Battle: Los Angeles Review

Battle: Los Angeles is a standard-issue combat film with a twist: The enemy is a hater from another planet. Camouflaged as meteor showers, armored aliens invade Earth to suck dry its natural resources.

Who you gonna call? The Marines, of course.

The filmmakers strictly observe the movie law that just as he's mothballing his uniform, a short-timer gets redeployed.

On the very day that he completes the paperwork for retirement, Staff Sgt. Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhardt), still mourning the loss of men in Afghanistan, is in a platoon helicoptered into the City of Angels to reclaim Santa Monica from interplanetary devils attacking port cities around the globe.

His unit is peopled by the usual prospects. There's the corporal (Ne-Yo) about to get married, the private (Noel Fisher) who's never been in a battle or with a woman, and the second lieutenant (Ramon Rodriguez) untested in combat and an expectant father. Naturally, one of the men in the platoon (Cory Hardrict) is the brother of one of the leathernecks that Nantz lost.

Thus, Nantz has to battle the aliens while fighting for the platoon's respect and coaching the second lieutenant.

The mission seems as simple as a video-game objective: Rescue civilians stranded at a police station and bring them back to base before the U.S. bombs Santa Monica to sweep the coast of these seemingly invincible invaders.

(If the geography looks not at all like Los Angeles, that's because director Jonathan Liebesman shot it in Louisiana.)

But the enemy is much cannier about disabling Earth's weapons than vice versa.

As a narrative, the cartoonish Battle: Los Angeles makes the cartoonish Independence Day look as nuanced as Saving Private Ryan. It works as a film diversion because of Eckhardt's unwaveringly earnest and resolute performance. Her fans (I am one) will cheer the presence of Michelle Rodriguez, perhaps the only Hollywood actress who looks plausible in military uniform.

It is a little too slippery to work as an allegory. Are we to take it that the aliens represent earthlings who colonize the Middle East and Africa in order to make off with the regions' natural resources? That this is a cautionary tale about any people who would wage war in order to win the spoils of oil and water? Your guess is as good as mine.

Red State Review

Like most humans, I like to classify and label things, and Red State is one of those films where the term “genre-bending” is appropriate. While the film starts out in teen horror tale territory, it gear shifts its tone in so many different directions it’s near impossible to pin down or categorize in any other way. Hell, I can’t even fall back on “Kevin Smith movie” on this one (even though it is, technically; what that label meant in the past is not what it means here). So, yeah, “genre-bending” will have to suffice, label-wise.

The set-up for Red State is simple: three teenage boys (Michael Angarano, Nicholas Braun and Kyle Gallner) let their hormones get the better of their judgment when they answer a Craigslist-style listing of a woman (Melissa Leo) in the surrounding area open to being the three-hole hub for the boys’ penises. The boys head out to meet the woman at her trailer in the woods, wind up getting drugged and wake up prisoners in the church compound of one Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), a pastor with a small, but dedicated, congregation bent on spreading their message of God’s hate for sinners, specifically homosexuals. Things turn ugly when it becomes clear that the message is not just idle proselytizing, and the church has decided upon a more pro-active form of dealing with sinners.

Michael Parks’ Abin Cooper is as charismatic as he is evil, and his portrayal easily finds itself near the top of the list of the most memorable Michael Parks’ characters. While his words and deeds are reprehensible, he still commands your attention; very little of what he says is all that nice, but I kept listening. Melissa Leo turns in another strong performance, simultaneously playing haggard, unhinged and religiously devout quite well, and John Goodman, making his appearance about halfway through the film as an ATF agent monitoring the church’s activities, delivers the thunder of a man asked to do a job he doesn’t agree with, but is damned regardless.

While Red State eventually finds itself in action movie territory, and the violence goes from isolated incidents to full-on, raze the earth brutality, it never winds up desensitizing. If anything, the violence is so matter-of-fact and sudden that every injury or violent act resonates, even in the rare instance when you can predict what’s coming. Anything is game; people die when you least expect it, and in shocking fashion, but it’s never glamorized. It’s straight-forward and it just happens, which makes it all the more disturbing.

