This movie has several big shootouts, an SUV vs. jet vs. building chase/gun battle, and an incredible high speed boat chase that includes some done-for-real crashes and explosions shot just as beautifully as they’d be now when carefully faked frame-by-frame in a computer. It also has some high quality acting by Nic Cage, of both the regular and mega varieties, as he plays the bad guy and the good guy pretending to be the bad guy and especially when he’s playing the good guy inside the bad guy trying to explain that he’s really the good guy. And it has big absurd sci-fi concepts made even more far-fetched by Woo changing a futuristic sci-fi script to present day 1997. But despite all this Woo’s main interest is in the characters, their relationships and unexpected turns, the bad things the hero does and the good ones the villain does.

Holy shit, this movie really does have everything, doesn’t it? If you start naming random things most of them will be in it. Margaret Cho as a government agent? Yes.  CCH Pounder burned alive? Check. Little bowl-cutted moppet shot dead on a merry-go-round? Yep. Nic Cage dressed as a priest doing Mick Jagger poses at the L.A. Convention Center? You bet. How ’bout him just beating the shit out of one of the kids from That ’70s Show? You got it, pal. Joe Bob Briggs cameo? Uh huh. Barefoot waterskiing in a suit and tie? Of course.

In the beginning it’s Travolta vs. Cage. Travolta plays Sean Archer, covert counter-terrorism task force supercop. Cage is Castor Troy, insane terrorist-for-hire who killed Archer’s son six years ago and now is dressed as a priest and groping choir girls shortly after planting a bomb. Soon Castor ends up in a coma and the authorities decide that the only way to find out where the bomb is before it goes off is to transplant Castor’s face onto Sean and have him go undercover in prison with Castor’s awkward weapons-designer brother Pollux (Allesandro Nivola). Good plan, right? Unfortunately Castor wakes up, forces the doctors to give him Sean’s face (I mean, it was just sitting there) and kills everybody who knows about the operation.

So I guess come to think of it this is John Woo’s version of one of those body switching comedies like FREAKY FRIDAY or LIKE FATHER LIKE SON. The terrorist is in the cop’s body, pretending he’s trying to bust himself, having fun sexing up his enemy’s wife (Joan Allen) complete with a huge but not quite DESPERADO number of candles. (Romantic dudes in movies always light like 150 candles before fucking.) He also pays more attention to Archer’s daughter, although in a sleazy uncle kind of way, smoking with her, giving her a butterfly knife, beating up the boy (Danny Masterson) who doesn’t understand that no means no. That last one seems a little hypocritical considering how many women Castor sexually harasses in this movie, but I guess in his defense they do seem to succumb to his evil charms, not actively fight him off like this girl does to this kid.

Meanwhile Archer is a cop in a criminal’s body, so he gets to do fun stuff like rot away in a high tech prison, talk to Thomas Jane, etc. Once he gets out his only possibility really is to pretend he’s Castor Troy and go gunning for fake Sean Archer. He teams up with the director of THE NOTEBOOK and with Gina Gershon reprising her RED HEAT/OUT FOR JUSTICE role of Tough But Nice Girl Affiliated With Villain Who Doesn’t Deserve the Treatment She Receives From the Cop Protagonist. She’s the real Castor Troy’s girlfriend, but not close enough for him to tell her about the body switch. So Archer-as-Troy has to improve their relationship just as Troy-as-Archer is improving his marriage.

There’s always this tension like Archer might be found out while he’s undercover, and Pollux Troy keeps giving him suspicious looks. But I don’t really get that because he’s not Darkman, his skin’s not gonna melt soon. Is there really some danger of Pollux thinking “My brother’s been acting strange since he woke up out of his coma. I bet he’s not my brother at all but in fact a cop whose had my brother’s face transplanted over a high tech mask, had his body and hair surgically altered and a microchip implanted in his vocal chords to re-create his voice”? No, I don’t think he’s gonna think of that one. So the implausibility of the whole thing makes the secret more plausible.

Alot of this is about putting people in awkward situations. Archer-as-Castor has to protect the kid he threatened to get taken away from Gershon. Troy-as-Archer has to visit the grave of the son he murdered, or accept condolences for the deaths of people he killed. Also a doctor at the end has to talk to Archer about his original body’s bullet scar without saying “I have no idea what you’re talking about – remember, the original doctor who did the surgery got burned alive along with your best friend Tito.”

So it’s larger-than-life characters shrunk down to regular life-size by being given human flaws and strengths. The terrorist pays more attention to Archer’s wife and daughter than he does, but the cop pays more attention to Troy’s girlfriend and son than he does. (In fact, the real terrorist doesn’t know it’s his son, only the impostor knows). Troy gets colleagues killed but he’s way more fun around the office. They switch bodies, lives and sons. They’re the same! Like a John Woo movie.

That might not be enough substance to power a low budget drama, but combined with top notch (and comprehensible, which was expected back then) action and style it’s pretty potent. Woo does all those things people started making fun of him for: double-pistoled side leaps, Mexican standoffs, birds (this time it’s pigeons and seagulls) flying during a shootout in a church, slow motion hero shots of dudes with sunglasses and long black coats blowing around in the wind, nice suits for all men. It’s probly Woo’s nicest looking photography because it’s the look he was using at his peak but when he could afford better lighting and film stock.

Other people were imitating his style back then, but nobody could fake his tastes. I don’t think another director would’ve insisted on Joan Allen to play the wife, or if they did I don’t think they would’ve done a leering shot of her butt. Or what about the scene where Gina Gershon’s son is caught in the middle of a gunfight and the best Gershon and Nick Cassavetes can come up with to protect him is to put headphones on him, so he watches a bloodbath while listening to a cover of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”? I’m not sure it’ll cut down on the therapy he’ll need in later years, but it does make for a distinctive shootout.

Then of course there’s the unmistakable Nic Cage touch. This is probly in my top 5 favorite unCaged performances under BAD LIEUTENANT, MATCHSTICK MEN and VAMPIRE’S KISS because he does some really emotional scenes as Archer but also gets to go full-on Mega for Castor Troy, and even gets to be Archer trying to go Mega to pass himself off as Troy. He’s a cool iconic character because he has two beautiful gold and black guns with dragons on the handles, and I’m guessing it was Cage’s idea that the case he keeps them in is always stocked with a pack of Chiclets.

Travolta is also fun in the movie, going mega because he’s imitating Cage. I’m sure they worked together to come up with how the character should act, but it’s the Cage characteristics that are most noticeable. When Travolta takes off his coat, carefully folds it up while prancing around as a pre-bomb-defusing ritual you definitely gotta be reminded of Cage. I wish Travolta would’ve tried some of those silent film monster facial expressions though, that would’ve been funny.

Two random things that make me laugh in this movie:

1. At the end the daughter, whose father doesn’t really understand her or pay enough attention to her, switches back to normal hair and makeup, as if she now agrees with the blaming-the-victim statement  “you dress up like it’s Halloween and ghouls will try to get down your pants.” What are you doing there, John Woo?

2. It seems to me like they really don’t need to do the hair at the same time as the facial surgery. I mean, I know they’re in a hurry, but I just think it would be better to have a stylist take care of hair dos after the surgery is complete.

FACE/OFF is as schizophrenic and mixed up as its characters. It’s a silly action movie but also a 138 minute straight-faced melodrama. It expects its audience to care about adult relationships and emotions but also to accept this ridiculous bodyswitching technology and superhuman gun and stunt skills. I can see why it might be too crazy for some people, but for me it’s just right. The act of making FACE/OFF probly blew out all of Woo’s filmmaking fuses, but at least we got this one last distinctive John Woo movie.

So this isn’t just a big nerd who’s taking a celebrity crush a little too far. He’s literally one of those weirdos (or “wackadoos” as he would say) who you read little blurbs about in the newspaper and get creeped out. This movie is amazing because it peers into the life of this guy and makes him sympathetic.

