The Final Destination - Review

So I saw The Final Destination in 3-D last night. To write a detailed review examining all of its many shortcomings would be a waste of my time and yours ("oh, really, Trevor? You say the fourth Final Destination wasn't that good? What a surprise!"), so I'll skip it. Instead, here are just random thoughts about the movie.

• First off, it was predictably awful, but it was also fun seeing it in the theater. I don't regret going. If I hadn't, I would have ended up catching it on cable some day and thinking "well, that was crappy...I wish I had at least watched it in 3-D." So, now I did, and I never have to watch it again. That being said, it's the first Final Destination movie that I never will watch again, so it was definitely a big step-down in quality from the previous entries.
• This had to be one of the worst scripts ever....EVER. Every bit of dialogue just rang so false. It was as if they hired an alien to write it. "Just write it the way you think humans actually talk, Zurg."
• Even if the script had been better, it wouldn't have mattered, as the cast was pretty pathetic. None of the four leads had any chemistry with one another. Scratch that - they just didn't have any chemistry at all. Even Justin Welborn, an actor whose work I've really enjoyed in films like The Signal and Dance of the Dead, was terrible here. Of course, he wasn't done any favors by the fact that he was playing a one-note character credited as "Racist." No, really, that's his character's name - "Racist."Other characters included Mechanic, MILF, and Mechanic's Girlfriend.
• Speaking of MILF, she was played by the gorgeous Krista Allen, and I would like to thank The Final Destination for reminding me of her. I haven't thought about Krista Allen in years (probably since the underrated HBO series Unscripted), but watching this movie made me wish Cinemax would start re-showing Emmanuelle in Space again.
• There was one decent actor in this - Mykelti Williamson, who brought far more charisma and dignity to his role than this movie - nay, this franchise deserved.
• This was the second movie in a row that I've seen stage it's big climax in a movie theater. This one wasnt quite as good as Inglourious Basterds.
• Speaking of that climax, this was the first time I remember in a Final Destination movie that one of the "accidents" meant for the main characters also ended up killing dozens of innocent victims, who had nothing to do with the original tragedy our heroes escaped. I guess it took four movies, but Death is finally pissed.
• Also, the movie the characters are seeing is in 3-D. When we see the screen they are watching, we don't see the movie in 3-D. Instead, we see the blurry image that you see when take off your glasses during a 3-D movie. I'll admit that was kind of a clever touch. But I really wish they hadn't had all the extras playing the audience members reacting to the 3-D the way audience members always react in commercials for 3-D. Whenever you go to a 3-D movie, you might see one or two people who are still dumb enough to flinch at 3-D effects, but you never see the entire theater doing it. Since they presented it that way here, it totally took me out of the reality of the movie...and yes, I realize I'm saying that about The Final Destination.
  
• Yes, there were some pretty cool deaths...but they are all in the first half of the film. It seems like by the mid-point, the screenwriters were just too bored to keep coming up with anything interesting, and were content to just start dropping things on people. They even sunk as low as to simply recreate a death from the first movie - although they did make it nice wink-wink moment by having the character talking about "deja vu" seconds before it happens.
• You ever read the short story "Guts," by Chuck Palahniuk? Yeah, so have the writers of The Final Destination.
  
• It must suck to live in the Final Destination universe, where every single building and room you enter is just fraught with imminent peril. The surprise isn't that death can get to these characters, it's that they weren't already dead by the age of two. Still, as goofy as it all seems, I have to admit that after watching one of these I always end up looking around the rooms I'm in, trying to figure out what kind of Rube Goldberg hijinks death could conjure up if it wanted to take me out.
• Unless my memory is failing me, I think this was the first FD movie in which the main character has a vision not only of the initial tragedy, but then continues to have visions of each subsequent death before they happen. This actually made me realize that there is still an intriguing Final Destination movie to be made. I would love to see a movie that finally examines the mythology of the series, because there is something interesting going on here. What exactly is giving characters these visions? Is there some ulterior force opposed to death, that is trying to give these people a fighting chance? Or does death just do this itself, whenever it gets bored and wants to make things a little more sporting. I realize they will never actually make a FD movie that looks into this, since it doesn't fit into their plan to just keep re-doing the same formula over and over, but I would definitely be down for seeing it (or writing it, if New Line wants to give me a call).
• Where the hell was Tony Todd?? At least FD3 used his voice.
• Finally, I noticed that The Final Destination was directed by David R. Ellis, who also directed Final Destination 2 and Cellular. But, more importantly, he also directed Snakes on a Plane, and holy shit, do you realize that if they had just waited a couple more years to make that movie, we probably would have had Snakes on a Plane in 3-D!! That would have been awesome, and it might have even helped SoaP turn a bigger profit than it did.
  

