Pat Morita's portrayal of the stoic but ultimately emotionally crippled Karate teacher was pitch-perfect, right down to the little bits of sweat on his forehead and glimmers of moisture in his eyes.
I also enjoyed some of the documentaries Pat made under the name David Suzuki.
Jackie Chan plays the character in an entirely different way -- which is fine and probably the right choice -- but he doesn't really DO anything with his own portrayal. He's a natural comedian, but does he choose to make Miyagi... sorry, I mean HAN... overtly funnier and play to his acting strength? No, he keeps the movie pretty much devoid of humour, and makes his character bland an uninteresting for too much of the film.
And while the basic story is pretty much the same as the original, there are stupid little differences. Let's have a look at a few, just to give you a taste...
(And I guess some of these will be spoilers, so mind your sensitive eyes)
The main character is a black kid who moves from Detroit to China, and the teacher is a Chinese Kung Fu Master instead of an Okinawan Karate Master.
Instead of the iconic lines "wax-on wax-off", "paint-the-fence" and "sand-the-floor", we get... oh God it's ridiculous... "take off the jacket, hang the jacket, put the jacket back on". See, coz the kid in this one has a habit of never hanging his jacket up, and... oh screw it, I won't explain. It's just really dumb.
Instead of a group of maybe 16-year olds scuffling and doing Karate on each other, you've got a bunch of 12 year old kids doing Martix-style Kung Fu on wires, complete with slow-motion, shakey-cam, fast zoom and other MTV effects. You would think that makes the action superior to the first film, but it doesn't. It just makes it look silly. And in parts it's even perversely brutal. These kids are 12, how does it make sense that they are trying to break each other's legs and give each other brain damage?
When the kid needs to be healed, this new version has Miyagi, sorry, HAN, actually SET HIM ON FIRE to cure him, instead of clapping, rubbing hands together and massaging the wounded area.
Oh and they changed the ending. Instead of the original crane move that allowed our hero to win his final match, the finishing move in this one -- and you'll probably think I'm joking but it's true -- is snake charming! Yeah, he hypnotizes his opponent with his eyes, forcing him to mirror his slight head movements... before jumping 6 feet in the air, flipping upside down and kicking him in the face with his broken leg.
Come on retards, if you're going to change things, make them better, more relevent or at least understand the narrative reason they were included in the movie in the first place! Don't shuffle random details around on post-it notes just so you can say you put some creativity into the movie.
Jackie Chan says to the kid -- after he has just revealed that playing with a jacket for 2 weeks has made him an awesome kung fu fighter -- "Everything is Kung Fu!". If I was the kid, I wouldn't have been able to resist ripping a fart and saying "really? Was that fart Kung Fu, Han? It sure doesn't smell like Kung Fu to me, it smells like shit... oh wait that's the smell of what's coming out of your mouth right now!" Then I'd kick him in the balls and storm out of his homo garden.
Speaking of which, who even CARES if "Everything is Kung Fu"? This is the Karate Kid, what the fuck is Kung Fu doing in this movie anyway!? Just call it the Kung Fu Kid, as previously planned, and stop trying to milk goodwill from the previous film, you disgusting marketing sharks!
The Cast
Let's not kid ourselves... Jackie Chan is the reason we even consider seeing this movie, right? And despite the criticisms I have of him above, he was ok in this film. He even managed to pull of a dramatic scene which could well have been quite silly if done badly.
But that's old Jackie-boy, how bad could he be? What about the rest of the cast?
Well, Jaden Smith completely fails to bring any life whatsoever to his character.
Just in case you didn't know, he is the son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, who -- no, really!? -- happen to be the producers of this movie! I guess he must have gotten the role on merit and... then... SUGGESTED his folks as possible producers, right? Oooh yah, that's how it went DOWN, for sure!
Anyway, he was pretty good as Will Smith's kid in "The Pursuit of Happyness," but he kinda had a free pass on account of being so young. And you know how most young kids, are, like, crap, right?
But surely he'd be channeling the charisma and star quality of his superstar father in every scene now that he's a bit old? No, not at all. He cries in one scene, but the rest of the time he wanders around the movie, tired and listless. Sometimes he speaks so quietly you can't hear him. It seems to be he has this slight misconception that being cool means you have to appear not to care about anything.
Plus, he is WAY too androgynous for my taste. He has a girl's eyelashes and lips, and those long dreads aren't doing him any favours. He better not eat too much hormone-treated chicken, because if he grows tits, some dude is going to fuck him.