At first Jeff doesn’t seem crazy. He just seems like one of those old retired guys who talks too damn much. He says he has Asperger’s Syndrome, and that’s why he’ll go up to strangers and tell them in detail about “a bunch of lesbians” climbing on stage the last time Tiffany played the Santa Cruz boardwalk and what the security guards did about it, or hold up a musical performance at church to tell the guitar player about his experiences at a nude model autograph show and how everyone there was filled with Christ’s love. He’s the type of guy who will laugh about not being one of those weirdos asking for a lock of hair, a fingernail or a scab moments before admitting that he might actually do that but just hasn’t gotten around to it yet. But he’s not some freaky Jeffrey Dahmer or Charles Manson type. If there was a movie about Jeff he’d have to be played by Fred Willard – he’s exactly that type of friendly, outgoing, corny guy, sharing too much information but with enthusiasm and a big laugh that’s contagious. And that makes it even more uncomfortable when you’re laughing with him and then he starts talking about his friendship with Tiffany or that he prays for her husband or whatever.

Kelly hasn’t gotten as close to Tiffany, she hasn’t gotten arrested for her or tried to give her a deadly weapon. But honestly she seems like more of a mess than Jeff. She looks like a transexual, but claims to be a hermaphrodite who identifies as a woman, and she’s not really good at passing so she obviously has some trouble fitting in. She says when she was a teenager she had a bicycle accident that put her in a coma, and when she woke up the first thing she heard was a song from Tiffany. She hadn’t heard of Tiffany before but had her sister bring her a photo and ever since then has felt she was meant to be with her. Luckily she hasn’t showed up at Tiffany’s house or anything, but she does seem very serious about this and gets real emotional talking about it.

Both Jeff and Kelly have friends who talk to the cameras and vouch for them as being good people. Jeff, for example, has a friend who also has Asberger’s Syndrome, he admits that Jeff is eccentric but talks about what a good friend he is to anyone and how he’s always positive and makes you feel good about yourself. And that really comes through in the movie, you can definitely see that, he seems like a really nice and funny guy.

Then the friend starts saying crazy shit and you think whoah, wait a minute, weren’t you supposed to be the normal person vouching for this guy? They’re both into Tesla and shit, and Jeff shows us his helmet that’s specially tuned for him to, you know, communicate with Tiffany spiritually, even more than he normally does due to the connection he already has with her. (It’s worse if you watch the deleted scenes, which reveal that Jeff’s friend believes Jeff and Tiffany were arranged to marry each other by distant Lebanese cousins but that Tiffany’s parents pulled out of the deal because they thought Jeff wasn’t successful enough and that’s why he’s still stuck on her.)

Then, part way through the movie, Jeff and Kelly meet, and they take a trip to Vegas together to see Tiffany at a casino. Kelly is at a really low moment in her life and it makes you appreciate Jeff more to see how nice and encouraging he is to her. She’s really just such a bummer to be around, but he stays upbeat and tries to get her spirits up. It seems like when he just talked to her on the phone he might’ve hoped he was gonna get lucky, and was disappointed to see that she’s kind of like a dude. (He calls her a “him” because “when you’re dealing with a hermaphrodite you get to choose.”) But he also seems immediately accepting of her, and his sweetness and craziness are combined when he tells her he’s going to talk to put in a good word for her with Tiffany’s people.

There are three or four scenes in the movie where Jeff sees Tiffany face to face and talks to her, and more than once I had to cover my eyes. This is an incredibly uncomfortable movie at times – it honestly made me cringe alot more than HUMAN CENTIPEDE did. But it really shows you the tragedy of the situation. These two are obviously mentally ill and have had problems going back to at least their relationships with their Vietnam vet fathers. They’re lonely and confused and they’re gonna fixate on something, and for both of them it happened to be this red-headed girl going around singing in malls in the late ’80s. They called that music “bubble gum” because it was inconsequential, pre-packaged, designed for kids, nothing but air in the middle. But to these two troubled individuals she represented something more important than anything else in the world, and that’s kind of freaky. I honestly believe that both of them are harmless, but then again I could be wrong. Anybody in Tiffany’s situation would be wise to get the fuck out of there just to be safe. I kind of wish she had kept the samurai sword for protection. And also because it would look cool if she was singing at casinos with a sword on her back. Jeff might’ve had the right idea about that, I’m starting to see what he was going for with that. Anyway there’s one scene where Kelly gets really pissed off that nobody seems to be living in this same reality where she’s destined to be with Tiffany, and she really seems pretty scary for a minute there.

Believe it or not I actually kind of know a guy who gets similarly obsessed with young female singers. He’s more obviously mentally impaired than these guys and he’s very childlike. He’s just kind of a goofball when you’re talking to him but he always knows how to throw you a curveball to make you squirm, like asking you why the security for the Indigo Girls are so rude. Every time to talk to him you find some new piece of strangeness going on in his head, like for example he wants Elvis to use karate on his dad and he holds a violent grudge against a guy who played a saxophone solo he hated at a Gordon Lightfoot concert in the ’70s. But the more you talk to him the more you see that he’s just a big baby who doesn’t know any better. You become protective of him, you worry that other people see what a big weirdo he is but don’t see that he means well. If he got busted trying to give a samurai sword to Jewel I’d think oh, you guys don’t understand, he’s not gonna do anything. But I’m sure somebody thought that about other stalkers that really did snap. You really don’t know if they’re, like DMX said, gonna lose their minds up in here up in here.

But it’s not just a scary movie. It’s sweet too. Jeff and Kelly somehow manage to talk to Tiffany after the show and get their pictures taken, and for Kelly it’s like a religious experience. It really seems like these two nutballs are gonna help each other out, as Kelly seems almost ready to accept kissing Tiffany on the cheek as good enough and Jeff raves about her non-judgmental love like she’s Jesus. And I started to almost believe that as long as they kept their distance this might be a good thing, that a little gesture from this poor lady could bring such profound joy to their broken lives. But of course it’s not gonna work out. Jeff goes into another one of his stories about “I remember the first time Tiffany reached out and kissed me on the cheek in front of over five hundred people” blah blah blah and Kelly gets jealous and snaps at him. I guess you can’t always expect two insane people to have a healthy friendship.

I believe this movie is sincerely meant as a humanizing portrait and not a freak show. I do think there’s one scene that probly should’ve been cut out. After a long intro where Kelly talks about her life being based around running and athletics she does a demonstration of her running skills that’s straight out of NAPOLEON DYNAMITE or something, and you realize she’s not good at the one thing she thinks she’s good at. I mean, it’s funny, but I don’t see any reason to put it in there other than to laugh at or be freaked out by her. So that was a little mean. You could make the same argument for the scene where she does a terrible impression of Hans and Franz from Saturday Night Live, but at least that scene shows that she can laugh and have fun and not just mope like she does in most of the movie. It made me uncomfortable but kind of made me like her more too.

There’s alot that’s mysterious about the movie. There are two commentary tracks on the DVD, but one is Jeff and one is Kelly, there’s nothing from the filmatists. So I’m not sure how they found out about these people, if hooking up Jeff and Kelly was completely their doing, or most importantly what Tiffany thinks of all this. Does she not realize this is the guy who tried to give her the sword that she had the restraining order against? Does she realize it and just try to get through these encounters? Or has she decided he’s harmless and learned to just deal with him? I have no idea.

But whatever exactly is going on I thought it was fascinating to watch and it brought me through the gamut of emotions. It’s interesting people in a world I never knew existed. It even has some nice looking digital photography, they’ve gotten much better with that these days. That adds up to good hour long documentary.

I gotta say though (SPOILER) the ending is a bit of a downer. Fuckin weirdo Jeff fakes you out by saying all this stuff like he’s realized the error of his ways, then you find out he’s just starting over with a new obsession. Hint #1: if you look his name up on Google you can find out which celebrity has a restraining order against him now. Hint #2: He doesn’t seem to understand why it’s weird for him to send Alyssa Milano’s parents a card for their 40th wedding anniversary.

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Why not a trailer?

By the way, I should mention that this is not very faithful to the video game at all. There’s no mushroom or spider or anything. But I guess it’s supposed to be kind of an updated version.

The movie opens with a man parked on the side of a road fondling a strange photograph. A truck driver pulls over behind him and goes into the woods to take a shit. The first guy, a nicely dressed older gentleman, kind of an Udo Kier type, follows the truck driver and shoots him, and it cuts to the title. The scariest part of the title is the “(FIRST SEQUENCE).” The guy says it in the movie too, and I don’t know exactly what it means, but it implies they want to make a whole series of these fuckin things. Could be the new SAW or STEP UP.

