This movie was better than I expected. Really, after all the commotion the Cannes showing caused, I expected this movie to be extremely bad. I'm not going to lie, I gave it an 8 to help encourage more people to see it. It was more a 7 or high 6.
The Rock, Stifler, and Buffy all pulled out some good performances. I really expected it to be worse. Their acting was fine. It was the other side characters that drew some horrible performances. In fact, I'm really surprised Kelly didn't try to put some unknowns or independent film stars in this instead. He basically worked with unknowns in Donnie Darko and that worked out well.
Some of the themes were good. The story itself is actually good. It mirrors extremes of what's going on right now. I applaud him for taking risks.
The dialog leaves much to be desired though. The Baron and his buddies needed to reworked or perhaps they just needed a better Baron. I mean really. That Wallace Shawn should be nothing more than a side character. That was a big role and I got the impression that the director hated this character. It really could've been played better.
Justin Timberlake's narrating was obviously making up for the shortcomings. There were a lot of good ideas, but using someone to explain it to the audience made up like 30% of the movie. I'm not sure if there was a better way since he it was a big task.
SNL comedians, have to go. Seriously. I don't need to elaborate, watch the movie.
Otherwise, I liked the movie. I think there was some good imagery in it. There's lots of areas where you can see brilliance trying to rear it's head out. Perhaps Kelly didn't hit it with this movie, but he had the right idea. Had he fine tuned it, perhaps had a producer that kept him in line, this movie would've satisfied all fans.
The Rock, Stifler, and Buffy all pulled out some good performances. I really expected it to be worse. Their acting was fine. It was the other side characters that drew some horrible performances. In fact, I'm really surprised Kelly didn't try to put some unknowns or independent film stars in this instead. He basically worked with unknowns in Donnie Darko and that worked out well.
Some of the themes were good. The story itself is actually good. It mirrors extremes of what's going on right now. I applaud him for taking risks.
The dialog leaves much to be desired though. The Baron and his buddies needed to reworked or perhaps they just needed a better Baron. I mean really. That Wallace Shawn should be nothing more than a side character. That was a big role and I got the impression that the director hated this character. It really could've been played better.
Justin Timberlake's narrating was obviously making up for the shortcomings. There were a lot of good ideas, but using someone to explain it to the audience made up like 30% of the movie. I'm not sure if there was a better way since he it was a big task.
SNL comedians, have to go. Seriously. I don't need to elaborate, watch the movie.
Otherwise, I liked the movie. I think there was some good imagery in it. There's lots of areas where you can see brilliance trying to rear it's head out. Perhaps Kelly didn't hit it with this movie, but he had the right idea. Had he fine tuned it, perhaps had a producer that kept him in line, this movie would've satisfied all fans.