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - Review

Given its writer/director, this might come as no surprise, but Inglourious Basterds is a strange beast of a movie. It is almost certainly not what many will be expecting, especially considering the movie’s ad campaign and the man behind it. It IS violent (at times shockingly so), but never really as violent as you probably think it will be (this never comes CLOSE to Kill Bill). It IS over-the-top, but rarely ridiculously so. And it DOES star Brad Pitt, but he is far from the main character. In fact, the titular Basterds aren’t even really the focus of the film – they pop in and out, here and there. You could remove them entirely, and the MAIN revenge tale of the movie would stay pretty much intact.

That all being said, this is very much a Quentin Tarantino film. No other modern filmmaker could have (or would have wanted to) make this movie. How you feel about it will depend greatly on how you currently feel about Tarantino. And I say “currently” because that perception has changed for many in the last few years. And I think it’s impossible to talk about Inglourious Basterds (or at least irrelevant) without addressing this.

There is no doubt that Tarantino is no longer the bullet-proof critic’s darling he once was. I suspect this is largely of his own design. Following the amazing one-two debut punch of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, many hailed Tarantino as some sort of second-coming of Scorsese – the leader of the new generation of modern crime drama. But as quickly as that legend was built up, it was almost as quickly abandoned after the somewhat lackluster reception to Jackie Brown. This was essentially the end of the first Tarantino era. He took a long break before coming back with Kill Bill, and by that point it wasn’t hard to wonder if that movie (or two movies, as the case ended up being) would be a full-fledged comeback or just proof that the early potential shown in his first two films was some sort of fluke.

As it turned out, the answer was somewhere in the middle. It WAS a comeback – but it wasn’t exactly the same Tarantino that came back. Instead, Kill Bill introduced us to what I see as the second Tarantino era, as the writer/director emerged as a new king of exploitation movies. This was certainly baffling to some, but it made perfect sense. Tarantino had finally dove head on into the treasure trove of trash films he was always publicly expressing love for and decided that that’s where he wants to play.

This is probably a bummer for those who wanted Tarantino to keep cranking out films similar to his first two. But really, wouldn’t that have gotten boring awfully fast? And besides, numerous Tarantino-imitators came in to fill that gap following Pulp Fiction. For folks like me, who love the same sort of kitschy ‘70s cult movies that Tarantino grew up on, the new direction he took starting with Kill Bill was an exhilarating change, and I gladly admit to hoping he stays true to his claim that he would be perfectly happy making nothing but “Grindhouse” flicks for the rest of his career.

Inglourious Basterds certainly belongs in this second Tarantino era, as it is ostensibly a tribute to the spaghetti westerns and war movies of the ‘70s. Of course, this being a Tarantino movie, it is also far more than that. Another recent Tarantino trademark has been his refusal to adhere to one particular genre or style even within individual films. This turns off some, as well, and I have already seen some criticism that Inglourious Basterds, like Kill Bill and Death Proof before it, is disjointed. In all honesty, this is not a criticism I can disagree with, even if it is not something that bothers me…except in one case. That’s right, before I get back to defending and applauding the film, I will admit that even I felt the film’s various styles got off track in at least one element.

I am speaking of the two moments in Inglorious Basterds where we are suddenly treated to voice-over narration. One of these is the origin tale of Hugo Stiglitz, and I’ll get back to that moment, because I have much more to say about it. The other is a strange and completely unnecessary moment in which the narrator informs us of how nitrate film burns much faster. For the life, I can’t really figure this moment out. The information could have just as easily been delivered in a couple lines of dialogue from the characters. I probably wouldn’t have cared if there had been MORE moments like it, but that’s just it – because there are only these two brief Voice Over sequences in a two hour and forty-five minute movie, they feel incredibly awkward.

But that is not enough to ruin the experience, nor are the rest of the film’s stylistic changes. In fact, the movie’s tonal shifts are a big part of what make it, and its writer/director, so fascinating. In my 411 review of Transformers 2, I said the problem with the movie was that Bay was too free to indulge in his various film fetishes. I stand by that, but don’t think that means I am saying directors should NOT be allowed to do so. The problem with Bay is that his particular film fetishes are unfortunately unbearable if not kept in check. With Tarantino, on the other hand, we have a director that we WANT to see indulge in his fetishes – and they’re all on display here. The long monologues, the memorable side characters, the excellent usage of music, the novel-like chapter breaks…even the trademark shots of women’s bare feet. They are all what make Tarantino Tarantino, and the new joy of his recent output is seeing how he will fit them into genres as various as kung-fu revenge tales, slasher films, and now WWII epics.