It all adds to the disturbing homo-paedo-erotic subtext that seems to permeate the film. And if you think I'm imagining it, re-watch that scene where Han and Dre's hands are tied together with bamboo poles and their shadows are dancing gracefully on the wall. The whole thing rings of freakish Kamasutra diagrams to me.
Either way, his scrawny, unprepared body does nothing to convince me he could fight a real Kung Fu tough-guy. Can we get a couple of push-ups out of you before you star in your first action film, Jaden? No? Daddy says you're fine the way you are? OK, just go watch Spongebob then.
Who else do we have? Oh the girlfriend, played by newcomer Wenwen Han. I mean putting aside the pointlessness of having a romantic sub-plot in a movie featuring 12 year olds, this girl slouched around the entire film grinning like a retard and muttering in incomprehensible broken English. I know it's harsh to criticize her for not having good English, but there are 1.3 BILLION people in China, and almost half of those have gotta be female! Was this spastic, blinking, fence post of a girl really the best they could do?
Although, I can imagine, if they were re-making the original Gremlins, she'd be a shoe-in for the role of Spike. As a Gremlin. Not not the cute, furry thing.
Of course, what is a Karate Kid movie without it's bullying, mean-spirited antagonist? Well I think the casting director may have a problem recognizing congenital birth defects, because for this role they chose the poor mongoloid boy, Zhenwei Wang. And he's not one of the happy-looking ones who wants to hug everyone, either. He's an evil mongoloid.
His Kung Fu is pretty effective, considering he probably has one of those weird bended pinky-fingers and stumpy legs, but his acting is wooden and simply way to evil. I didn't really understand why he picked a fight with our title character in the first place, and then at the end, when he tries to act magnanimous after losing to Daniel... sorry, I mean DRE... well the actor hasn't earned the moment and it comes across completely disingenuous.
I could go on... the gang of Kung Fu bullies... one of them looks like he is 4 years old... the evil Kung Fu Master... I'd rather stare into the laser of my PC's mouse for 4 hours than watch him... the girlfriend's stern father... simply, idiotic -- one minute he bans his daughter from coming to Dre's tournament, then the next he's claiming she's going because their family always keep their word.
The whole movie is full of holes, inconsistencies, misfires and bad acting.
Conclusion
Well, add my voice to the chorus of the anti-re-make capaigners, because this one has really taken the wind out of my sails. It seems that re-makes never manage to improve on or even equal their predecessors, and I'm old enough to not need the glossy Hollywood updates.
I wish they'd just go back to ripping off the best Asian movies... there must be a few more good ones lying around just waiting for plagiarization!? How about Audition, or The Host? I'd love to see a watered-down, sanitized version of those pitched at six year olds.
Sorry, what movie were we talking about again? Oh yeah Karate Kid. Damn, for a moment there it was mercifully fading from my memory, like that bad nightmare I had featuring Mariah Carey and Drew Carey as a perverse swinging couple a-la Eyes Wide Shut, who have a weird half-pengiune/half-midget son that has shark's teeth in its beak and no genitals.
One more of those and I'll need a shrink.
Anyhoo, I'm a optimist, so if there's anything good that has come from watching Karate Kid 2010, other than learning the word misopediastic, is that it has inspired me to keep on living at least another 10 years.
Because by then, Jackie Chan will be too old to beat me in a fight, and I'll be able to hunt him down and kick his wrinkled old ass for making this steaming pile of turtle turds that dares to call itself a movie!
1.5 stars, for Jackie Chan convincingly crying.
How did we end up here!? I feel like turning my couch on its head, pulling my collector-edition Terminator II magnets off the fridge and popping them like grapes, then doing an upper decker in my own toilet.
I mean, us movie fans have already got so much to worry about... Avatar's absence of story in favour of spectacle... the decline of "Independent" films since the release of Napolean Dynamite made quirky into commercial... the repeated rapes of the Terminator, Alien and Predator franchises... and the very fact that Ridley Scott's still allowed to make movies.
But not Iron Man II! It was so obvious what made the first one great; surely all we needed to do was sit around and look forward to Iron Man II?
I guess I'm just mad. Mad at Jon Favreau; mad at Paramount; mad at the world. When I read about the rushed release date of Iron Man II, Jon Favreau's concerns about story, casting problems, I didn't want to believe that it would affect the film.
It did.
Sequelitis
On the face of it, Iron Man II has all the same ingredients that the first one did. But there's something missing here.