I liked going into this movie not knowing much about it, because it kept me completely off balance. It takes place in a nondescript area, some trees, a couple roads, one house, could be just about anywhere, and I was surprised to find out it was supposed to be Germany. The protagonists are two American girls who don’t speak or understand German and a Japanese guy who only speaks Japanese, so nobody else knows what he’s saying (except us, using the power of subtitles). On the credits you see names like “Dieter Laser” (the star), “Tom Six” (the director) and “Holeg Spies” (music) and you wonder if these are even real names or if nobody wanted to take credit for this.

But it’s well made, shot like a real movie, and actually not very graphic at all if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s only incredibly god damn disgusting in what it makes you think about, not what it shows. I’m sure soon enough this will seem like a tame idea and there will be jokes about it on all children’s cartoons, but right now the idea of (HERE IS THE SPOILER) having your mouth sewn to some guy’s ass and forced to swallow his shit and then shit that out into somebody else’s mouth is considered a little bit, you know, unrefined. Indelicate.

The Human Centipede character is going to be a fucking phenomenon – expect dozens of ass-to-mouth-to-ass-to-mouth costumes at next year’s Comics Con. Expect a hundred cuddly stuffed critters and collectable action dolls. In fact Human Centipeding will probly become a common fun activity for youths like flash mobs, streaking or parkour.

So okay, these American tourist club girls get a flat tire and find themselves knocking on the absolute worst door looking for help. I mean really, if you think about it they very well could’ve knocked on the door of another psychotic doctor who drugs and tortures them, at least chances are in favor of the guy torturing them in some old fashioned way that’s not nearly as bad as this human centipede business. So this is just some really, really, really, really, really bad on luck on the part of these poor girls. Before the shit goes down they seem kind of stupid and whiny, like the type of characters normally associated with bad horror movies, but even though I don’t relate to them I immediately feel bad for them when they get in this situation.

In fact this is the rare horror movie where you’re feeling bad not just for the characters but also the actors for having to crawl around with a harness attached their face near somebody else’s ass. They have bandages to cover it up so I’m sure they’re not really smelling the ass, but it couldn’t have been fun, in my opinion.

I think the sickest aspect of the movie though is that it kind of makes you want to see how this whole human centipede thing is gonna work. Once the doctor has revealed his plans (in fact he draws out a diagram and explains to the victims what he’s about to do to them and how beautiful it’s gonna be) one of the girls escapes and there’s your usual slasher movie type cat and mouse chase. Normally what makes a sequence like that work is that you want to see the girl escape, you’re rooting for her. But in this movie you’re torn between “jeez, I hope she gets away” and “well, if they’re gonna make a movie about this idea they better have the balls to actually do it.” I mean don’t get me wrong, in my personal opinion this experiment has no scientific validity. But it would be kind of pointless to make a human centipede movie without a human centipede. And the movie made me feel bad for realizing that.

Don’t worry though, it’s all in fun. I mean that honestly. As much as this is based on a foul and cruel idea it’s not as far as I can tell one of those pretentious ones that thinks it’s showing the world some tough love by rubbing their nose in the ugliness. It actually has a very dry, very dark sense of humor I think. It’s not played for laughs but this guy’s particular brand of evil is so absurd that there is some humor in stumbling across it. Or at least it’s funny to see him carry an unconscious man and a rifle from the car to the house awkwardly like he’s trying to carry too many groceries at once.

I thought Dieter Laser was very good. I think I’ve heard people say he was too over-the-top evil, but I don’t agree with that. I mean yeah, maybe he’s over-the-top evil in the sense that if he was your neighbor you might say “that guy creeps me out, he seems like some Nazi doctor or something,” but you wouldn’t believe that to be literally true. He just seems like a weird unfriendly guy. He’s mostly very quiet and only very occasionally gets worked up into hysterics and evil giggling. I buy it.

The character says that he’s an expert at separating Siamese twins, so you realize he gives those DEAD RINGERS twins a run for their money in the freaky fuckin weirdo department, and that’s saying something. I wonder if they met on a separating Siamese twins chat room or convention somewhere if they would get along. I think they probly wouldn’t. They’d probly be intensely jealous of each other, be completely hypercritical of each other’s work and become bitter rivals. They’d call each other hacks, charlatans and posers.

It’s not as menacing as it probly sounds. It reminds me of something Stuart Gordon would do, although he’d probly put some gore in it. I mean, no offense to Stuart Gordon, I’m not trying to say that he would think about sewing mouths to butts. But if he did think of that, or if somebody else gave him a script about that or whatever, maybe he would’ve made a movie kind of like this. I’m sorry Stuart Gordon. I didn’t mean to implicate you in this. Never mind. Stuart Gordon had nothing to do with human centipedes. It’s not his style.

When I tell people I saw this they ask “Did you like it?,” which is a legitimate question. I’m not sure I got a legitimate answer though. I think I did kind of like it. It was interesting to watch and see what unfolded. I don’t regret it. But I would like it better if at the end they reared up like a horse and beat the shit out of him. That would be some freaky ass revenge right there.

I’m not looking forward to the second sequence unless they get a big budget from a studio and try to make it more mainstream accessible, like PHANTASM 2 or ARMY OF DARKNESS. I’m sure James LeGros would make a good centipedologist.

"I can give a shit about clones!"

SHADOW FURY is a cheap-ass 2001 sci-fi action movie about clones. It has one of those inexcusable keyboard-pretending-to-be-an-orchestra scores and the acting and dialogue are at higher cheesiness levels than I’ll usually put up with, i.e. worse than a SCANNERS sequel. But I really liked this movie because it rarely goes more than a couple minutes without a really cool action scene, a clever concept or a (usually unintentional) laugh. It has a similar energy to an early Isaac Florentine, so it fits that the director, Makoto Yokoyama, did second unit and stunts for the Power Rangers. An IMDb search finds 7 specific episodes directed by Florentine with Yokoyama on 2nd unit. So let’s call him the 2nd unit Florentine.

Although not on the level of BEST OF THE BEST 2 I consider this a real good find, and movies like this are the reason why I keep giving a shot to seemingly hopeless cases. The American DVD cover is so lame I didn’t even want to include it with this review, and since it’s not a book I was happy to judge it by its cover. I figured it was most likely unwatchable (I’ll explain later why I sought it out), so I was pleasantly surprised by the great opening ninja-assassination. The ninja (who we later learn is a clone made by feudal-Japan-obsessed mad scientist Pat Morita to kill rival scientists) jumps on top of a moving car, stabs his sword through the roof into the driver, causing the car to crash, sending him flying but then he somersaults smoothly onto his feet and of course does an awesome unflinching walk away as the car explodes behind him. Cut to the title. It would be an OUT FOR JUSTICE level opening for the record books if not for the shitty title font and keyboard soundtrack. Where is the RZA when you need him to re-score a movie?

Right away you notice this is not some generic throwaway ninja. He’s unmasked and has a striking screen presence. I figured he was a famous Japanese actor, but the Wikipedia tells me Masakatsu Funaki is the co-founder of Pancrase (a Japanese mixed martial arts competition where Ken Shamrock and others did their “shootfighting” before the UFC existed) and considered one of the greatest mixed martial artists of all time. And when we meet our main character Mitch Madsen, played by Sam Bottoms (MERCENARY II: THICK AND THIN, SHERRYBABY) it definitely seems like this is gonna be one of those movies where you root for the villain more than the hero.

Madsen is a washed up alcoholic mercenary who receives a letter saying he can’t get the liver transplant he needs, then moments later a creepy bald giant in a suit and sunglasses shows up at his door talking about a clone research firm hiring him for a job. Madsen must be hard up for work, because after baldie falls into a pit and starts his pitch over verbatim like a skipping record it cuts to the two in a car together. For me personally if I catch somebody in a boobytrap and find out they’re some kind of a clone or robot I usually don’t accept their job offer. But that might be kind of prejudiced, I’m not sure. It’s how I was raised. This is supposed to be in the near future, maybe Madsen is of a more enlightened generation I guess.

So he’s hired by a team of clone researchers who are being targeted by ex-colleague Morita and his pet ninja clone. Once Madsen gets almost killed by the ninja he’s ready to give the gig up, but they promise if he kills the ninja they’ll let him keep the liver. They’ll even throw in the transplant operation, they’re all surgeons and they like doing favors like that for people. Not a bad deal.

Madsen is a really funny character because he’s so much less awesome than he’s obviously trying to be. He has lines like “Great town. Shit town,” and “Waddya say, killer? Time to boogie?,” and he grunts them in a forced Clint Eastwood one-liner type of voice. When he first faces the ninja he somehow knows his name is Takeru, but says, “Bring it on Tocca-roo. I’m right here, baby.”

