Hey folks, Harry here with Rav, who literally lost a load of angry shit over this movie. I mean, about halfway through this review he loses all composure and really fucking starts with the filthy shit, so you might want to fucking hide your children's eyes so the bastards' fragile nutsack you call a brain isn't dropkicked. So here ya go...
Hey harry heres some more of my shitty writing,
I am going to try to keep my thoughts on Signs brief as you've already heard the same opinion so many other times and I probably should not hype it anymore than it already has been, hopefully I'll keep it under a hundred words too. When I first saw the Sixth Sense I really liked the film a lot, but the enormous hype and buzz surrounding the film somewhat hindered the experience for me. I really liked Unbreakable as well, although probably not as much as most people. So needless to say that other than the really cool trailers, I did not have the highest of high expectations of Shymalan's third movie. Well I was more or less BLOWN AWAY by Signs, at the screening I attended the film connected so well with the audience a person behind me was kicking and screaming completely terrified during one scene in particular.The film is much more of a character study of a family going through this situation in a rural area completely alone in the world as everyone else is having to deal with the same fears. Although the isolation of the family works so well, if they had not been the only place for the story to go would have made it become The Second Independence Day: Earth Day or something. Overall M. Knight has made a great film and I think everyone of you reading this that love sci-fi, drama, horror, or damn well any film should go seek this film out he has really out-done himself with it. Ahh god damnit I fucked up and hyped it more.
Okay so that's it for Signs, the next film I intend to talk about in a little-bit more depth is Formula 51 *cough* 51st State *cough* *cough*. A film that came out for you UKers nearly a year ago now and probably has been on DVD forever for you guys, but for us yanks it doesn't make its debut here for another few months. Formula 51 is Ronny Yu's second "Hollywood Movie" following Bride of Chucky." Being that it has taken so fucking long for it to be released here is not a great sign of a wonderful film. Quotes from foreigners also did not improve my expectations at all (
The film is about Elmo Macelroy, Sam Jackson, a narcotics-chemist who has just cooked up the wonder-drug of the century, POS 51, a drug more powerful than any on the market today that can be made with completely legal substances that gives an effect "like a personal visit from God himself." Unfortunately for Elmo he is an employee of a druglord already, so if he would like to really benefit from his new wonder invention, he has to do away with his current employer, The Lizard (Meatloaf) and this Elmo does. The next part of Elmo's plan is to get to England and sell his wonderdrug to a "limey-motherfucker" by the name of Durant. At the air-port he is met by Felix Desoza, Robert Carlyle, a soccer/football loving prat errand boy for Durant who is ordered to escort him to the deal. Much to their dismay they are being followed by one cute-as-hell assassin hired by the lizard played by Emily Mortimer.
Well Formula 51 is quite a mixed bag, so I'll start with the good things about this movie. First of all it has pothead-afroman-60's_Version Sam Jackson in it which automatically gives a film a few brownie points just for the inclusion. Robert Carlyle is the mother-fucking bomb, even in that shitty bond movie he kicked ass. Rhys Ifans does some pretty damn good work here as well, although half of his scenes are stolen by Ade (the fat guy from snatch) playing a fucked-up Indian guru or something like that. The film is certainly stylish, thankfully it never becomes too stylish like a lot of crap MTV filmmakers floating around making trash today. The "good things" pretty much end there with the cast and director.
Formula 51 was written by a retarded man whacked out on ecstasy, I am 100% sure of this, whoever came up with the genius idea to produce that script should be shot. In fact I'd say he's not a real person, maybe screenwriting programs are that automatic now that it was just generated on some studio executive's labtop in half an hour. The world would be so perfect if Stel Pavlou never sold a screen play again. The writing in this movie is so fucking bad, one-liners that just don't work, useless dialogue, so much un-funny jokes, a story that in the end is completely ridiculous, and plenty of sub-plots that are either predictable or just don't fucking work. It also does not help that meatloaf is not even trying to act here, his performance is more acken to a junior-high-school kid trying to do macbeth except here he's just playing a bad guy in a popcorn movie.
**************************MAJOR SPOILER WARNING************************** .
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WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THE ENDING???????? IT CANT BE A PLACEBO HE TESTED IN THE CROWED WHAT THE FUCK???? IT DOESNT MAKE ANY SENSE WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING????????? Oh well Meatloaf blows up thats cool fuck it.
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*****************************SPOILING ENDS****************************
The way I like to describe Formula 51 is like a mediocre Hong Kong flick with white people. See with most Asian films I watch some of the humor can fall flat at times, but I just try to give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt and say its some culture thing or its just lost in the translation or something. Maybe Formula 51 can be slightly enhanced if they dubbed it in French and added English sub-titles to the film.
Formula 51 is good popcorn, just don't try to think about the film for more than thirty seconds, oh and once more Emily Mortimer is very cute kicking ass.
Lastly I should use this little bit of space to direct anyone that lives in or around Houston, TX to the Landmark River Oaks theatre this weekend where they will be presenting a midnight screening of Evil Dead 2 and three weeks later they will be presenting the new print of Flesh Gordon. Just thought I should point that out as midnight series can be quite hard to come by over in Houston, as I've started to take the beloved drafthouse here in Austin for granted.
Later,
Rav
