It's surprising that GONE IN SIXTY SECONDS hasn't been remade until now. In the original, the affectionately known star Elenor jumps over not twenty, not ten cars, but one car. To compensate for the slim budget, the shot is repeated about fifteen times, in slow-motion, in close-up, from different angles. Considering BULLITT was made the previous decade, the 45-minute car-chase was not the most exhilarating sequence ever shot.
Perhaps the problem was the fact that the films heroes are no-good criminal punks. But, modern Hollywood logic has a way around every problem. The good guys are good to their mothers, and the bad guys are British.
Brits make great villains. Thesps like Rickman, Irons and Branagh sneer their way - in vain - towards defeating holier-than-thou yankee heroes. The good guys get the witty lines, the bad guys die a painful death, and it's been that way since the dawn of time.
Now comes GONE IN SIXTY SECONDS, and it's Christopher Eccleston's turn to ham it up. The difference here is that the dialogue does not discriminate. This is equal opportunity embarrassment: three Oscar winners and a talented supporting cast looking foolish as anything.
Delroy Lindo gets the lions share of the clangers (`I should arrest you but I understand brotherly love', `I know him he fears that car'), and compared to his idiot cop partner, he's the brains of the force. Angelina Jolie is a typically slight romantic interest.
Eccleston is supposed to be a villain fearsome beyond comprehension. This is off-set by his bizarre wood-fetish, and an assessment of baseball (`it's so bloody boring') that would make the worlds worst stand-up comic cringe. Robert Duvall, the finest actor in the film, is reduced to putting lines through stolen cars on a blackboard - that's it.
Now I realise that the characters are hardly a fundamental concern in a Bruckheimer picture. But from a critical perspective, it's hardly worthwhile reviewing any aspect of them. The action set-pieces are as spectacular as always. While the big car chase is only half as long as the set-piece in the original film, it is a definite crowd-pleaser. While there's a strangely long time between thrills, the tempo never drops. Writer Scott Rosenberg can take credit for this. His script is so insubstantial and cliched it never lingers on any plot detail long enough to become a pressing concern.
Perhaps it was intentional the dialogue is so bad. Perhaps it's a joke at the expense of the stars track records (except for Cage, not averse to setting his sights so low). Either way, the embarrassment factor yields ten times as many jokes as AMERICAN PIE did. And while most people would no doubt - given such a credible cast - have made a more substantial sum of its parts - GONE IN SIXTY SECONDS is a passable action blockbuster.
Perhaps the problem was the fact that the films heroes are no-good criminal punks. But, modern Hollywood logic has a way around every problem. The good guys are good to their mothers, and the bad guys are British.
Brits make great villains. Thesps like Rickman, Irons and Branagh sneer their way - in vain - towards defeating holier-than-thou yankee heroes. The good guys get the witty lines, the bad guys die a painful death, and it's been that way since the dawn of time.
Now comes GONE IN SIXTY SECONDS, and it's Christopher Eccleston's turn to ham it up. The difference here is that the dialogue does not discriminate. This is equal opportunity embarrassment: three Oscar winners and a talented supporting cast looking foolish as anything.
Delroy Lindo gets the lions share of the clangers (`I should arrest you but I understand brotherly love', `I know him he fears that car'), and compared to his idiot cop partner, he's the brains of the force. Angelina Jolie is a typically slight romantic interest.
Eccleston is supposed to be a villain fearsome beyond comprehension. This is off-set by his bizarre wood-fetish, and an assessment of baseball (`it's so bloody boring') that would make the worlds worst stand-up comic cringe. Robert Duvall, the finest actor in the film, is reduced to putting lines through stolen cars on a blackboard - that's it.
Now I realise that the characters are hardly a fundamental concern in a Bruckheimer picture. But from a critical perspective, it's hardly worthwhile reviewing any aspect of them. The action set-pieces are as spectacular as always. While the big car chase is only half as long as the set-piece in the original film, it is a definite crowd-pleaser. While there's a strangely long time between thrills, the tempo never drops. Writer Scott Rosenberg can take credit for this. His script is so insubstantial and cliched it never lingers on any plot detail long enough to become a pressing concern.
Perhaps it was intentional the dialogue is so bad. Perhaps it's a joke at the expense of the stars track records (except for Cage, not averse to setting his sights so low). Either way, the embarrassment factor yields ten times as many jokes as AMERICAN PIE did. And while most people would no doubt - given such a credible cast - have made a more substantial sum of its parts - GONE IN SIXTY SECONDS is a passable action blockbuster.