He’s the type of guy who addresses male scientists as “Doc” and female ones as “Dollface.” He also tries to define himself as someone who prefers something other than what is being discussed at the moment. For example when the scientists show him a cloned chicken he says, “More of a steak man, myself,” and when they tell him the ninja has a sword he says, “I prefer guns myself.” His hair looks like a comfortable home for a rat, and he does kind of seem like he’s been through the ringer a couple times, but he still comes off like a poser because he places way too much faith in the grittiness of of the phrase “god damn.” He talks about a “god damn killing machine” more than once, as well as a “god damn monster” and a “god damn merchant of destruction” and “your god damn weapons.” When (SPOILER) the ninja offers him his liver Madsen says, “I don’t want your god damn liver. I want your help. I wanna take Hillier down – and that god damn killing clone!”

And why does he want to do that? Well, because “It’s god damn justice!”

He makes it sound so corny I might have to swear off using the Lord’s name in vain. I prefer “motherfuckin” myself.

On the other hand this guy has a legitimately cool set-up when it comes to weaponry. When Pat Morita (who by the way has his hair sticking about a foot straight out from the back of his head, and only appears in a few scenes) steals Madsen’s gun, Madsen pulls out a detonator and blows it up in his hand. Later Madsen is at a bar tended by Fred Williamson and asks for “something stronger,” at which point Fred brings him into a back room and shows him a bunch of high tech weaponry. In other words The Hammer is both his bartender and his Q.

But meanwhile Takeru the god damn killing clone has a subplot that slowly takes over the movie. First there’s what could be a throwaway joke where a hooker is pulling on a thread hanging off her stockings and he cuts it for her with his sword. Later the same hooker (named Sasha and played by Cassandra Grae) takes him in and gives him stitches (she is highly skilled so I hope she gets good tips), and he ends up beating up her pimp and taking her with him.

I know wire work is considered as out of fashion as Zubaz pants in the 2000s, but I don’t got a problem with it and I like how they use it in this one. There’s a great shot of Takeru holding the hooker, jumping out a third story window and landing gently on his feet in front of a bunch of witnesses. Usually he’s not the one hooked to the wires, though. They use them to give him super powered strikes, making his targets fly against a wall or flip through the air.

Sasha is one of the least convincing street people you can imagine, she’s just way too soft and clean. She looks like a pretty kindergarten teacher, not a troubled individual whose traumatic past and current addictions have forced her to degrade herself. On the other hand she does have nipple rings. But I was glad they didn’t give her some silly backstory to explain why she was a ho, like she needed the money to buy new reading books for her kindergarteners or whatever. She’s a real nice lady who tries to teach Takeru not to be a killer despite his “obedience string,” something that is quite compelling to him even if it doesn’t do him on the roof like Sasha does.

This storyline reminds me alot of UNIVERSAL SOLDIER, and there’s another thing that’s just like UNIVERSAL SOLDIER III: UNFINISHED BUSINESS where one of the scientists is developing a cloned super-warrior by combing genetic profiles of various types of soldiers and athletes. An ultimate fighter, if you will. He starts out as a little kid who can beat up the old bald giant. At the end of the movie he matures into famous mixed martial artist Bas Rutten.

CHAPTER 2

This brings me to why I watched this movie. Some people have an addictive personality in their genetics, and they just gotta realize it. My friends, I am confessing to you that I have recently developed an MMA problem. This is not something that’s been going on for very long. I mean I’ve experimented before, I’ve dabble recreationally, which is not a good idea for someone like me.

During my pre-Expendables  marathon I checked out a couple Randy Couture fights. And I had just seen PREDATORS so I found a couple Oleg Taktarovs too. I’d also just seen THE A-TEAM so I watched some Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. And I saw an Andrei Arlovsky on one of the DVDs, that’s the guy from UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: REGENERATION. And a couple Gina Caranos to get ready for HAYWIRE. You can see how this just snowballs out of control, man. I started to get a taste for it, I started to enjoy the spectacle of it and become interested in the evolution of this type of fighting, from the early days when nobody knew what would happen if you had boxers and karate experts and sumo wrestlers fighting each other.

I watched the early UFC VHSs, when it was still a tournament, like in the movies. The winner had to win 3 grueling fights in one day. There were no weight classes, and not many rules. You were allowed to head butt. You were allowed to pull hair. Action movie fans are always speculating about who could beat up who, and these tournaments actually gave us some insight. It turns out a regular sized kickboxer really could beat up a 6′ 8″ 650+ pound sumo champion if he got behind him and kept punching him in the back of the head. But he’d break his hand doing it and have to drop out of the tournament.

What I don’t think they expected back then was how the fighters would learn from each other’s styles and have to completely change their approach in order to compete. At first it was the grapplers who dominated, especially Brazilian Jiujitsu fighter Royce Gracie (whose brother started UFC, but I think he would’ve won anyway). A knockout punch or kick is great, but it’s hard to get one in before this guy gets you to the ground and chokes you or nearly snaps your arm or leg. So the punchers and kickers had to learn how to grapple, which forced the grapplers to learn how to punch and kick, creating a whole new class of fighter, not as powerful as the god damn killing clone, but pretty god damn powerful.

Well I was at a place in my life where I was vulnerable so I ended up binging on UFCs, a little bit of EliteXC, and I knew I was in deep when I rented the box set of Pride FC 1-5. Pride is some Japanese shit, started by a pro-wrestler because he wanted to fight a Gracie. He did and got his ass kicked. In later ones he got better and even had me jumping out of my seat in shock when he beat Mark “The Hammer” Coleman, but the internet tells me those fights were fixed. And now I understand REDBELT a little better.

The rules of these early Pride competitions are weird and lead to some bizarrely bad fights. They use a regular boxing or pro wrestling type of ring, but they’re not allowed to grab onto the ropes. And of course people do it anyway and they’re not disqualified, so it just seems like a bad idea to have the ropes at all. The strangest part is when the fighters wrestle and go too far under the ropes. They have to hold that pose while 3 or 4 officials lift them up and carry them to the middle of the ring! Mark Kerr (the guy from the John Hyams documentary THE SMASHING MACHINE) seems to have especially bad luck for weird fights. In his first Pride fight his opponent got disqualified before any fighting really happened, so Kerr took the microphone and humbly apologized to the crowd. In another one his opponent seemed scared and kept running out of the ring over and over again, like Andy Kaufman vs. Jerry Lawler.

And in those early days there were no time limits, just unlimited ten minute rounds, which leads to long, uneventful fights where both sides are just trying to outlast the other guy. The saving grace is the English language color commentary by two guys who are so unflinchingly honest and critical of the boring fights that I started to hope for bad matches just to see what they’d say. Sometimes they’ll say “Maybe it’s time to tell a joke,” or discuss a topic I have always wondered about myself: if the guy on the bottom ever considers tickling the guy on top to escape. I enjoyed their conversations so much I started to just leave the DVDs on in the background and not even watch the fights.

The commenters are “Fight Professor” Stephen Quadros, who trained DMX to fight for EXIT WOUNDS, but sounds so much like Anderson Cooper that I just picture that’s who I’m listening to. His partner is Bas Rutten, a tough as nails fighter I’ve seen on UFC and also in THE SMASHING MACHINE, and just made the connection that he was getting laughed at a while back when clips of his street fighting instructional video were on Youtube. He says he never did tickle a guy in a fight but did consider it. His combination of toughness and humor made me think he would make a good future Expendable.

Some people, especially in the smarmy non-action-fan movie writing circles, question why a Bas Rutten or a Randy Couture should go from fighting to being a movie star. What they’re not taking into account is that we who like these types of movies are open to, say, a bodybuilder turned star of many classic action movies. We’re fans of Seagal and Van Damme and people like that, whose reputations in the early days were based on legends of martial arts experience. Most of us didn’t really know what it meant to read that so-and-so was a third-degree black belt in such and such or champion of whatever kickboxing, but it sounded pretty badass when we read it somewhere, repeated from a press release.

