Cocaine superhero bromance. Shiny, sleazy melodramaganza. Modern camp classic. Best movie of 2006.
Jit’s thoughts | Beth’s thoughts | My (more extensive) thoughts
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Universal Pictures DVD
15 Dec 2006 12:15 PM | Comments (3)
I don’t get the camp element you savor, but the great thing about great films is how you can rework them endlessly in your own mind. Second-best of the year in my book, but I can’t guarantee that wouldn’t change in time or even by tomorrow. Glad to see others are enjoying it so, even if it bombed according to the majority.
Personally, I wouldn’t recommend the UR cut, as it manages to siphon off some of the fabulous energy the film reeks of, especially if you already disliked the “In the Air Tonight” cover, which is moved from the end credits (where I thought it gave the film a great existentialist kick to spare) to the build up before the shootout (like a bad music video, ugh).
I need (need, like sunlight or oxygen) to compare the versions more thoroughly, but I would venture that the “Director’s Cut” drags a bit more in the middle. And, yes, no amount of camp appreciation of cheesy music and macho silliness will warm me up to that blasphemous cover. But the new cut does have a couple of nice touches, most obviously the opening speedboat race, which is straight out of the TV show and gives the film, as it were, a fine epigraph: MOJO.
I’m in complete harmony with Rob on the unnecessary switch of the Phil Collins cover. As terrible as that cover may be, having the film close with the song lends the film a little bit of trepidation and conveys an uneasy sense of the world in which these characters choose to live within. Now that the cover has been shifted to preface the film’s climax, it just feels like a self-referential homage that serves as a poor prelude to another action set-piece (but it’s still a spectacular action set-piece).
rob
19 December 2006
4:24 PM
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