It’s challenging to discuss the film outside of the context of its director, mainly because it is such a huge departure from what people may think or expect from a Kevin Smith film that it’s notable to consider. Sure, there are moments here and there that remind you that, “hey, Kevin Smith wrote this,” but, for the most part, the film is like nothing he’s ever written or filmed in the past. On an action or philosophical scale, Dogma comes closest, but even that doesn’t come close at all. Red State is a bleak trip through a dark world, complete with ultra-violence and uncertainty. As the film rolls along, so many things happen, in such a matter-of-fact manner, that I could’ve and would’ve believed anything the film threw at me. I mean, when your guesses and preconceived notions get tossed around as much as they do in Red State, it slowly sinks in that everything you thought you knew about films like this isn’t going to apply here. By the time the film’s climax rolled around, I was expecting any and everything… so of course Smith went to the one scenario I didn’t imagine at all.

Visually, the film is gorgeous, considering how dark and gritty the tone and look. The film pulls off an unsettling Devil’s Rejects visual palette that winds up being better looking than Zombie’s endeavor while still being ugly, dusty and faded. There’s something claustrophobic about the film’s main location, and I’m not talking the basement corridors of Abin Cooper’s church compound, but this general feeling like the film takes place on another planet. A very dirty one, filled with self righteous, morally bankrupt denizens, dressed in the armor of God’s hatred and armed to the teeth.

This is not a cheerful film, and you likely won’t leave the theater feeling all that happy about the world. Not so much because of the actions in the film or the fates of any of the characters (everyone, at some point, does something questionable that you can’t get 100% behind, so it’s less about following and rooting for a hero than it is about getting sucked into the world of the film), but because what happens in the film is not without precedent on a day-to-day basis. Sure, real life isn’t filmed quite so nicely (again, Red State looks gorgeous for a gritty film), but it’s not inconceivable that the film’s events could actually happen while we watch it all unfold on CNN, or read about it in our Twitter feed.

Take Me Home Tonight Review

Okay, here’s a rule a thumb. If you title your movie after a Top-40 pop hit from the decade that gave us Swatches, leg warmers and women the freedom to look like football linebackers with shoulder pad tops, the least you could do is include the song somewhere in the movie. Eddie Money’s “Take Me Home Tonight” was a song with such soul-stirring lyrics as “I can feel your heartbeat faster, faster, faster,” and “I don’t want to let you go till you see the light.” Powerful stuff. And those lyrics actually fit within the context of the movie that shares its song title. Yet the song is missing from the soundtrack, which includes everything from Wang Chung to N.W.A. That’s what happens when you have a film on the shelf for four years and a studio (Universal) that didn’t know how to market the comedy.

Topher Grace is in a rut. He’s lived through the ‘70s, literally (by two years) and fictionally (on That ‘70s Show) and is now stuck in an ‘80s time warp with neither a DeLorean nor a case of Plutonium. His character, Matt Franklin, is smart. Like, you know, really smart. MIT graduate smart. Yet he works at Suncoast Video in a hole-in-the-wall shop at the mall, where customers can browse the latest video releases while Harry and the Hendersons plays in the background.

Directionless, Matt’s one big regret is “The Fredricking,” as in Tori Fredricking (Teresa Palmer), his high school crush, and never making a move. Lucky for him she’s back in town, even though she was supposed to be in Europe all summer. How he came to know this information it is never explained. It could be as simple as hearing it from a friend of a friend, or it may be something creepy, involving a spying midget, a pair of binoculars and a Walkie-Talkie.

So now Matt has one night to make it right with Tori. If this sounds like Take Me Home Tonight will borrow from the “one wild night to change your miserable life” motif playbook, then you get where this is going.  It worked for License to Drive twenty-plus years ago so why not now? Probably because that movie was made in 1988 versus now having a movie set in the same time period.

Take Me Home Tonight is okay if you are seeking ‘80s nostalgia, but if that were the case you would be better off watching some comedies made in the time period it is observing. Trying to recreate the ‘80s for audiences today just doesn’t have the same effect.

But it’s also hard to dislike the movie. The characters are sincere. And it is this sincerity that is it’s greatest strength. Matt is blessed with a superior intellect when it comes to numbers. He’s like Rain Man as one character observes. (It should be noted that while the story is set Labor Day weekend 1988, Rain Man didn’t arrive in theaters until December 1988.)

Even with a strong brain he can’t explain to his parents, especially to his father (Michael Biehn), an LAPD officer who spent a quarter of his life savings on tuition for a wasted degree, why he doesn’t want an engineering job or if he even likes working at Suncoast.

