Alex and Tommy meet up, but they must have taken a wrong turn as they're suddenly in a Mission Impossible movie as they break into the police station THEY WORK AT by climbing onto the roof and knocking out its security system. Tommy uses a blowtorch to cut through a barred window so they can gain access, and then viciously knocks out a cop that spots them. GOOD GOD THE STUPID. They're cops that WORK AT THE POLICE STATION, there is absolutely no reason they had to break their way in and probably give one of their fellow coworkers brain damage besides the fact it gave us a scene that looked mildly cool. Rob Cohen!
So what are they doing at the place
they work at anyway? They're raiding an evidence room, which they
could have TOTALLY gained easy access to seeing as how they're
homicide detectives, but WHATEVER. I didn't puzzle over this too
much, as I was distracted by the presence of a Lightning McQueen toy
sitting on one of the evidence shelves and started making up my own
story as to what kind of crime was committed with it.
They go to a classic car show where
they meet with Pop Pop's uncle the crime lord. He's played by the guy
who played Gilbert on the TV show Community, a/k/a the
funniest show of the past decade. #SixSeasonsAndAMovie. Of all the actors in the entire movie,
he seems to be the only one who realizes how TERRIBLE this movie is
and acts accordingly. By that I mean he hams everything up, and he is
just WONDERFUL at it. He's so oily and sleazy that you want to wipe
off your TV screen. Alex wants his help finding the chemist supplying
Fox, but Gilbert is more interested in pimping out Cadillac some more
by making sure their logo is always in frame.
Alex and Tommy reveal they stole the
two guns “Pop Pop” used in the dual murders and will give them to
Gilbert if he gives up the chemist. This will allow Gilbert to file
an appeal for his niece, and when the prosecution no longer has the
guns as evidence she'll walk free. Okay fine, that's a pretty good
idea despite the questionable morality of the honourable Alex Cross
helping out a crime lord, but did they really have to go all Mission
Impossible to do it? I can't believe how out of place that scene
feels after this reveal. They were two pistols sitting in a room full
of boxes, it would have been so easy to stroll in and sneak them out.
The next scene is Alex and Tommy
breaking into the lab of the chemist, where they proceed to brutally
beat him up. HEROISM! The chemist weakly says he wants his
attorney, prompting Alex to shout “I am your attorney!” and throw
him across the room. No, you read that right. Someone wrote it,
someone approved it, someone said it, and someone approved it again.
They start beating him with a golf club
and Good God did I accidentally put 24 in the blu-ray player?
This movie is a shining example of how to do a revenge story
completely wrong. It's a very simple thing really, our hero loses a
loved one to violence and sets on a crusade of vengeance that we want
to see them emerge victorious from. The key to making this a
compelling story where we sympathize with the character and support
the horrific actions they undertake is MAKING US CARE ABOUT THE HERO.
What have we had in this movie to make
us care? Alex had a emotionless scene with his wife where he found
out she was pregnant, and then briefly had drinks with her before she
was killed. That's it. Alex has all personality and emotion of a
brick, and his wife got a few minutes of screen time to do nothing.
This is not inspiring me to root for Alex or approve of him crossing
the line to avenge his wife (or hell, even his friend that he doesn't
give one single fuck about), it's just making me think he's a
psychopath who I really wouldn't mind seeing get killed just to end
this miserable story. Well done Rob Cohen!
The chemist finally gives in to the
beatings and shows them camera footage of Fox arriving at his place.
They're able to pull a license plate number from this, which Alex
calls in to the station. The officer on duty there, a woman named
Kleb, is able to call OnStar and trace Fox's Cadillac driving
downtown where Mercier just happens to be giving a press conference.
Fox has OnStar?! How in the world hasn't he been caught by now? You'd
think a competent assassin wouldn't have something that would allow
him to be traced so easily. It's also worth noting Kleb talks like
the voice over on the video game that gives you instructions on your
next mission, which I'm sure Rob Cohen thought was just awesome.
Fox parks a ways away from the
courthouse, taking a guitar case and another bag out of his trunk. He
heads over to a train station where three frat boy douchebags start
making fun of him for no good reason, following him onto the train. Alex calls Dr. Cox, who is already at
the courthouse, and warns him Fox is going to try something. Since
they don't have time to check the entire area for bombs, Cox orders
all the cell phone towers jammed which will prevent any signals being
sent to any potential bombs which is a good idea as long as the
killer is using a cell signal. What if he's using something else?
After they jam the cellular signals we don't see them doing anything
else to try to secure the area. But I gave up on this movie having
any kind of basis in reality forever ago, so it's okay.
