8 March 2006
five disappointing movies in 5-7-5
- The Wedding Crashers (2005)
It doesn't live up
to the frenetic montage
in the first one-third*.
Christoper Walken
plays himself; it's not enough
to carry the film.- The Longest Yard (2005)
Copied from the old
its basic plot and editing**,
but not all the fun.
Rob Schneider stands out
near the end of the film, bringing
it to a halt--twice.- How to murder your wife (1965)
Backward, out of date,
it's even embarrassing
how wrong it all is***.- The Punisher (2004)
Travolta's a ham;
too bad there are no sequels,
he'd not be in them****
Who played the main guy?
I've already forgotten-
left no impression.- Family Guy presents Stewie Griffin - The Untold Story (2005)
The show is funny.
This movie isn't*****. In fact,
it's painful to watch.
There's a case to be made that these aren't haiku, but closer perhaps to senryū in that they don't mention the seasons. I'd heard such talk before, but ontly now looked it up. Maybe I'll rename my haiku tag to senryu, or maybe just 5-7-5. Then again, until I learn Kanji and the rest of written Japanese, it won't really be either in its completely traditional form anyway.
* This is a fairly common thing in blockbuster films. Characters are introduced, they do the wacky hijinks they do, until something happens about one third of the way through (Act 2 starts, that's what happens) and then it's a whole new ballgame. Would a movie only about their exploits be better? Maybe. Maybe I just felt like complaining. Chasers is ripe for complaints. Take Chris Walken, for example. Just having him playing the oddly menacing fellow he always plays isn't enough. He needs to be given with which to work. By now, I wouldn't be surprised if his character is described to him simply as, "You, you know, you. Be yourself" and it just doesn't work this time. Any other actor in the part (except perhaps John Travolta) would show the part to be so poorly-written. His motivations are unclear, his rages almost random. He's not the only one-dimensional character in the film, just the oddest one.
** The original Yard wasn't just about bucking authority in society (well, prison) but also conventions in film, with some rather innovative editing and framing done in the last football game. The new version apes that style well, and even extends it to a game of 1-on-1 basketball quite faithfully. Little touches like that were nice, but too many big problems overshadow them, like broad character generalizations (stupid big football player can't even speak something sounding like correct grammar), easy jokes taken to stupid extremes (big dumb guy takes estrogen, becomes big dumb effeminate guy overnight), and the few, but still sore-thumb-esque, Sandlerisms, most notably Rob Schneider's appearance in the bleachers. We know he's your pal, Adam, give him a break (and us too) next time.
*** Murder flops on so many levels. Jack Lemmon's not convincing as a cartoonist (though his swinging bachelor bit is believable enough), but that's just the smallest of the faults found here. Every mean stereotype, every broad generalization ever used in the so-called battle of the sexes rears its ugly head, even the annoyingly yappy dog. It's embarrassing, even, to think that anybody could've taken any of this seriously to even want to write it. If this is what Hollywood thought normal people were like (well, the richer portion of them) back then, then the disconnect was as big then as it is now. Only the budgets have changed. This movie belongs with Houseboat in a genre all their own: poorly made artifacts of a past that never happened, resplendent with annoying foreign actresses and otherwise bankable leading men. Crap, utter crap.
**** I hope I didn't spoil the surprise for anybody. To elaborate: our eponymous protagonist (played by some unknown forgettable guy) hunts down John Travolta, and in the end, probably kills him. I say probably because he makes the commonest of mistakes: not watching his victim die. Admittedly this is the same lazy loophole that propels the movie, in that at the beginning Travolta's thugs set him up in a certain death situation and leave him to die. Don't these people know that only people you watch die are dead, and even then, only most of the time? I realize the makers wanted to leave room for Travolta's surprise return in a sequel, deep into the franchise, but everything about this movie is like that: overdone. For once I'd like to watch a superhero movie that didn't waste time with the setup and origin story, and end with the defiant declaration on a bridge or near a cityscape. Just drop us into the middle of the action and let us figure out where the superhero came from, if we even care. Punisher strikes me as somebody whose actions I'd want to watch, not his motivations. Oh well.
***** It's annoying how far removed this Family Guy movie is from the show. The first ten or so minutes of the DVD are painful; somebody's idea of a great intro by way of a self-referential newscast and red carpet scene with the cartoon 'actors' acting out of character (or rather, even more in) and the wacky hijinks that ensue. The 'uncensored' aspect of the film is almost nonexistent, or a stunt at best, as the profanity will be easily bleepable for broadcast, and things such as the giant walking, talking scrotum (don't ask) will probably show up on TV eventually anyway. Did I mention there's a gag about a walking, talking scrotum? That's actually not the low point of the movie (though it may be for Michael Chiklis, again, don't ask). Don't watch this expecting it to be as funny as the show. Watch the show instead, at least until the three 'acts' are reconstituted into ordinary episodes, and sub-ordinary ones at that.