These days it’s different, because that shit’s verifiable. There are numerous guys like Bas Rutten who have spent years in competitions not that much different from the fictional ones we saw in BLOODSPORT and KICKBOXER. And you can watch alot of it on DVD or youtube:

So although there hasn’t been a stand-out MMA-turned-actor vehicle yet I’m convinced there will be eventually, and Rutten would be one good candidate for it. In ‘04 he starred in THE ELIMINATOR, which looks pretty shitty and I couldn’t find it for rent anyway. His first IMDb credit is as “Kismet” in a ‘92 movie called SHADOW OF THE DRAGON (also an alternate title for this one). Although his SHADOW FURY character has the same name it doesn’t seem to be a sequel at all – no overlapping filmatists, characters or concepts. He just strikes people as a Kismet, I guess.

Well, SHADOW FURY doesn’t show us Rutten’s sense of humor. He just plays a terminator with no lines. He does get a good rematch against Funaki (who beat him in Pancrase), and also gets to shoot a chicken. But the jury’s still out on whether his unique appeal can translate to the big screen. Still, I’m glad he found an entertaining movie to be in. It’s definitely more exciting than that endless match between Dan Severn and Kimo.

EPILOGUE

So here I thought I discovered a good obscure chopsocky that nobody ever heard of, but when I went to find a picture for this review I typed “shadow fu” into Google Images and “shadow fury kismet” popped up as a popular search. I was surprised that other people were looking for pictures of Bas Rutten’s character in SHADOW FURY. Maybe they were trying to figure out this SHADOW OF THE DRAGON vs. SHADOW FURY business too.

But for some reason when you type that in you don’t get pictures of Bas Rutten, you get, uh… well, this is what I got. The shirtless meathead kid we all know from the ads for Twilight. At first I thought it was just one of those things, everything on the internet is about Twilight now, so no matter what you type into Google Images, whether it’s “banana cream pie recipe” or “carburetor choke” you’re gonna get a bunch of pictures of dudes from Twilight.

But then I realized oh, wait a minute. I knew there was something familiar about that squinty eyed little sprout doing the karate. The clone that grows up into Bas Rutten is that kid, Sharkboy. It’s his first movie. So my obscure Sam Bottoms vs. ninja clone movie is not actually as unknown as I thought it was, it’s one that all Twilight trekkies (or “Twikkies”) already know about. I bet this thing has taken on a whole new life, it probly rents and sells very well because of him, and I’m just the latest to jump on the bandwagon.

In the end, Mitch Madsen has gone through alot. We can tell, because he has a pony tail. He’s still pouring himself shots (at a ninja’s grave!) but he says “I still drink the good stuff. But I savor it.” I don’t know if I want to look at this dude as any sort of a role model, and my hair’s not long enough for a ponytail anyway. But if he’s genuinely got the drinking under control then good for him. I’m gonna have to start “savoring” some of this UFC so I can get some work done.

Although he’s calling himself James Otis and hiding behind a big pair of rock star shades, plenty of people he runs into during the movie will recognize him as Wild Bill Hickock, including his old friend One-Eye (Jack Warden) and that mean old General Custer (Ed Lauter, later reincarnated to hassle Bronson in BREAKHEART PASS, DEATH HUNT and DEATH WISH 3). Bill gets in a shootout and some other trouble (you know how wild that guy gets) but his business is to go up into the mountains with One-Eye and kill the white buffalo that’s been sighted over there. Only then can he get a healthy amount of rest without fear of sleep-shooting. (Seriously, it seems like a big problem of his. It happens again when he’s sleeping over with Kim Novak, he wakes up and shoots at her decorative fake buffalo head until she dumps a bucket of water on him and says he looks like he’s fighting the Apocalypse.)

Meanwhile another legendary historical figure, Crazy Horse (the Lakota war leader, not the Neil Young band), is having his own white buffalo problem, but a more serious one in my opinion because his is in the actual waking world. See, that white buffalo that people have been spotting pulls some running-of-the-bulls shit through the Oglala Lakota village, trampling a bunch of people, including Crazy Horse’s daughter. When he finds out she’s dead he lets out a cry that the elders or somebody declare makes him a sissy. They’re so embarrassed by this sound he made that they won’t let him use the name “Crazy Horse” anymore, and “James Otis” is already taken so they name him “Worm.” Pretty mean. It’s like how Dwayne Johnson wasn’t allowed to use the name “The Rock” in is early movies unless he gave Vince McMahon a producing credit.

That’s why Crazy Horse goes looking for that asshole honky buffalo. If he kills it he gets his name back. It’s a real mythical type of story and everything, but kind of weird that he’s avenging this beast not for killing his daughter but for causing him to make an effeminate noise. I guess it’s one of those cultural deals. It’s a Lakota thing, I wouldn’t understand. You had to be there.

Of course (SPOILER) these two white-buffalo-haters are gonna cross paths. It should be called OTIS AND THE WORM. They gain each other’s respect starting when Wild Bill comes across a bunch of Sioux or somebody shooting arrows at Crazy Horse. Bill’s sympathy for the underdog trumps his anti-Native bigotry, so he helps out. It’s not until later that they team up, and when they do don’t worry, it doesn’t turn into RUSH HOUR with them throwing a bunch of stereotypes at each other. I doubt the real Bill had a sense of honor that would cause him to be loyal to an Indian, but we all know Bronson would, so it makes a good story. They bond but they don’t become best buds for life. They argue about “red truth” vs. “white truth” and it seems a little tense. They can’t really let that baggage go, but at least they’re more enlightened than fuckin One-Eye. That guy needs to cool it.

The treatment of Native culture is more respectful than in many westerns. For one thing, Crazy Horse is played by Will Sampson (ORCA), not some white dude. And when Wild Bill comes across that Native-on-Native squabble they’re all yelling at each other in their own languages, and this goes on for a while, no subtitles. When Bill talks to Crazy Horse they do use simplified English, but combined with sign language and with Bill trying to show respect by using Native concepts, like he keeps asking him to “step into my council,” whatever that means.

I also dig all the cowboy lingo in the script, they got some good ones. For example they barely ever use the word “buffalo,” instead calling it a “spike.” I never knew that word before but I intend to slip it organically into any future buffalo-related conversations I have. It might sound naive but I really think with the kind of influence I have here I might really be able to help that word make a comeback, as long as I figure out how to get young people talking about buffaloes.

I like the movie for the drama, the relationships between the three main characters, but it doesn’t hurt that there’s a little bit of a monster movie in there too. I mean, don’t let that poster up top get you too excited, that painting there is a load of spike shit. It’s much more like this Japanese one to the left here, except not giant. Still, it’s a Dino De Laurentiis joint, so he did get his boy Carlo Rambaldi (the guy who built ’70s King Kong, the Alien with the mouth piece that comes out and E.T.) to build the galloping animatronic buffalo that they could shoot to make it look like it’s running around. You can tell that the movements are limited by the way they keep using the same type of shots, but it’s still pretty cool and never resorts to stock footage of real buffaloes.

The director is J. Lee Thompson (THE GUNS OF THE NAVARONE, CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, THE EVIL THAT MEN DO), the script is by Richard Sale, based on his novel. He also produced and wrote Mr. Belvedere – not the show you remember, but two of the movies from the 1940s as well as the 1965 TV series starring Victor Borge. I mention that in case any of you guys do pub trivia, maybe that will come up some time. Good luck.

This is a strange western, I like the vibe it’s got going and I enjoyed following Charles Bronson on this adventure.

p.s. Something something Moby Dick

This is the second movie starring the thrilling new Thai martial artist JeeJa Yanin (that’s how some places spell it, but as you can see the DVD spells it “JiJa.” I guess she’s still in her Michelle Khan/Michelle Yeoh confusion stage). In CHOCOLATE she played autistic – “a special needs girl with a special need for kicking ass” – here she gets to be more cool and charming. But she also cries alot. There’s alot of the trademark Thai jarring-shift-to-melodrama, but to me some of it was actually pretty effective, like when she looks up at the sky and talks to her dad. (Don’t worry, the clouds don’t form into his face like in THE LION KING. Unless his face just looked like a cloud.)

The new fighting style they introduce is fun to watch. It also incorporates an occasional breakdancing move, with no explanation as far as I noticed. Obviously she looks up to Tony Jaa, but some scenes reminded me of things Jackie Chan would’ve done in the old days. Of course there’s the DRUNKEN MASTER parallels, but the main one for me was a really clever scene before they teach her how to fight. The guys stand behind her and kick the back of her legs so she’ll kick the bad guys, or pick her up and swing her around so she hits people. Basically puppeteering her. Probly my favorite scene.

