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from my blog (http://modage.tumblr.com/post/3769549898/drive-angry-3d-review):
This was actually sort of amazing. A few weeks ago I mentioned was looking forward to this film so I was a little surprised when nobody went to see it. It's a B movie about fast cars starring Nicolas Cage, everyone liked it the first time. But for whatever reason the film didn't connect with audiences so my Cage buddy AC and I basically had the theatre to ourselves. As far as ridiculously fun B-movies go, 'Drive Angry' succeeds wildly where "Machete" and "Hobo With A Shotgun" failed.
First of all, the 3D is really good. The film was shot in 3D and it shows. The shot composition and editing were composed with a third dimension in mind so there is cool shit exploding at you and you don't get a headache. (Credit where it's due, the director Patrick Lussier was one of the first genre directors to jump on the 3D craze with "My Bloody Valentine 3D" a full year before "Avatar" came out and ensured every movie from here to eternity would be converted into the format. I actually got excited to see a slasher movie in 3D and saw it thinking "if only the movie were decent, this would have been awesome" but it was terrible.)
Cage-wise the film had some good moments but I was really hoping for one of his signature over-the-top rants. I don't know if he's depressed these days or just blew his wad on "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" but Cage seems extra mellow in these last few films. Luckily the rest of the cast steps up to the plate. Amber Heard is serviceable as tough chick/sidekick/eye candy but William Fichtner and Billy Burke both chew plenty of scenery as the big baddies. The film strikes just the right balance of violence and trash nailing the sleazy Grindhouse B-movie vibe without being too self-conscious or sinking into parody. It was a classic Cage performance away from being a classic. Maybe next time.
Some people I know, and I think it's common, "rent" large screen televisions from stores for the day of a big sports event, the Super Bowl or a very serious boxing match. They buy the tv one day and return it the next. I regret not renting a 3d television and 3d blu-ray player for my Drive Angry viewing (or catching it in the theater).
But still I loved it. I remember when Avatar came out a person told me about seeing the movie with her mom and loving the movie, crying, etc, and it wasn't until the end of the conversation she revealed it was a 2d screening. I thought maybe she'd have gone nuts if she'd seen it 3d. Makes plain sense to see a 3d movie 3d, regardless of the merits of 3d. It's what was intended. So maybe I'd've gone nuts if my experience had been 3d. There were clearly a lot of moments that would have benefited.
SPOILERS
Lussier is the only director making serious progress in the realm of naked 3d women in preposterous scenes (the naked woman scene was my favorite part of his My Bloody Valentine). In fact, all dimensions considered, he seems to have more strange naked women moments than anyone else. Lord love him and his intended audience (the south? seems like no one in any region of this great nation went to see the movie, which had a domestic gross of $10,721,033 .... man, I must be the intended audience).
The opening truck action sequence is plenty fun, but by the fuck/shootout I was hooked. The movie's plenty trashy and outrageous. There's plenty of sex and violence, but clearly the innocent no harm intended type. It's pure kicks. And unlike some other recent b-movie rehashes this one doesn't feel glossed over or "improved." Nah. There are some real dead spots and some genuine wtf moments. It secretly takes itself really serious, but that seriousness is so far-fetched and atrocious it doesn't interfere with the movie.
What I mean is, the movie doesn't know it's good or bad or even what good or bad is or looks like or whatever. It knows it's got to get from point A to B, and I like this movie since point A is strange psychosexual impulses and point B is showdowns with satanic occultists.
I saw this for our Bad Movie Night last week. Seeing it in 2D adds to the ridiculousness because you can tell what they were trying to do with all the 3D stuff, but the effect isn't there so it just comes off as really dumb looking.
I had a lot of fun making fun of this movie.
Don't get me wrong, this movie is TERRIBLE. I wouldn't really recommend it as a "fun" movie to watch alone... it's not like Fast Five where it's a ridiculous romp with redeeming qualities (unless you count the nudity which is extremely typical)... this is balls-to-the-wall awful. Even the SPOILER sex shoot-up scene was trying way too hard to be cool and felt unoriginal.ENDSPOILER
The CG in the movie is one of the most laughable things about the movie. It's clearly a case of someone figuring out how bad the movie was before the effects were done so they pulled the budget and just rushed it out as a Nick Cage vehicle.