When Tori meets Matt at Suncoast – after he dashes out the back, ditches his nametag, tucks in his shirt, and enters from the front of the store – as she browses the comedies while he picks up a Sweatin’ to the OldiesVHS, she asks if he’s going to a certain party this weekend.

Matt’s wingman for the evening is his best friend Barry (Dan Fogler). Barry is like a pudgy Curtis Armstrong, sharing his sex-obsessed crude personality, but not a catchy nickname. Also along for the ride is Matt’s twin sister, Wendy (Anna Faris), a whiz at English who recently applied for graduate school at Cambridge but is too afraid of the implications with how her boyfriend (Parks and Recreation’s Chris Pratt) will respond if the university accepts her.

Each character has a different set of circumstances that make their individual arcs unique, and because they were influenced by reckless means their pathos is communal. Matt’s one little white lie to Tori at the video store has a snowball effect. It causes Barry to steal a nice car from the dealership he was formerly employed – it’s no 1961 Ferrari 250 GT (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) or Porsche 911 Turbo (Sixteen Candles), but enough to attract chicks. The thievery leads to the discovery of cocaine in the glove box and later drug-fueled shenanigans, while Matt makes his “move” on Tori.

Take Me Home Tonight isn’t devoid of jokes. Fogler does the most work of any other cast member to make it happen, though. Since the screenwriters weren’t kind enough to give him a nickname we’ll just call him “Mr. Pratfall.” He makes a small plastic baggie of coke last most of the night doing multiple snorts. He has a dance-off with a guy who could have been an extra in Breakin’. And he does a disturbing ménage a trois with a topless Angie Everhart and her “friend” who likes to watch.

As someone who claims the ‘80s as his decade, having been born in 1981 and lived through all the different fads (hyper color T-shirts, parachute pants, among others), I understand why certain filmmakers would want to pay homage to the movies of ‘80s. Unfortunately for those behind Take Me Home Tonight, there are far too many ‘80s comedies that are superior and worth “taking home tonight” instead.

The Adjustment Bureau Review

The Adjustment Bureau is being billed as an Inception-style thriller. It’s not. Unlike Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending action spectacular, The Adjustment Bureau is a much more subtle film, augmenting a relatively straightforward plot with strong performances and just enough science-fiction fluff to get the audience thinking.
Thinking about what? Why, only one of the most important questions of all: The question of free will.



David Norris (Matt Damon, playing the affable regular guy persona he’s been perfecting sinceGood Will Hunting) is a rising politician in New York. He’s young but popular with voters, appealing to a wide range of demographics thanks to his unique Brooklyn upbringing. Emily Blunt plays Elise Sellas, a beautiful and impetuous dancer.
In a delightful “Meet Cute,” the pair hit it off right away and Elise’s spontaneity rubs off on David. I find it hard to believe in “love at first sight,” even in the movies, but Damon and Blunt make a wonderful pair and really play off each other well. From the moment they meet, you really do want them to be together.
Unfortunately, Fate has other plans in mind (and I use Fate with a capital “F” for a reason). In one of the first chase scenes in the film, David runs up against the men from the “Adjustment Bureau,” a strange, bureaucratic-seeming bunch of sharply dressed men who can control just about anything with the flick of a finger. They inform him, about as nicely as they can, that he can’t see Elise again, and that he probably shouldn’t tell anybody about the Adjustment Bureau either.
Naturally, David isn’t content to give up on the woman of his dreams just because of a few men in hats (the three primary adjusters are played wonderfully by John Slattery, Anthony Mackie, and Terence Stamp) and so the movie goes. I won’t say much more beyond that, though I will say that the banter between David and the adjusters provides some of the best moments in the movie.



II made a point at the beginning of the review to note that, despite its marketing, The Adjustment Bureau is not like Inception. I should also say that that’s not a bad thing. The Adjustment Bureau is a sci-fi film, but it’s what you might call a “light” sci-fi film. While the film raises important questions about predestination and free will, it doesn’t force the viewer into pondering philosophical or theological quandaries so complex that they lose hold of the narrative.
The ultimate role of the Adjustment Bureau is hinted at, and it’s fairly clear whom the adjusters are supposed to be, but the movie is never really about them, nor should it be.The Adjustment Bureau, with its literal “agents of fate,” is a plot device for a film focused not on destiny, but on love.
Come to think of it, The Adjustment Bureau is the perfect date movie, because, underneath it all, it’s a heartwarming romance more than anything else. Some may find that fact unappealing, but the romantic in me enjoys it. Is there a better character goal than true love?