So, like I said, if you have already grown tired of these tropes, then this is hardly the movie for you. This is not necessarily a war movie for lovers of war movies. It is a war movie for lovers of Tarantino movies. It is definitely not his masterpiece, as I have seen at least couple critics claim. But that doesn’t matter. I don’t care if he ever makes another movie as excellent as Pulp Fiction. And, quite frankly, I don’t think Tarantino cares either. He’s in it for the fun now, and that’s what this movie delivers. Inglourious Basterds allows him to re-invent WWII, unencumbered by such little things as moral complexity or historical accuracy. This may seem silly (or just plain stupid) to some, and a part of me feels bad for those people. For the rest of us, we can sit back and enjoy as a master filmmaker puts his own unique spin on a seemingly worn-out genre and makes it something wholly original in the process. I give Inglorious Basterds a solid “B,” and eagerly await Tarantino’s next movie, whatever genre (or genres) it may be.

Before I go, though, let me just address a few other random thoughts about the movie:

• I promised I would get back to the Hugo Stiglitz origin scene. Now even though I said above that this is one of two Voice Over scenes that feel strangely out-of-place in the movie, that doesn’t mean I didn’t like this part. Far from it – this is one of the most entertaining scenes in the movie…which only makes its randomness that much more frustrating. Why didn’t the rest of the Basterds get similar moments? It would have helped flesh out the others, like Samm Levine and B.J. Novak’s characters, who aren’t really given much to do. But OK, I can live with only Stiglitz getting an origin sequence…if only it ended up meaning something. I guess that is what bothers me about this scene. It’s something of an unfair tease. It instantly builds up this awesome mythos around Stiglitz, and in turn makes him one of the movie’s more intriguing characters. So you keep waiting for this intrigue to pay off, but it never does. In my opinion, it’s a rare creative stumble by Tarantino – he almost always delivers on what he sets up. But here he seems to promise big things from this character, and then we are never given them. I have given up on expecting Tarantino to ever actually make spin-off movies (like the rumored but never materialized Vega Brothers movie and Kill Bill anime), but perhaps he could get his buddy Robert Rodriguez to make a Hugo Stiglitz movie, and actually give the character the showcase his origin sequence suggests he deserves.

• It’s interesting to me that no one seems to be making a big deal about the fact that this is the first Tarantino movie that (somewhat) focuses on making movies. Oh, sure, characters watch and talk about movies in all of his work, but this is the first time that the actual business of making and showing movies is actually a crucial plot point – even if it is the German WWII propaganda films we’re talking about.

• I’ve heard that some feel the Nazi’s in Inglourious Basterds are one-dimensional villains. I don’t think complaint could be any further from the truth. In fact, I was expecting them to be much more stereotypical, given the sort of WWII exploitation movies that Tarantino is paying homage to with this movie (most of which DID relegate the Nazi characters to little more than cartoony bad guys). I don’t see how anyone could say that Hans Landa is a one-dimensional character. Same with Fredrick Zoller. And what about the young Nazi in the tavern, who simply wants to get back to his newborn baby? Not exactly “stereotypical evil” behavior there, huh?

• And let’s finish off by talking about Hans Landa. There are a number of great performances in this movie (Brad Pitt is clearly having a hoot and it shows, and I was also very impressed with the work of Melanie Laurent as Shosanna), but there is no question that Christoph Waltz absolutely steals this movie. Landa is easily one of the best screen villains of the past decade, and I think it’s gonna be tough to compete with him for the Best Supporting Actor trophy come Oscar time. Who knew that being so pleasant and polite could be so creepy? "Wait for the cream!"
  

Yeah, this was necessary.

Between my Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and regular 411 column, I have started to feel like I am not adequately represented in the online world. And so here we are with Night of the Living Trev, a new blog dedicated to further spreading my gospel. Most of what you're gonna get here are additional movie reviews that don't quite fit on 411 (whether it be because of style or simply because that movie has already gotten a fair amount of attention from my fellow 411 writers), but I'll also be throwing up just ramdom thoughts and tirades from time to time.

So if you're a friend, fan (yeah, right) or whatever, please bookmark this page and check back every so often. I'll try not to disappoint.