It's like when Grandma treats the family to her famous beef stew, but uses expired prune juice instead of cooking sherry because she drank it all the previous evening while watching McGuyver and listening to Barry Manilow records.
It seems like it shouldn't matter. Everyone at the table's gonna eat it and keep their stupid traps shut and be polite. But, damnit, that stew just isn't grandma's beef stew, and everyone at the table knows it!
Iron Man II might have been great on paper. But it just doesn't have the magic of its predecessor, doesn't have the charm, doesn't have the... I dunno, pizzaz!?
The Acting
Downey Jr. mumbles his way through this outing sounding like an alcoholic version of the Swedish Chef. Honestly, I couldn't understand what he was saying half the time. He seems to have pushed the fast-talking charismatic genius guy act so far that he's become completely incomprehensible.
Or maybe the boom guy was asleep, I dunno.
Either way, somewhere along the line Downey Jr's charisma glands misfired, leaving us with that disconnected feeling you get when an actor reprises a classic cool-guy role after 25 years and doesn't pull it off properly -- because now he's an irrelevant, drooling invalid.
And don't get me started on Don Cheadle! I mean, when he's out of the War Machine suit, he just goddamn stands there like a putz!
I can only remember one moment where he talks and I was interested in what he was saying, and that was mainly because of the hypnotic way his nostrils were flaring as he spoke.
I never like it when an original actor is replaced for a sequel. It's always wrong. The studio should have just paid Terrence Howard whatever he wanted, or put up with his difficult temper on set, or whatever it was. The actor IS the character, either bring them back or omit the character completely.
Having said that, I wouldn't have minded if it had been Gwyneth "hunch-backed skeletal waif" Paltrow who was replaced. I mean if there was ever an actor born to play a live-action version of Montgomery Burns, it's her. When she's on-screen speaking, I sometimes imagine I can see little bits of AIDS on her lips.
OK, Mickey Rourke was pretty awesome. And Vanko/Whiplash made a pretty cool character.
But I couldn't help thinking... all this technology in the palm of his hands... an infinite power source, millions of possibilities for advanced Tony-Stark-killing weaponry... and this guy creates a couple of lightning whips? A little too much Indiana Jones, as a kid, hey Vanko, you jackass?
Yeah, the whips look kinda cool, but they are hardly an effective weapon against Iron Man, who, last I saw, has nuclear rockets and massive lasers shooting out of every orifice that counts.
The Story
The first 30 minutes or so of the film, you don't even see Stark in the Iron Man suit. People in my cinema were yawning, checking their watches and murmuring restlessly, waiting for the movie to start. One guy even called his mum to discuss Uncle Larry's bowel problems, it was that boring.
How could Favreau et al have let this happen? One of the freedoms of sequels is that you don't need to waste time introducing the characters. We already know them and love them. You can get straight into the good stuff. Why start with a massive talk-fest? With stuff about companies and court cases? We're here to see people blown to shit with big fuck-off lasers!
And then there's the character motivation. More specifically, the logic of the relationship between Stark and Rhodes. Throughout the movie, Rhodes is playing for the wrong team, screwing Stark at every turn and vaguely apologising for it. He undermines Stark's Expo, steals an Iron Man suit and gives it to the bad guys, and even destroy's Stark's house just because he got a bit drunk at his birthday party.
Bafflingly (in the bits where I could understand what Stark was saying) he appeared to unconditionally forgive Rhodes for each and every count of anal rapage, and continued to consider him a close friend.
I know they eventually had to end up working together to defeat the baddies, but you can't disregard character motivation altogether!
The final climactic action scene was so banal and pointless that I actually I considered getting out my mobile phone and re-watching that video of the monkey picking it's own asshole, smelling it's finger and then falling off the log.
I mean, they could have sent 1000 of those drones. We've already seen that you can pull their stupid little heads off with your bare hands in Vanko's lab, so how threatening could they possibly be?
Predictably, the two Iron Men pick them off as easily as light sabers slashing through droids, despite starting off without the high ground. Imagine if they'd actually got to higher ground! The finale would have been a two second laser display, resembling an intro to a David Copperfield show.
And then, suddenly, Vanko turns up, is killed by simply crossing the streams and the credits are rolling. Wha!? That's it!?
Conclusion
Oh Iron Man II, how I wanted to love you. I had a little bit of love in my heart reserved just for you, I did.
Now I'm going to have to find a new outlet for that love. Like rubbing up against women in business suits on the subway.
I hope you're happy, because the violated business women won't be.
2.5 stars, for being almost good enough.
