MISSED IT BY THAT MUCH
I saw it Friday afternoon. I had no expectations.
It was frighteningly mediocre. I want my money back.
I give this cinematic embarrassment ONE-HALF OF A CAN
out of five cans of diet cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper.
Non-Spoiler Breakdown:
Unfortunately, the failure of this film is one of simple Hollywood hubris.
They obviously rushed this puppy out WAY too quickly, before a decent
final draft was written, and put it into the hands of amateur filmmakers.
The script was TERRIBLE and the Directing and Editing were incompetent
and confusing at best. Hamhanded segues from one scene to the next
gave the appearance that they never actually finished principal photography,
and were missing several shots.
The cast is a seemingly inspired grouping of talented actors, but when
thrown into dragging scenes with weak dialogue backed up by a weaker
plot, there are just only so many nervous stares and bouts of dry wit that
Steve Carell (Maxwell Smart - Agent 86) can conjure up to save the
moment.
Anne Hathaway is a bit of a cipher as Agent 99, looking so much
younger than Carell that an obviously rushed and ridiculous
backstory was squeezed into the movie at the last minute in a
lame attempt to tone down the creepiness factor (and no, it doesn’t
work).
Terrence Stamp does a creditable job keeping a straight face as
Siegfried, the arch villain of C*H*A*O*S. Looking more than a little
bored, he delivers villainous pronouncements with all the gravitas that
has made his 'General Zod' (of Superman II fame) a cult badguy
among fanboys.
And what of the brilliant Alan Arkin, seemingly perfectly cast as
the Chief of C*O*N*T*R*O*L? While a few short moments of comic
wit occasionally arise, Arkin spends half the movie standing around
looking confused, perhaps wondering if this is how Peter Sellers
felt during his last few weeks working on the apocryphal and abyssmal
“The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu” shortly before his demise.
This post was last modified: 07-07-2008, 09:29 AM by Mike Hanson.