Can you guess what movie or TV show we’re watching? We’ve turned on subtitles (when available) not to give you a clue, but to enhance that WTF effect! Leave your best guess in the comments to prove your true Flick Attackosity!
All posts by Rod Lott
Tekken: Blood Vengeance 3D (2011)
Being someone who hasn’t played video games regularly since the heyday of the Atari 2600, I have zero to little knowledge of the Tekken franchise. That statement still holds true after taking in the animated feature it has spurred, Tekken: Blood Vengeance 3D. I’m guessing the word “Tekken” must mean “boredom” in at least one of the Asian languages, because that’s the best description for this sorry excuse for entertainment.
I saw neither blood nor vengeance. I did see some leather-clad babe on a motorcycle trading sore words with another improbably proportioned woman in a near-kimono. There was also a schoolgirl who rode a panda to class, only to find herself competing with a fellow co-ed — the one garishly dressed in shades of purple, up to the added colors in her albino-white hair — for the affections of a guy who has an ongoing hobby of diving off rooftops in a bid for suicide.
In other words, TBV3D — as its fan base would call it, if the film were good enough to merit one — is less a futuristic fighting action piece and more just a piece. Of poop, that is. I suppose that’s okay if you’re expecting a giggly rom-com set in the halls of a learning institution. But then it should be titled Tekken: Giggle School 3D, no?
Tekken-ites seated around me in the theater sure enjoyed it, laughing at every gag, but those came across as in-jokes to this newbie viewer, because the movie expends no effort to set up any of the characters and their relationships to one another. Just what the hell was going on in this movie? My precious time being wasted, that’s what. —Rod Lott
Poseidon (2006)
I’m not sure why audiences and critics were so harsh toward Poseidon, Wolfgang Petersen’s remake of the inexplicably Oscar-winning 1972 disaster flick The Poseidon Adventure, as it’s a perfectly acceptable, escapist summer movie: A boat flips, people die. What more do you want?
Poseidon wastes precious little time getting the giant wave to tip that cruise ship upside down. I think it’s chapter 5 on your DVD player, and Petersen (director of the equally water-logged The Perfect Storm and Das Boot) milks the spectacle for all it’s worth. True, that causes the film to suffer in character development, giving us extremely simplified personalities that pretty much begin and end with the stars’ images; for example, Kurt Russell is basically playing Kurt Russell, with Josh Lucas doing Josh Lucas. And the rest of the cast includes Hot Daughter, Single Mom, Token Kid, Expendable Minority and Fussy Richard Dreyfuss, who, because he wears an earring, doubles as The Gay Guy.
Ultimately, as an effects-heavy action-adventure, that doesn’t matter. That Russell still harbors nice-guy charisma and Emmy Rossum sports wet cleavage through the whole thing helps even more. It even has bite, with one person in particular meeting a gruesome death worthy of a slasher flick. Like Paul Gallico’s original novel, Peterson’s film could be accused of a little racism, if subconscious, doing away with almost all the Latinos and blacks in one fell swoop. Just seeing Andre Braugher in the role of the ship’s captain is an automatic death knell.
The film gives water a sense of real menace. Claustrophobia is very real, and Poseidon takes advantage of that. So for a disposable thriller with good special effects, Snake Plissken and a little Fergie ass-shaking, Poseidon will do you right for a night’s rental. —Rod Lott
Swimfan (2002)
Had star Erika Christensen actually gone all the way and bared her considerable assets, Swimfan might have something to recommend. (Am I being too vague here? Apologies. I totally mean her very large boobs.) Instead, it’s a laughable, teenage take on Fatal Attraction. Its dumb title is hardly the worst thing about it.
Bring It On’s Jesse Bradford stars as Ben, a high school stud with a swimming scholarship practically sticking out the side of his Speedo and a girlfriend in the other (Roswell beanpole Shiri Appleby). One day a new girl named Madison Bell (ol’ chipmunk-cheeked Christensen) comes to school, asks him to help with her locker, fucks him in the pool to say “thanks” and then won’t leave him alone, despite Ben’s increasing protests.
Wait, so what’s the problem here? I’m thinking back to when I was in high school. And if someone as cute and curvy as Christensen wanted to have sex with me and it meant she would show up at my house to look at old pictures with my mom or instant-message me while I was doing homework, so be it. ’Tis a very small price to pay for hot, chlorinated sex.
As Madison’s behavior grows more psychotic, Ben starts to fear for his life. Yeah, and? I’m supposed to root for this jock asshole? He takes advantage of an impressionable young girl and then throws her away because he’d rather stick it to a rail-thin waitress with raccoon eyes? Sorry, folks, but I just can’t sympathize. —Rod Lott
I, Robot (2004)
I, Robot: Me, unimpressed. You, better off doing something else.
In a very loose adaptation of Issac Asimov’s classic book, I, Robot imagines a futuristic world 30 years from now, where friendly, eager-to-please robots are members of every household; where one miswired robot is suspected of murder; and where an entire robot revolution can be squashed by a wisecracking, sweet potato pie-eating cop in a skullcap and Converse sneakers.
That would be Will Smith, as Det. Spooner (a character not in the book, fork you very much), a homicide cop investigating the apparent suicide of a prominent robot inventor at the office of U.S. Robotics. All signs point to a new-model robot with the high-tech name of Sonny, although no robot has ever committed a crime before, being programmed with three laws which state, in essence, that no robot may ever harm a human; that a robot must obey human orders, as long as it doesn’t harm humans; and a robot must protect its own existence, also as long as it doesn’t harm humans. (These rules, unfortunately, do not extend to the audience.)
I, Robot doesn’t have a bad premise, just bad execution. My main problem with this movie lies with a miscast Smith. Continuously walking with a rap-video swagger, he has two modes of acting, each inappropriate: In normal situations, he’s over-the-top and shouting, while in times of life-threatening danger, he’s suddenly under the spotlight at Catch a Rising Star, lobbing leftovers from his Men in Black II quipbook. These ineffectual attempts at comedy include such one-liners as “Aw, hell, no!,” “Get off my car!” and — well, this is new — “Hold my pie!”
But he’s not the only actor to blame. As robot psychologist Dr. Susan Calvin, model-turned-actress (in theory, at least) Bridget Moynahan is quite robotic herself, and looks to be on the verge of tears with every line reading. The best performances come from the robots, and they’re computer-generated. In fact, there are times in this movie where everything onscreen is computer-generated, turning I, Robot into, quite literally, a cartoon.
Gifted director Alex Proyas (Dark City, The Crow) doesn’t help matters, forever swirling his camera as if it were a gyroscope, killing all sense of perspective in the action scenes and nearly requiring a dose or two of Dramamine. All he’s done here is created yet another megaexpensive sci-fi film with big, dumb moments out of place for the antiseptic tone he initially sets. I can see the script meetings now: “And the explosion will hurl Will out of the house, only he won’t get hurt because he’ll use a door like a surfboard and land safely in the pond outside! And he’ll do this while saving a kitty!” In keeping with Hollywood blockbuster mentality, all feats of derring-do are filmed in slow motion, all plot points are telegraphed far in advance, and all people unloading shotguns do so with lips pursed in a scowl. —Rod Lott