The story has alot more going on than CHOCOLATE, and it’s alot weirder. There are scenes of “sniffers” going around inhaling digital odor vapors – take that, THE MATRIX. There’s a female bodybuilder villain. There’s a scene where JiJa’s stuck hanging upside down, wrapped in saran wrap. And that thing with the pogo stick legs is never explained or mentioned again after it happens. Maybe that’s just something that happens in Thailand.

Like DRUNKEN MASTER this movie makes light of the act of heavy drinking, and never deals with realistic consequences for a skinny young girl getting hammered every day, unless you count almost getting kidnapped as a metaphor for date rape, and losing in fights symbolic of liver damage and blood alcohol poisoning. But they do have a pretty cool mythic touch – in order to master this style you have to be miserable. You drink because of your problems and channel your troubles into your fighting. She’s had a tragic life and she can use that to fight the good fight or she can let bad people take advantage of it by stealing her tears. She even has a love she knows is pure because it’s destined to be unfulfilled. She loves this guy whose mission is to rescue the love of his life. His love for this other girl makes her love him even more. Throw some Danny Elfman on there and sell this at Hot Topic. (That’s a new catchphrase I’m trying to popularize so I can put it on bootleg t-shirts. “I See Dead People” hasn’t been moving for a long time.)

Although in alot of ways this is more enjoyable than CHOCOLATE it’s not as good in the most important category: the fights. I mean they’re all good, way above average, there’s plenty to like here. But CHOCOLATE was kind of a breakthrough for modern martial arts movies, so I think it’s fair to hope for this one to match or top what was done in that one fight-wise. Most people didn’t like TOM YUNG GOONG/THE PROTECTOR as much as ONG BAK, but you had to admire that crazy tracking shot fight up the stairs, that was a definite case of dumping barrels full of elbow grease and going for the gold. RAGING PHOENIX builds to a pretty cool fight on top of a web of rope bridges. It’s cool, but it doesn’t approach the incredible fight on the side of the building from CHOCOLATE (sometimes called the Donkey Kong fight). So although I got a kick out of this movie (get it, because there is kicking in it, that’s not what I meant but I’ll take it) I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment. Gotta get out my copy of CHOCOLATE and watch that last fight again.

When all was said and done I hope  she didn’t give up playing the drums. She seemed like she might be pretty good. Also it would leave room for RAGING PHOENIX VS. DRUMLINE.

I really mean this seriously. Well, not that seriously. Well, not at all seriously. But kind of. You don’t have to see PIRANHA 3-D if you don’t want to. But if that’s your stance I really gotta ask: what do you not understand about the title PIRANHA 3-D? It’s right there. It speaks for itself. Piranhas are a type of deadly carnivorous fish, by the way, did you not know that? Okay, obviously you’re gonna go now. I’m glad we straightened that out.

So we’re in the middle of this new wave of 3-D movies and a backlash against them, at least in these internet movie discussions. Nobody really admits to liking 3-D, though some people tolerate it. I’ve noticed alot of reviews of 3-D movies praising them for not having alot of gimmicky things-flying-out-of-the-screen shots, or for having “subtle 3-D.” I have to respectfully declare that stupid. I can think of one or two good subtle uses of 3-D, but otherwise subtlety is a waste of this technology. I believe until you figure out a really innovative way to use it subtly that’s going to be self-explanatory then 3-D should be a novelty, should be a gimmick, should be literally in your face. My favorite 3-D movie is FRIDAY THE 13TH 3-D, which introduced the world to the magic of 3-D antenna adjustment, 3-D joint passing, 3-D spear gunning, and of course 3-D eye-popping-out-of-skull-that-Jason-squeezed-real-hard. To me that’s a better use of the technology than, say, the Pixar movies, where it’s dimensional for a little bit and then you forget about it. I want to see CAPTAIN EO, people. I want to see little fuzzy guys flying out of the screen and looking me in the eye. If you’re using this great new 3-D and then making it almost imperceptible then you might as well go back to shitty Freddyvision where I keep taking my glasses off to figure out if it’s still in 3-D or not.

That’s part of why PIRANHA 3-D, where HILLS HAVE EYES remake director Alexandre Aja serves a nice meal of Lake Havasu Spring Break to thousands of prehistoric carnivorous fish, has been one of my most anticipated movies of the last couple years. That’s kinda bad, because there’s not enough strength in its chewed-up skeleton legs to hold those type of expectations, but I did enjoy it and you normal people who haven’t given it as much thought should have a great time. It’s some funny shit.

Steve McQueen’s grandson (no shit) plays a teen whose mom (Academy Award nominee Elizabeth Shue) is the sheriff of an Arizona tourist town (called Lake Victoria but shot at Lake Havasu). So when Spring Break comes around mom is always busy with work and McQueen has to stay home babysitting his little brother and sister, missing all the boobs, booze and butts that a young man, especially a McQueen, desires. But this year he gets a chance to be location scout for a Girls Gone Wild video (called Wild Wild Girls) and he’s not gonna miss that, so he pays his siblings to stay home and gets on a boat with Jerry O’Connell, two porn stars and his long time crush (played by a young actress who I’m pretty sure is not 42 year old Dinah Meyer from STARSHIP TROOPERS, despite what some of the publicity photos I found online say).

You may have seen that Harry’s review talked about jerking off in the headline. I still don’t understand why people go crazy for that in the modern world, because I have found that the convenient acquisition of hardcore pornography is at an all time high. I don’t know, maybe Harry doesn’t have internet access. But it’s true, this movie has more boobs and butts than any modern horror and some vintage (although not one single strand of pubic hair. I guess they don’t make that anymore). O’Connell (who seemed to me like he was playing Jason Bateman playing his role) presides over a girl-on-girl naked underwater makeout session and some bellybutton tequila shots. Eli Roth has a cameo as basically the same character, “Wet T-shirt Contest Host.” So if you want to see 3-D closeups of suspiciouly perfect bouncing boobs and flawlessly round butts there are some of those here.

The script isn’t Shakespeare or Sayles (actually it’s the guys who wrote SORORITY ROW) but it at least finds a good way to make fun of these dumb kids without having that judgmental anti-sex tone of some of the post-HALLOWEEN horror pictures. The heroes are the good kids, but they have a healthy curiosity. When the good girl indulges in tequila and softcore porn she’s punished by throwing up (in 3-D), not by being slaughtered by Jason. I appreciate that.

In the tradition of JAWS 2 this is more about the kids than the sheriff, and there’s a subplot about the younger kids going in a boat and getting stranded. I also spotted nods to JAWS and JAWS 3-D, but unfortunately not JAWS: THE REVENGE. Shue is good though and when she gets a chance she jumps into action immediately. She’s pretty tough, I liked her. Adam Scott gets a rare chance to play a non-asshole, and the rest of the name actors you heard about have small parts or cameos. Ving Rhames’s part is almost the same as in the worthless DAY OF THE DEAD DTV remake that I am already beginning to regret that I just mentioned because it would be best to ignore it until it becomes unfilmed. But in this one Rhames gets one really funny and badass scene. I don’t really agree with the logic of shooting at a swarm of piranhas, but I give him credit for trying. I’d like to have seen more of some of these characters, but at 82 minutes the movie keeps it minimalistic.

You can’t really accuse them of skimping on the gore and mayhem, though. A whole lot of Spring Break kids get chewed up, skeletonized and torn in half. There’s a good mix of digital and real makeup – in fact I’m not sure I really knew which was which behind the 3-D effects. One thing I thought was pretty funny is how many people are killed not by the fish but by other people being stupid. One panicking dipshit in particular must take out more than ten people in a minute or two, including my pick for the #1 cringe-inducing kill of the movie.

Like Joe Dante in the original Aja makes it funny but acts like it’s serious. I laughed at goofy shit like Rhames still having to yell “Everybody out of the water!” a good 10 minutes into the beach party holocaust. It seems like at that point if there was anybody who didn’t understand that it was important to get out of the water then there really was no point in trying to explain it to them.

Despite some intentional stupidity like that it’s not at all lazy. It’s good about going everywhere you want it to go. It doesn’t pull any of that SNAKES ON A PLANE shit of saying a guy’s a kickboxer and then not having him kick any snakes. Some people are climbing a rope to safety, one has long hair hanging down, don’t worry – a piranha will jump up and bite her hair. The character who you most want to see get killed – don’t worry, his death will be so horrible that you’ll start to feel bad for rooting for it, and then that in itself becomes funny. There’s no reason why a piranha movie needs a big explosion, is there? Well, that’s okay, we get one anyway.