Literally laughably bad though.
is this sex shoot up different from the sex shoot up in shoot em up which involves monica belluci?
Haha. I love movies. One day I'll check out Shoot Em Up.
Quote from: pete on June 16, 2011, 04:09:13 PM
is this sex shoot up different from the sex shoot up in shoot em up which involves monica belluci?
No, in fact, I yelled "Shoot 'em Up did it!"
and Shoot 'Em Up did it better.
SPOILERS
Oh wow, I just YouTubed* the Shoot Em Up fuck/shoot out and it is shockingly similar. I wonder if because I saw Drive Angry first it won't work for me, you know how things sometimes go that way. Plus Drive Angry's scene has tasers and hatchet headshots.
To me this overlap is fine. In a lot of 70s and 80s genre movies you see moments being borrowed and restaged in other movies for separate reasons. One of the cool things about genre movies I think. Renoir said** he thought you'd be able to tell the differences between filmmakers better if they all made the same movie - he said he'd like to see an entire year where everyone made the same movie.
I also searched for the Xixax page,*** and even if I had been here at the time no one really talked about the movie. From what polkablues says (this was three years ago, mind you)
QuoteAs fun and ridiculous as it looked from the trailers, it never rose to the level of entertaining trash for me. Rather than seeming like it didn't take itself seriously, it seemed like it was taking unseriousness VERY seriously, like the movie was constantly glancing over at the audience to see if we're getting it.
and what I watched on YouTube it seems kind of middle-brow? Serious actors and all. Not really the same thing as Drive Angry, but maybe like the also middle-brow Fast Five? I should be clearer: I think movies like this are all trying to be middle-brow (to make money). Some make it and some don't. I like the ones that don't. I like my trashy movies trashy. Makes sense to me. Still going to check out Shoot Em Up, because there's plenty of room in my heart for these kinds of things.
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qJaADSMkzY
**In one of the conversations he has with Jacques Rivette that are included in the Criterion Stage and Spectacle boxset.
***http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=9213.0
I wanted to love Shoot 'Em Up, but it was way too far up its own ass. I gave up on it with 20 minutes left in the movie (which I NEVER do). It was just trying way too hard to be what it wasn't; it was the cinematic equivalent of a rapping granny.
I liked it, mostly for William Fichtner's character. It's too bad that this gets lumped in with all the other Nicholas Cage garbage movies because it's actually very entertaining and competently made.
Shoot 'Em Up didn't quite nail the humor that this one did, because everything in this movie is deadpan serious, even in the most ridiculous parts. Grindhouse tried to ape the look of those films a bit too closely while this felt like a more contemporary thing. The soundtrack gets a bit annoying and some of the one liners don't quite get the laughs they should, but altogether it's a great time. These kinds of movies shouldn't really be over-analyzed anyway. They either nail what they're going for or they don't, and this one does.
some cool nerds explaining why shoot 'em up was so bad:
http://www.youtube.com/user/freddiew2#p/u/67/Apw4m0DRQuk
and their scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nQzs48Tt9U
Pete, thanks so much for that link. I watched some of their other stuff too. I'm wanting to do some action scenes in an upcoming Sketch video and that helps.
Back on topic: I don't think Drive Angry was as intentionally funny as you guys think. When it's trying to be funny, it's not. When it's trying to be exciting, it's not.
I agree that Shoot 'em Up wasn't a good movie, but it wasn't as lazy as this movie.
I don't disagree. I choose to see its flaws not as pathetic but charming, because of a detectable sincerity, and because of a larger personal curiosity about human imperfection. To me a truly awful film reveals more about its creators, each flaw a portal into man's brokeness and each creative misstep a symbol for our wayward attempts to fix ourselves. I'm attracted both to filmmakers who reach for perfection or inner peace, and to filmmakers who wallow in imperfection. And very little in-between, which is why I sometimes criticize middlebrowness, which I see as the mountain range of compromise, artificiality, convenience, easy solutions, etc.
I love this movie with all my heart. Blew me away in every sense of the word. Gosh darn it I couldn't stop smiling. This harkens back to the great B movies and exploitation flicks of the 70's. In fact with a couple of tweaks this could have been made in the 1970's.