Seeing Nic Cage in a lead for any movie is a roll of the dice really. Do you know what I mean when I say a movie is bad in a good way? Right I can assume you're nodding at the screen so I can also assume that you know what I mean when I say this movie this movie was not like that. Remember Con Air? The Rock? Snake Eyes? Yeah well this isn't even on par with frikkin' Snake Eyes.
The Story
We're supposed to believe that going to Bangkok changed the whole course of Joe's (Cage) existence. Why? Kong, his sidekick/errand boy is a little smart-mouth dickhole who refers to him as a 'duck fucker' in the beginning. Entertaining? Yes. Endearing? No. He does stay relatively loyal though to his credit. Just because this ballbag Kong endorses some politician it reverses Joe's whole justification process for taking people out? He kills his assistant in the beginning of this movie and he seemed like a nicer dude than this Kong fucker.
As for the deaf mute but cute girl he picks up in the pharmacy? Come on, man. You can do better than that Cagey boy. To this minute I can't rationalize the pairing of these two. Romance had no place in this story especially when it is this weak. It was as tedious and soft as watching paint dry on a baby's ass. Not that I would I would ever paint a baby's ass. What kind of freak do you people take me for?
To be honest there's not much of a story and I was extremely disappointed that the grittiness of Bangkok was not represented at all within the storyline. I haven't seen the original version but I can assume from watching this movie that it's just another example of a crappy hollywood (not going to capital the 'h' as they don't deserve it in this case) adaptaion. It could have been way edgier and wasn't. Cage just does not do a good anti-hero for me. Bad Pang brothers.. Go sit in the corner.
The Action
I haven't seen the 99 version the Pang Brothers made but I can only assume it was better than this pissy hollywood remake. There is nothing original here. A little slo-mo here a bit a double hand-gun action there.. It borrows slightly from John Woo but I imagine even the great man himself would chortle quite audibly if he were to read that.
The other thing is that no amount of slo-mo in this film can cover up for he fact that Cage is obviously out of shape in this movie. He's just not atheltic. We know that about him. He mopes around the whole time looking completely spent. They should have spent that money getting Tony Jaa - then they may have had a winner on their hands. Not much dialog they would have had to dub in and the action would have been 20 times better even if Tony was only half at his best.
Bangkok
I love it in Bangkok. I have to admit that the short bits of footage they filmed inside the Caribbean Club are accurate and represent a Bangkok bar fairly accurately. It's just a shame that the scumbags in Bangkok were not. They look gay at best. Especially the fool with blonde hair - I was pleasantly surprised to see him exploded in half with a grenade nearing the end of the film, even if I have no idea where our anti-hero Joe pulled it from. His bunghole maybe? It's dark in that scene so maybe he actually did that. Luckily the pin was not dislodged before he needed to use it..
The Ending
I'm not that hard to entertain when it comes to action. This movie - albeit shithouse - was a pass for me in regards to the action. It was no 'Die Hard' or 'Starship Troopers' but it wasn't as bad as 'The Marine' (John Cena) or anything Dolph Lundgren has been in either. Until the conclusion of the movie.
Let me set it up for you. The hero has rescued his errand boy Kong and his girlfriend. He then caps the driver of the enemy leader Surat's Mercedes Benz with what i assume is his second last round of ammunition. Surat cowers in the back seat and peaks outside the door of the car to see Joe in customary action-stance at the end of the alley. Before he can get his head back inside the door and grab the discarded pistol on the floor of the car Joe is at the door climbing into the back seat with Surat looking the same way he started the movie. Completely tired and physically spent. All the commotion in the back seat has enabled the dead guy in the front to depress the accelerator (while DEAD! The guy is dead but he is still acting as the driver) of the Benz enough so the car begins to move in a straight line forward to where everyone is waiting for our anti-hero to shed the anti and become just plain hero. Kong, the cops, everyone.
Then it dawns on Joe. The cops here probably aren't gonna be too happy with me here. What if I give Surat a big hug, press our heads together and use my last round of ammo to finish us both off. Yeah - that's it. Suicide plus job complete. Make sense so..
Did he feel so bad about killing people for money that the guilt finally got to him? Maybe they just had no more script. Or maybe, just maybe.. Cage saw a preview of the final edit of this film..
I went to see Alice in Wonderland because, to be honest, my expectations were so low that I figured it would have to pleasantly surprise me. Well, that, and my girlfriend wanted to see it. The relationship is new and I'm a bit whipped, so I didn't insist on seeing Hot Tub Time Machine like I really wanted.