One thing some people might not pick up on but that I’m convinced is intentional is the movie’s similarities to TITANIC. You really notice it when there’s an overhead-tipping-and-people-falling shot, but instead of the Titanic tipping over it’s some radio station’s stage they put up for a wet t-shirt contest. It’s got a similar type of love story where a guy wins over a nice girl from a different social group who already has an asshole boyfriend, and at the end one risks themself to stay with their trapped lover. In TITANIC you can take the boat as an example of man’s hubris and decadence. This is the same kind of thing except instead of rich people spending their money on extravagances it’s rich kids blowing it on travel, boats, boners and alcohol. So it’s this generation’s TITANIC. Same thing except less than half as long, nobody’s fully clothed and at the end nobody throws any jewelry away. So technologically and thematically this movie would not have been possible without PIRANHA 2 director James Cameron paving the way.

The 3-D is pretty good to my eyeballs, but not perfect. It was planned for non-subtle 3-D from the beginning so it’s got plenty of things flying out and fish looking out at you, mugging for the camera. But it wasn’t shot with 3-D cameras because Aja wanted to shoot it on film, and I guess getting both sides perfectly focused with the reflections on the water is too hard (although that didn’t stop them from having scenes on the lake in FRIDAY THE 13TH 3-D). So they intentionally used the dreaded “post conversion process” that got such a bad name from CLASH OF THE TITANS. I didn’t see that one to compare it to. This has plenty of depth but looks slightly blurry or weird at times, definitely not as sharp as AVATAR or the computer animated ones, or I think MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D.

One new dimensional issue I’ve never heard of before is with the opening credits. You’re looking into this landscape, so your eyes are focused off in the distance, but every time a name comes up it’s floating really close to your eyes. I don’t know about anybody else but my eyes couldn’t take it. I was getting whiplash. Man, imagine all the new ways shitty directors will use this technology to torture our eyes.

I’ve really had alot of hope for this director, and he hasn’t really let me down since I’ve been into him, but he hasn’t exactly hit the lotto numbers either. I enjoyed all his movies on some level: his debut FURIA is pretty cool from what I remember, HIGH TENSION doesn’t knock itself out of all time slasher classic contention until its legendarily bone-headed twist ending, MIRRORS is enjoyable and twisted in a small kind of way, but it’s mainly THE HILLS HAVE EYES that sticks with me. I see it as a stylish and enjoyably over-the-top elaboration on the original, staying true to all of Craven’s themes, improving on some of his characters, with bonuses like even having a technological breakthrough in the way they digitally widened the space between Ruby’s eyes. I think it’s a fun movie but it has this reputation as some kind of horribly grim torture porn type of deal. I remember Drew being absolutely livid about a part that didn’t even register with me at all, and to this day people interview Aja and talk about PIRANHA being a huge departure from him because it has a sense of humor.

Okay, I know the tone is different, but I really thought HILLS HAVE EYES was darkly funny. Am I alone here? How come nobody else thinks that?

Well, I was thinking about it the other day and it hit me why I seem to react differently to that movie than everybody else: I think it’s funny when normal people get attacked by savage mutants. It just tickles my funny bone, y’know? And it never occurred to me before that that’s just my thing, it’s not something regular joes agree with me on.

I’m not joking about this. A 7 foot tall guy with a face that looks melted covered in armor made out of junk jumps out of nowhere and starts stabbing a spear at a family on vacation from the suburbs – that type of shit just gets me for some reason, like the way Ghost Rider loves monkey movies. So maybe that’s why I elevate that one higher than most people and why I continue to enjoy his other movies but not on the same level as that one.

I’ll continue to watch Aja’s movies, but I should accept that not all of them are gonna have that extra kick from mutant attacks. Maybe some day he’ll take on my idea of THE BEVERLY HILLS HAVE EYS or something, but until then fish attacks will have to be enough.

But I was most excited about it because Doba immediately asks about something I didn’t know about – Perry’s work with Steven Soderbergh on his upcoming action movie, HAYWIRE (it used to be called KNOCKOUT, but they changed it to HAYWIRE. Also they changed the entire premise from when they first announced it).Man, somebody better verify that this isn’t gonna be post-action style, because I’m getting more and more excited. It’s written by Lem Dobbs (THE LIMEY) and stars Gina Carano, “the face of women’s MMA.” I found this clip of Soderbergh talking about it before he filmed it. He talks about wanting the action to be realistic, but when asked about the BOURNE movies says that his would “have a very different aesthetic.” So hopefully that means what we think it might mean.

Carano must’ve already worked with Perry, because she has a little fight in BLOOD AND BONE. That’s on Youtube, but I’d rather point you to the DVD on that one because if you haven’t seen it yet you need to. Instead let me leave you with a Carano fight from EliteXC to give you an idea of how she fights:

Michael Cera (Skander Halim’s I Was a Sixth Grade Alien) plays Scott Pilgrim, a 23 year old unemployed (?) individual who plays bass in a living room band and dates a 17 year old high schooler (not sure what the Canadian laws are about that) named Knives, but then he has a dream about a blue-haired girl with goggles and rollerblades and then he meets her in real life so he becomes obsessed with her and gets her to reluctantly hang out with him and it seems like she doesn’t like him at all and one could hardly blame her but then I guess they’re in love or whatever so he finds out he has to fight (and kill) all of her ex-boyfriends, who have super powers, and also there is some sort of a battle of the bands.

The movie has a funny Clinton-era magic realism where everybody can do sped up cartoon kung fu fighting with Nintendo sound effects and powers and in one part suddenly their lives are scored with the Seinfeld music, but none of this surprises anybody, they’re used to it. The blue-haired girl is American, and when she tries to explain that she was in his dream because she has the ability to travel through his mind as a short cut, she says “I forgot you guys didn’t have that here.” And I like that the movie just lets that go as if Canadians need to accept that there really is such a thing in the U.S. Too bad it’s just kind of a random throwaway thing that doesn’t come back again as far as I could tell.

To give you an example of how much this is like a video game, when Scott defeats (i.e. brutally murders) the ex-boyfriends their heads explode into a bunch of loose change, which he collects. I assume it’s Canadian change, but I couldn’t really see it clearly. I don’t think they ever specify what he spent it on. If I were him I’d problay spend it on Smarties, which are a good candy they have in Canada that’s completely different from the American candy that’s also called Smarties. Theirs is a chocolate M&M type of candy. I mean really, if you think about it that’s proof that Canadians and Americans are totally different. Judged only on that basis – the Smarties basis – Canadians are superior to Americans. Fortunately we have other strengths to even it out (see diagram).

The appeal of the movie is in the style and the high level of absurdity. The director is Edgar Wright, who gave no hint in SHAUN OF THE DEAD or HOT FUZZ that he could make a movie this visual. It’s extremely well put together, obviously storyboarded left and right because there’s so much thought put into the cuts and scene transitions, and the way dialogue continues from location to location. Also there are many visual effects to cartoonify things – floating text boxes, sound wave lines, stars and lightning bolts floating out of musical instruments. Kinda reminds me of those cartoon rock videos by The Gorillas.

Every once in a while some of it goes by too fast for my old top floor to process, but for the most part it’s good visual communicationing, not just frantic hyperactive bullshit like most people would do. Tony Scott won’t be able to make heads or tails of this one, it’s too clear and sensible.

I’m sure there’s specific video game references that are too recent for me to pick up on (I haven’t got past Ms. Pac-Man yet), but there’s all kinds of Nintendo-y sound effects, even a video game version of the Universal logo and theme. And it gets laughs and smiles from casually revealing new ridiculous video game realities, like if he matures ever so slightly he gets more powerful and a magic sword comes out of his chest. Man, it’s a good thing I watched all those Mortal Kombats and Street Fighters and what not so I had some idea what was going on. Shoulda brushed up on my Mario brothers too.

It’s a pretty funny movie. Not hilarious, but there’s some goofy characters and some good lines, and a very positive vibe. My favorite character would have to be Knives, the high school girlfriend who he dumps. She has a naive enthusiasm where she worships this dude and his stupid band because to a high school kid that kind of bullshit seems impressive. She’s hard not to like, like a little puppy who doesn’t shit all over the floor or anything and you don’t have to remember to feed her. Just all the positive aspects of the puppy.