Bottom line, The Adjustment Bureau offers an appealing story, solid acting, and more than competent direction from first-timer George Nolfi (Nolfi previously wrote Ocean’s Twelve andThe Bourne Ultimatum). The action sequences are sparse but effective, and Nolfi uses New York City as a wonderful backdrop for the movie. All in all, The Adjustment Bureau is a very enjoyable film that works extremely well on one level, and hints at an even more intriguing level just beyond the surface.
If you choose to follow up on the philosophical questions posed by this film, I suggest starting with John Calvin. But if you’re content to enjoy the film as it is, 100 minutes of quality action, humor, and romance, that’s great too.
For the record, you can count me among the latter. If I want to spend time scratching my head and wondering “what it’s all about?” I’d rather go lay under the stars. Of course, I do watch movies to be intellectually stimulated, but mostly I watch to be entertained. With The Adjustment Bureau, I got a little bit of the former, and a whole lot of the latter.

Rango Review

They call him Rango...

From the "Gecko" I was intrigued by the film. Recent animation films (with the exception of "How to train your dragon", of course) have been either sequels or something we've already seen more than once. "Rango", however, had a new style to it that I found to be brilliant. Normally, children wouldn't be interested in something in the Western genre, but, the film creates a space that might just catch a child's eye. That's in the trailers though. In reality, "Rango" is actually something I'd say anyone but the kiddies will enjoy. It's more serious than it is comical and it doesn't contain the light adventure kids normally find heavy adventure out of. While this is one wild adventure for our main hero, I feel as if the moral of the film is something only adults will get something out of. Getting away from the main point, the film is very enjoyable, and though I only found very few flaws, in the end this is a very successful animation in my eyes.

Eight years ago, Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp took a dead genre (Pirates) and made it something that is now a instant-classic, "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl", of course its sequels. Creating such a fantastic piece filled with action, humor, and incredible adventure that audiences never really saw coming, its no surprise with what they create here in "Rango". This time taking the Western-genre, which isn't completely dead (but something we hardly ever see anymore) and reinvent it with a new twist: creature animation. Instead of having cowboys and Indians, the movie replaces the usual with creatures in the mix, making it very satisfying for the kids, and even fans of the Western genre. Gore Verbineski does a fantastic job visually setting up "Rango". The animation on the film is astonishing and some of the best I've seen in recent years. But, while I found the animation and look on the film to be fascinating, I felt as if some of the creatures may have been a bit much for the kids to look at. The film is produced by Nickelodeon, and that obviously attracts a child's mind and even a parent's but I feel as if this film is supposed to be aimed at a older audience. Some of the creatures in the film (especially Rattlesnake Jake) might be a bit too scary for the kids, especially seeing the film in a dark theatre. Not just the look of the character, but, the gritty outlaw-ish character development behind Rattlesnake Jake, as well.

In every film there's a hero. In every Western, there's a cowboy. In "Rango", we have Rango. While in the beginning it's not even his name, he's just a pet lizard in a bad situation that leads him straight to the desert, all alone. With a heart of gold and the imagination of a child, Rango's enthusiasm brings out the light in this film and makes our main-hero very likeable. Being very lonely his whole life, he finds his chance at the best of life in Dirt, a small town deep in the desert. Creating a fabric of being an old westerner and a killer of six outlaw brothers, Rango quickly escalates into becoming the Sheriff of the town after killing a deadly eagle keeping prey on it by the chance of luck. Being the new Sheriff isn't easy, however, as Rango learns of Rattlesnake Jake and how no Sheriff lasts long in Dirt. But, with each challenge Rango faces he becomes more and more of what lie he created. The biggest problem to Dirt, however, is its struggling to find it's water supply. I thought the whole plot on water was brilliant, but again, it probably isn't something kids would find amusement out of. Adults, however, well, that's a different story. Rango finds friends in Beans, a lady-rancher who is a great role-model for women viewers on the film fighting her every view and doing whatever she can to find water for the town. He also makes enemies in the Mayor and the film's big villian Rattlesnake Jake. The film manages to confuse me in two different areas though. 1) The movie clearly takes place in present time. There is existence of humans, as seen in the beginning, and there are major cities (as seen in one scene). If there are humans, how are the animals living in a town their size (?) and how do they have guns their size as well? If humans exist then guns wouldn't be made for the little creatures and a small town their size (built by whom?) wouldn't make much sense either? I think the film would've flowed much easier if humans didn't exist because it really boggled those questions in my head after seeing the movie. 2) (Tiny Spoiler) Where Rango and Rattlesnake Jake actually brothers? When Rango mentioned that he was his brother in one scene I thought it was just another lie to tense the townspeople, and then when Rattlesnake Jake came to town to scare off Rango he called him his brother. The film never actually clears it up to whether the two are brothers or not, they didn't seem to have the brother feel so I don't think they were, but, it was something that confused me just a tad. Anyways, overall, the storyline for "Rango" is very fresh and creative. I've never seen an animated feature-film quite like it so it's definitely worth the dollar just for that. It's not something that has been repeated over the course of time over and over, so, no worry there.

