Well Father Geek's favorite little cheerleader has checked in with this darling little review of... well, I'm not sure what...
When I call the new 'film' Ready to Rumble morally reprehensible, that doesn't accurately or completely cover its many levels of depravity and general wrong-headedness. It's nowhere near as reprehensible as The Turner Diaries, Halloween III, or Red Dawn, but that should in no way be taken as an endorsement of this celluloid abortion, which reeks of moral entropy and the kind of fetishized fascist aesthetic that in the hands of a gifted filmmaker like Paul Verhoeven might be intelligently explored and deconstructed, but here, in the hands of Good Burger/Head of the Class auteur Brian Robbins, merely oozes its loathsome juices toward whatever low point it can find to collect in and stagnate. Some would say that it was foolish of me to expect anything from the film to begin with, but I think David Arquette can be funny (the Scream trilogy) and, when he tries, a good actor (At Home with the Webbers, johns); likewise, Scott Caan has an effortless charm and sense of timing that makes any of his performances worthwhile (even in Director Robbins' last effort, the reassuringly lunkheaded Varsity Blues). Add to that the comic potential in the bizarre business of professional wrestling, plus supporting turns by Joe Pantoliano, Caroline Rhea, Oliver Platt, Rose McGowan, and Oscar winner Martin Landau (who, between this and B.A.P.S should be glad that AMPAS can't do a recall vote), and you should at least have some passable entertainment. Wrong.
To get the plot out of the way, two idiots (Caan, Arquette) do their best to avenge their favorite pro wrestler (Platt), who was wrongfully defrauded by his former manager (Pantoliano, with Neil Young's hair), and find purpose in life. You see, the idiots work in the septic tank business, and that keeps the first third of the film laden with more shit than Pasolini's Salo. That the film spends so much time wallowing in feces is indicative of its aims; you would think that leaving septic work behind for pro wrestling would be a step up. Wrong. Perhaps the filmmakers thought of this as subtext. Anyway, there are a lot of what should be drunk jokes and shit jokes and farty poo poo penis jokes. I say should be, because all these attempts at humor just lay there on the screen, bringing no laughs, like an abandoned Chris Ofili work without the sense of purpose.
All this and I haven't even gotten to the vile and hateful misogyny that permeates nearly every scene of the film. Every woman in the film is either a scheming gold-digger (Rose McGowan in a truly humiliating turn, who gets smacked around, clocked with a stepladder, and thrown about and likes it because she's a dirty slut. As a matter of fact, when her character and David Arquette's hooked up, it was all I could do to keep from screaming "Incest!" Because they'll always be Dewey and Tatum to me.), a hypersexed hag (Ellen Albertini Dow, the rapping grandmother from The Wedding Singer, who here wears leather pants and says things like "kick that punk bitch's ass!"), or, in the film's most jaw-dropping plot turn, one of a bus full of farting nuns. There is one character, a sweet young woman, who exists in the script only to give it up to Scott Caan. That's just what she does, because that's what nice women do in the twisted universe that this film posits for its denizens. Add to that some gratuitous homophobia (which is very odd considering the twisted gay S&M subtext that ties Arquette and Caan together), and you have a film that should leave everyone outside of its target demographic (subhumanoid prepubescent boys two evolutionary steps below Beavis & Butt-Head) slackjawed and wide-eyed at its all-encompassing wrongness.
And then, as if that weren't enough, following some unfunny outtakes, we are treated to the most perfect example of a movie in a microcosm I've ever seen. There is a swiftly edited montage of every time some guy gets kicked in the nuts in the film, plus some additional ones that weren't good enough to make the final cut. Over and over and over we see knees in nuts, until it becomes this surreal demonstration of the utter contempt that the filmmakers hold for the audience. I'm the kind of person who likes to refer to experiences as "like being hit in the face with a board" or some similar statement of pain and suffering I'm fortunate that the film feels the need to express exactly how I feel to everyone who watches it.
Stick It!!!
Snot-nosed Pom Pom Slut Courtney Pierce
