When I first heard of this movie I was excited. I loved Donnie Darko, so I was very curious to see Richard Kelly’s follow up. Then news of the bad reception at Cannes and the delay in release lowered my level of excitement, but I was still determined to watch it and judge it by myself. I wish I hadn’t…
This movie is a mish mash of many different ideas and themes. There’s the commentary on US politics and the war in Iraq. There’s a commentary on the movie industry, on talk shows on TV, on radicals, on advertising etc… All this sprinkled with sci-fi and time travel. It was just a mess. Plot-wise I really couldn’t follow it too well, and it just didn’t interest me. For a moment I was intrigued by the time-travel explanation, but that didn’t bring to much of anything at the end.
There are many characters here, but unfortunately I also didn’t care about any of them. I never cared for the Rock, and here he has to portray a serious but also a little bit crazy movie star. I thought he was just horrible, I really hated his little tick with his fingers, I suppose it was purposely forced, but I was just annoyed by it.
Gellar didn’t give me any emotion at all, she just felt bland. I have no idea why Jon Lovitz was cast as the cop, I thought that was just so wrong. Sean William Scott also felt bland, and I really hated Justin Timberlake’s narration.
This is certainly a different movie, probably an ambitious movie and I at least appreciate filmmakers trying to create something new. Unfortunately the end result just doesn’t work here.
Rating: 2 Stars