Movie Reviews

I checked up Ashley's blog recently and felt inspired enough by her fabulous entries to follow her footsteps and take a stab at reviewing some films I recently saw. Of course, my aversion to dark subject matter and violence really cramps the number of movies I can actually review, but here's my stab at it anyway.

Movie: Be Kind Rewind

Premise: A magnetized Jack Black deletes all the contents of a VHS rental store and teams up with Mos Def to recreate the contents for the customers - aka "Swede" the movies.

My expectations: Genuine clever humor involving the swede-ing of the films. Laugh-outloud performance from Black, every-man likeability from Mos Def, and innovative filming/story-telling style from Michel Gondry (being of Eternal Sunshine fame).

What I got: Innovative went too far into random and weird. The quirky characters with underdeveloped motivation, random conversations, and editing consistently felt at odds with the mainstream humor of watching Jack Black and Mos Def re-enact classics (and not so classic) movies. The delving into smaltz for the latter half of the movie (with the intention of feeling for characters I didn't GET) made the distinction more palpable. So while Michel Gondry's really scored some genuine laughs and "wow, that's really clever!" moments during the swede-ing processes, the rest of the film...not so much. In addition, Jack Black (popping up to wreak havoc and yell) and Mos Def (quiet, mumbling around) were defintiely under-utilized.

Conclusion: If I could just youtube the 15 minutes of the low-budget takes on the movies, I'd be perfectly content.

Score: 2.5/5