The script for the film, written by John Logan, is very mature for it's kind. Thinking it'll be aimed for the kides, the script's maturity is actually something teens and adults will get something out of. The strong moral on what a hero is similar to the one from "How to train your dragon", but, "Rango" presents it with a whole new approach. I thought the dialog in the film was pretty heavy and interesting through-out, and overall, I thought Logan's work was fantastic. I would've liked a few things to be cleared up a little better, but, his script flows very nicely indeed.

Johnny Depp hides behind the face of Rango, doing a great job bringing the life and enthusiasm to the character it deserves. Johnny Depp's face is no stranger to audiences, and neither is his face. It's very recognizable and without seeing advertisements or posters for the film and just watching the film, it's instant that you know who's voicing the character. I thought Depp was great as Rango and I couldn't of imagined another actor of adventure to bring it to the screen like he did. Isla Fisher, who I didn't know was even voice-acting in the film until after I saw it, voices Beans. Fisher does a great job hiding her voice adding in on a western accent. I thought the voice was done well, and if she was able to hide herself away like that, clearly, it was good then. Abigail Breslin, who has a few lines here and there, voices Priscilla, a little girl-creature in the town who has pretty good chemistry with Rango in their couple of scenes. Bill Nighy brings terror to his character voicing Rattlesnake Jake, giving the character a very deep, scary vocal that creates a little bit of tense. Other hidden stars like Timothy Olyphant and Alfred Molina give away their voices for little roles. As for the work on the voice-acting in the film, it was used to the extent: energy and life.

All and all, beautifully made, "Rango" takes an old dish and serves it with new creativity that might just be more fun for the adults than the kids. A little confusing at times, I feel like the adventure of the film is high and it never slows down from the beginning. It's much more original than other animated films in the past, and it will make fans of the Western genre happy. I'm glad to say that it was worth my dollar, and I loved the Clint Eastwood figure cowboy from one scene. Lets just say that being a huge fan of the Western genre, I'm glad that "Rango" can be a film happily added into it, having the same thrills any other would. It's moral on what a hero is fantastic and might just give it's audience huge inspiration. Overall, it's a real delight to look at it and witness.

-Thanks for the read!

-Screeny

Overall Quality: B- Great.

Hall Pass Review

The strain of the Farrelly brothers’ attempt to live up to their rudely comic younger selves is all too evident in Hall Pass, an unbecoming and only fitfully funny account of two fortyish married guys making a final pathetic shot at playing the field.

The story’s central premise — would you, or could you, cheat if given explicit permission for a limited period? — possesses genuine fantasy appeal. However, the Farrellys seem fatally torn between making a grown-up farce with a heartfelt message and delivering the gross-outs expected of them, leaving the film in an unsatisfying, vaguely depressing no man’s land. Unexpectedly, this jokey expose of male foibles and female vulnerabilities might play better to women than to men, but overall commercial prospects look middling.

Comically fixated on the plight of fellows whose wives fall asleep — or pretend to — in order to avoid nocturnal marital duties, this is very much a film from a frustrated middle-aged male point of view. For Rick (Owen Wilson), the dilemma is exacerbated by having three young kids, and his best pal Fred (Jason Sudeikis) sums up their attitude with the rhetorical query, “Doesn’t it bother you that all of our wives’ dreams come true and ours don’t?” But the real problem for them, as well as for their mates Maggie (Jenna Fischer) and Grace (Christina Applegate), respectively, is the sense of being taken for granted, of no longer feeling desired.

