Sunday, January 28, 2007
A little tip from your ol' Uncle Tom...
...don't see the new movie Smokin' Aces. Why not? Oh, I have a list of reasons...
- As you can probably tell from the commercials blasted on NFL programming all last weekend, this is one of those highly stylized, hyper-macho, irritatingly loud rock soundtracked, way-way-way over-the-top, Quentin Taratino knockoffs that were prevlant a few years ago (see also: the work of Guy Ritchie, The Boondock Saints, etc.). Of course, since QT is a genius and, yes, the best filmmaker of his generation, he can do his thing and make great movies and his imitators make, well, The Boondock Saints. OK, the plots of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are complicated, but they make sense...
- ...unlike the plot of Smokin' Aces. There are timeframe/continuity problems at the end of the film, several characters have no relation to the main plot. And the big twists just come out of nowhere and logically, don't relate to the rest of the movie.
- Way too many characters. There could have been, quite easily and with no loss the the plot, three "groups" of main characters could have been lost. And because there are too many characters, and since I'm sure the studio wanted this in a dumbass-friendly under-two-hours, each character doesn't get enough screen time to make me give a shit whether they live or die.
- Ben Affleck is the top-billed star of the movie. All he does -- all -- is deliver exposition and get killed, 20 minutes into the movie.
- Buy a fucking tripod, director! Even in the regular dialogue parts, the camera was shaking all over.
- The action scenes were ridiculous, overly complicated, and phonily coreographed.
- This director, Joe Carnahan, did Narc, which was good. There are several wonderful shots in the film. He clearly knows how to make a movie. So why is this so bad? It just felt like masturbation on film, like Carnahan just wanted to look cool as opposed to make a good film. How disappointing.
Labels: movies