SCOTT PILGRIM is a very unique and well-crafted piece of filmatism. I would say I liked it overall, but I don’t think it has enough under the hood. Maybe on another day all the style and silliness would be enough, and that would be legit. But it is about this kid and his love life, and he sort of announces sitcom-style that he learned a lesson at the end, so it seems like you’re supposed to relate and connect to it emotionally a hell of alot more than I did. It didn’t really seem like she liked him much, and I don’t see why she should. He’s kind of a self-absorbed dick, so I didn’t really feel sorry for him either. I’m sure there are plenty of nerds like him who pined after a blue-haired girl but didn’t get to sleep with her like he did. So cry me a river, kid.

I’m not exactly sure how to describe the fighting, but it’s perfectly executed for what it is. The actors zip through from exaggerated pose to exaggerated pose, and have super-powered punches and jumps and stuff. I’m not even sure how they shot it, it’s all very artificial looking but fits in well and didn’t seem like it was hidden by quick cuts or anything. It creates a good video game feel. But for some reason to me it doesn’t have the action movie thing of watching to see what’ll happen or for the beauty of the movements and momentum, or even getting excited at the prospect of a fight coming up. I definitely never though “oh boy, I’m so glad there are still five more ex-boyfriends to fight!”

I guess I didn’t care about his love life or if he got beat up and it’s not supposed to seem real, so there’s no tension. To me it comes across more like an amusing joke than a traditional choreographed fight. You smile to see that kid moving like that, then it’s time to move on to the next joke. So I gotta admit I was getting a little bored by the last couple fights.

Trying to put my finger on my reaction to this I thought about the C’s A’s movies (dir.: McG) and TORQUE (dir.: J. Kahn). They’re just as purposely silly and style-over-substance, and probly much stupider, but in those I didn’t care that I didn’t care about the characters. I think the difference is that they’re intentionally empty, and I don’t think they’d be as amusing if the characters had more humanity. With SCOTT PILGRIM I think they’re supposed to have human emotions in a cartoon world, that you’re supposed to care about the relationship. I mean that’s all there is, that’s what the whole thing is structured around, to the extent that there’s any structure. I think I’d enjoy the movie way more if I cared about these kids, and that’s the difference.

I got a theory about the internetical coverage. My theory is that Edgar Wright is a real cool guy, and everybody who meets him wants to be his buddy. These guys all meet him at the Comics Con and the set visits and the press junkets and promotional screenings and they want to please him. He’s one of those directors who got issued a watermarked Geek Pass signifying “he’s one of us” approval from the boys and unwavering support for any movie they do. Harry, Drew, Devin, Beaks and all those guys have been hyping this for a year or more based on set visits, interviews, rough footage, even covering celebrity twittering about rough footage. I’m not trying to call them out, those are just the websights I read so I noticed them all doing it with this movie and KICK-ASS. They would’ve liked the movie anyway, but from the outside here it looks like their closeness to the production and inside knowledge of what the filmatists were trying to accomplish whipped them into a frenzy and magnified it from unusual little movie to mind-blowing, pants-wetting masterpiece (or as Drew put it, “a genuine, no-joke, out-of-the-ballpark masterwork, a pure expression of voice in service of a potent metaphor, an amazing ensemble comedy that works on the emotional level of the most joyous and romantic of the great Hollywood musicals… a jaw-dropping visual experience, and a sonic assault of pure pleasure…” and that’s just the first paragraph of his review).

At least two of my internetting colleagues are convinced this will be a beloved classic in 20 years. I don’t know, I guess it could happen. But my guess is they’ll lower their grade to about a B- in 2 or 3.

I noticed that a couple of the reviews talking about the deep themes and powerful love story of SCOTT PILGRIM are by reviewers who also did set visit reports, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. There’s not a quid pro quo there, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that you and I will need to travel through time and to Toronto and watch them film some of the scenes and conduct interviews with the director and cast in order to get the full understanding of the movie required to love it that much. If you aren’t willing to do that kind of legwork of course you’re not gonna ‘get’ this movie. Come on, lazy bones. Get off your ass and do the set visit and interviews.

But that’s just my theory, I might be wrong. I should keep in mind that I never seem to dig on these Edgar Wright pictures as much as the rest of the world, anyway. I’m happy with “Hey, that was pretty funny,” and the rest of the world says ‘THAT IS THE GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME, I ORGASMED FROM BEGINNING TO END, I’M GONNA WATCH IT EVERY DAY UNTIL I DIE!!!!!’ (–Ain’t It Cool News). So maybe it’s got nothing to do with interviewing the director and cast members about their intent in making the movie. For some reason SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ just don’t hit me right on the button like they do for some of you fellas. Maybe it’s just genetics? I don’t know.

Hey, I did notice that the guy who played Superman, the guy who’s gonna play Captain America and one of the three Punishers have small parts in this movie. So that’s kind of like a comic book reference. That was a pretty good observation, right? I wonder if I could get one of them Geek Passes, just in case I need it for something, you know? Probly not, they probly do a background check. Oh well.

Anyway, on this one I could just be projecting my own hangups on those other guys. I’ve emailed a director or two in my time (hello Albert Pyun – good to see you here). But I feel weird about all that because as soon as I realize the director of a movie might actually read my review I think “oh shit, I hope I didn’t say anything mean.” You get self conscious, you want to be cool, you want to be the guy that really gets it. I’m not a comic strip collector but I think Edgar Wright seems cool too. I know when he came through Seattle to screen HOT FUZZ he also brought a print of BULLIT, and I think he’s presented more than one screening of our beloved DEATH WISH 3. He also has read some decent books now and then judging from this twitter Ellie from Titan Books forwarded me a while back.

And as soon as I read that I thought “oh shit, I hope I didn’t review one of his movies in there.” I don’t know, maybe I should watch SHAUN OF THE DEAD again. I mean I did like it, but people always… I mean I just didn’t–

ah shit, there I go, see? You get self conscious, man.

So here’s the only thing I can do. I’m not gonna ever do set visits and all that shit, but I would like to be his internet buddy in order to prove that you can do it without blowing a bunch of smoke up his ass about how he created a “milestone in cinematic language.” To prove that you can just tell him his movies are funny and not the funniest. I want to be the one guy that twitters him to say

“@EdgarWright Hey dude saw your new movie, it was pretty good, pretty funny in parts. overall somewhat recommend to some people. thumbs up”

I bet he could handle it. So Edgar Wright, if you ever read this (and believe me, there’s no shame in having a Google Alert for your name. Albert Pyun has one for example), I have a hyperbole free message for you: you got some talent there, buddy. Hey, way to show effort! Way to show improvement. It was very… unique. So keep practicing, Edgar. Don’t give up, champ. It wasn’t that bad. I enjoyed it! No, really, it was, you know, pretty good! Remember that part in DEATH WISH 3 where he had that girl in the car and then it just rolls backwards down the hill and then blows up? Well, gotta go dude catch ya later

Seriously though bud, you’re getting good with the filmatism. But don’t let those goofballs give you a big head. They just get excited, you know.

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DISCLAIMER 1: alot of the reviews and comments I’ve read seem to have strong opinions about “hipsters” or “hipsterism” in this movie. I’ve seen this come up before, I know it has something to do with the arch nemesis of nerds, some new super power who I guess have replaced their primary enemy of the 1980s, jocks and Ogre. But I still have no clue what this “hipster” is that they fear so much, so I might not understand that aspect of the movie.

DISCLAIMER 2: If there was anywhere in this review where I wrote “Edgar Winter” instead of “Edgar Wright” then I apologize. I genuinely wasn’t trying to be funny, but every time I go to type his name that’s the first thing that comes into my head.

He says he told Warner Brothers, “I bet in your system there’s a whole bunch of smaller movies with good writers and directors attached that cost $5 million or $6 million, but they can’t fit into your system because you make $100 million movies.’ And they’re like: ‘Yeah, we’ve got tons of them.’ ”

I’ve only seen a couple After Dark movies and they didn’t impress me, so I got no idea what kind of quality to expect. But here is somebody with money doing exactly what we’ve all been saying somebody should do. We’ll see if they have the kind of quality control we hope for.

found via Chud complaining about it having the same name as Chuck Norris’s Brother’s Action Fest film festival