This is a universal predicament that eventually gives birth here to the moral that you should appreciate what you have. But Peter and Bobby Farrelly, working with co-writers Pete Jones and Kevin Barnett, serve it with a gimmick: Fed up with their husbands’ undisguised ogling of sexy women, Maggie and Grace issue their hubbies a “hall pass,” which entitles the boys to do whatever they want with whomever they want for a week, during which time they’ll stay out at the beach on Cape Cod.

Punch-drunk with surprise at this offer, the guys scarcely know what to say or do, which is the beginning of the film’s numerous problems. How do they spend their first night of liberty? Pigging out with their three equally clueless poker buddies at Appleby’s. When the boys then waste another day with some dreadfully unfunny shenanigans at a country club (as if they would find any action there), the suspicion develops that the Farrellys have no better idea how to plot their movie than the guys have about how to go about picking up girls.

It’s under this cloud of desperation that the filmmakers finally drop their first trademark o-bomb (“o” as in outrageous) in a male nude scene around a health club Jacuzzi; the sequence and the in-your-face genital close-ups come out of nowhere and feel cynically included just to provide the sort of WTF moment that, at least since There’s Something About Mary, audiences hope for from the Farrellys. A second equally arbitrary passage, one that can be categorized under extreme potty humor, involves a wasted date’s accidental misuse of hotel bathroom facilities.

By this point, Rick has realized that his best shot at fulfilling his fantasy lies with Leigh (Nicky Whelan, who could pass for Brooklyn Decker’s Australian sister), an ultra-friendly barista at his favorite cafe. When the moment of truth arrives, Rick’s got to sort out his true priorities, while Fred gets himself into a more unusual predicament. What the guys don’t know, and are probably better off not knowing, is how extensively their wives have been fraternizing with some good-looking minor league baseball players up on the Cape.

The slapstick and action comedy interludes are haphazardly executed at best, and matters aren’t helped by the film’s incredibly ugly look; for whatever reason, the productions from New Line Cinema since its absorption by Warner Bros. appear poorly lighted, processed and/or printed, resulting in blotchy, bleachy results that do no favors to the actors.

Looking pale, pasty and out of shape, Wilson lacks his usual sense of sneaky stealth behind the affability, and his mere presence makes one yearn for the sort of genuine mischief he helped provoke in Wedding Crashers. Saturday Night Live regular Sudeikis supplies energy and enthusiasm if not inspired intangibles, while Fischer is the picture of the desirable middle-class wife and mom. Applegate’s childless wife represents more of a question mark, as, without a few clues about this woman, it’s impossible to guess what she’s about. In a surprising bit of casting against type, Richard Jenkins turns up late as an aging swinger full of cunning tips for his would-be proteges.

The Farrellys’ beloved native Rhode Island has unfortunately been doubled here by Atlanta and environs, obviously for financial reasons.

Drive Angry Review

It's funny that I still sort of think of Patrick Lussier as a "new" filmmaker.

He's not, of course, by any means.  He got his start working as an assistant editor in the '80s working on TV, and then moved up to cutting shows like "MacGyver" before hooking up with Wes Craven on "Nightmare Cafe," which led to him cutting "New Nightmare," Craven's attempt at redefining his own Freddy Kruger.  Lussier worked on some troubled films over the years, and must have amazing battle stories from "Mimic" and "Vampires In Brooklyn" and "Halloween H20" and especially "Cursed."  His time working at Dimension and Miramax in particular put him in the right place at the right time when certain opportunities came up, and he ended up directing films like "The Prophecy 3" and "Dracula 2000" plus two direct-to-video sequels to it, as well as the sequel to "White Noise."  Those are all movies that were part of a pipeline, and hardly reflections of who Lussier is as a filmmaker.

Todd Farmer wrote the more-intentionally-outrageous-than-I-expected "Jason X," and then worked for a while as a studio assignment writer, a gig that can be very frustrating.  You can spend years working on things that never end up onscreen or that don't really resemble anything you wrote by the time they make it to the screen.  Somehow, the two of them crossed paths, and the first result was "My Bloody Valentine," their very loose remake of an '80s slasher film.  That film is very self-aware genre fun with a cast that knows exactly what movie they're in and that seemed to enjoy tweaking the slasher conventions with glee.  It's not some genre-defining triumph, but it was fun, and that's something people frequently forget when working in a certain kind of popcorn horror.

With "Drive Angry," Lussier and Farmer are working together again, and this feels like an evolutionary step from "My Bloody Valentine," a wild and funny exploitation movie that gives great roles to a cast that is obviously ready to play.  And because Lussier is one of the first filmmakers of the modern era to make two movies that are actually shot 3D and not converted, his use of the format here is playful, smart, and a big jump forward from what he did with it the first time.  That's what I mean when I say it feels to me like Lussier is a "new" director.  It feels like his work with Farmer, these last two movies, is the work of a focused voice, a sensibility that is very distinct from the films that precede these.  Probably the most exciting thing about seeing how much fun Lussier and Farmer are having here is knowing that these guys have more films planned together.  If they can keep this up, that's very good news indeed.

"Drive Angry" opens with images of a suspension bridge out of Hell, and a classic muscle car tearing ass across it.  Inside, Milton (Nicolas Cage) sits at the wheel, a man with a mission, a man so determined to right a wrong that he's found a way to slip free from eternal damnation.  He's not the only one to get out, though.  The Accountant (William Fichtner, having so much fun that I assume he paid Lussier to get the gig) is sent to fetch him back, and The Accountant is the type of supernatural bounty hunter who does not take no for an answer.  Milton has a personal stake in his escape, though, and he stopped before he left to pick up a weapon that gives him a litle bit of an edge.

Amber Heard plays Piper, a waitress who finds herself eager to leave town when she catches her boyfriend Frank (Todd Farmer) with another woman.  Piper takes his car, which is exactly the sort of ride Milton's looking for. Piper quickly finds herself on the run for her life after falling in with Milton, and it's apparent they're in pursuit of Jonah King (Billie Burke), a bad guy Satanic cult leader who is sure he's figured out a way to raise Satan to Earth.  He's got to kill Cage's infant granddaughter as a sacrifice to do so, and that's what Milton has to stop, and on that simple hook, the whole movie hangs.  It's a chase, a race to stop something from happening with an unstoppable foe in pursuit, a sort of a pseudo-"Terminator" structure.

And it's so… much… fun.

I think Nic Cage is in the midst of a really fun new moment in his career, where he's aware of how people view him, and he's having fun with that, reacting to it, working his ass off for financial reasons but having a great time in the process on each of these films.  His work feels particularly free and funny here, and the film is so unapologetically R-rated that Cage seems unfettered.  There's a sequence in the middle of the film involving a gunfight that is pure wicked genius, a nasty bit of business that must have made Cage howl as they shot it.  And Fichtner's the same way.  He is unflappable here.  Nothing bothers him.  He just keeps coming, just stays on Milton's trail.  What surprised me is the way Billie Burke gives every bit as much as Cage or Fichtner.  I'm only familiar with him from the "Twilight" films, but this performance would persuade me to pay attention to him in the future.

And Amber Heard is so good here that I am actually reassessing her.  I feel like she's made a bunch of forgettable junk where she's the unreasonably hot girl and little else.  For a film like this to be more than just fun mayhem, something's got to offer up an emotional charge, and in this film, that's Heard's job.  She and David Morse give the film just enough weight that when the movie reaches for some sentiment near the end, it earns that material.  She's a tough little fighter throughout, and she is, as always, stunning.  

A girl like Heard is argument enough for 3D, but as used by Lussier here, the process offers up new types of gags, jokes that play on our sense of immersion in the film, and Lussier takes a special delight in making things just that wee little bit sleazy, making the 3D feel a little dangerous.  The film is relentlessly paced, and I thought it was really interesting the way he stages flashbacks for Cage as memories that play out as if projected on a screen in front of him.  It's a genuine use  of the language of 3D to do more than just sell a gag, which is what makes me think Lussier's got the edge on other filmmakers toying with the process.  Like anything, the only way you're going to get really good at working in 3D is by doing it repeatedly, trying different things, seeing the difference between an original idea you have and the way it finally plays onscreen.  I'd heard all sorts of arguments about why you couldn't cut films at a certain pace or why you couldn't stage certain kinds of action in 3D, but Lussier disproves a lot of that with his work on this one.  The car chase scenes in particular are cut in a very aggressive manner, and the solutions Lussier came up with draw you into the action in a visceral way.

"Drive Angry" is, in the end, a genre romp.  It's not aiming any higher than that.  But it is made with real skill and style, and there's such knowledge of genre in the way they have built the script and both embraced and avoided certain conventions that it makes me feel like we're just seeing Farmer and Lussier warm up.  Hopefully they'll keep working with collaborators as game as their partners in this particular crime, because "Drive Angry" is a white-knuckle ride worth taking.