Oops, but this also causes Alex's phone
to lose contact with Kleb as she guides him to the signal from Fox's
car. I guess he COULD use his police radio to call her back, but
where's the fun in that? Meanwhile in the train car, Fox is doing
hacking stuff to the train's onboard computer when the frat boys
decide he's a terrorist and try to stop him. He pulls out a gun and
shoots two of them dead, shooting the third in the knee for some
reason. I really wish he'd shot him in the face, because this guy is
a HORRIBLE actor.
Alex and Tommy arrive at the
courthouse, begging Dr. Cox to cancel Mercier's presentation but he
waves this off as the police have everything in hand. Uh huh. Why not
just take their badges and guns too while you're at it, Coxie? Fox opens his guitar case and there's a
freaking ROCKET LAUNCHER inside! I want to congratulate this movie on
subverting the whole “assassins want to be as quiet and sneaky as
possible” trope. If Fox's next kill doesn't involve a tactical
nuke, I'll be very disappointed.
Alex watches Mercier and Erich arrive
and walk up to the court house as Tommy implores him to think like
Fox and anticipate where he's going to strike. Alex hears the whistle
of a train and realizes that's where Fox is going to act. But he
realizes this too late as Fox fires the rocket and blows up the front
of the courthouse with THE WORST LOOKING EXPLOSION EVER, complete
with fake looking dummies and a Wilhelm Scream because FUCK THIS
MOVIE.
Fox packs up his stuff and kills the
guy he left alive. Why did he leave him alive? Uh... oh hey, what's
going on at the courthouse? Alex and Tommy are still alive somehow,
but I guess Cox, Mercier, and Erich are dead even though it never
shows us anything from the aftermath of the explosion. You can tell
time is running out on the movie because the pace is picking up like
crazy now. The explosion knocked out the jammers, so Alex is able to
call Kleb back up and get the location of Fox's car. Fox is driving
along to the song “All Over the Road” by the Rival Sons,
which has a rather interesting first verse:
“We've got the Cadillac, we're
gonna drive right into the sun.
You're a tight piece of ass, but you know you're my only one.
We make the rules, and we both know what's got to be done.
So pull up your dress, I'm gonna show you how the west was
won.”
I'm
confused, so did Ford sponsor this movie? Fox's driving scene
is also EXTREMELY strange, as the majority of it is filmed from the
backseat of his car for some reason. As he drives along, it smoothly
transitions to the passenger seat just in time for him to get t-boned
by Alex's SUV. This shot is SO out of place in the movie I can only
think even Rob Cohen was bored to tears at this point so just started
throwing whatever shit he could think of to stay busy.
Despite the fact this impact was dead
on and he should be dead, Fox is just fine and runs off. Alex takes
off in pursuit, however Tommy stays behind as he got hurt fairly bad
in the crash. Strange, you think he would have put on his seat belt
for this. Alex chases Fox into an old movie theater, where they keep
running up floor after floor. Fox finally jumps him on a cat walk, or
at least I think he does because this fight scene is honestly the
most indecipherable fight scene I've EVER seen. I am not exaggerating
in the slightest either, you literally never see a SINGLE blow from
either man land. This is all thanks to the most violent usage of
Shaky Cam this side of Battlefield Earth.
The battle ends with the floor caving
in, leaving Alex dangling off the edge with Fox hanging onto him for
dear life. Fox gasps out “I made you!” because he wants to go out
as he lived: a cliché ridden mess. Alex, ever the master of the
snappy one liner, screams out “DIE!” and kicks him off to his
death. Tommy arrives and pulls Alex to safety. Later at the police station Alex calls
Mercier, who is on a tropical island somewhere. He asks how Alex
found him, Alex revealing he knew it wasn't Mercier at the courthouse
because he wasn't wearing his signature gold ring but so it had to be
one of his cronies dressed like him.
I rewound to that scene because I sure
didn't catch any of this, and sure enough they never showed Mercier's
face on screen. The camera was also careful to focus on his ringless
hand, with Alex peering at him a little too intently so I almost want
to give them credit for some actual subtlety in this movie,
BUUUUUUUUT this is Alex Cross so fuck this movie. Let's just get the stupidity over with
because there's a lot to sift through. Mercier set up the hit on
himself because he lost a lot of money in 2008 and was embezzling
from his Rebuild Detroit fund and needed to flee the country before
everyone found out. Fingerless Woman and Erich were in on it, so he
had to kill them.
Was Mercier ordering the specific ways
Fox killed people? Like did he tell him to blow up the courthouse
with a bazooka or was that Fox's idea? You know, the more I think
about it the more none of this makes sense. What did Mercier hope to
gain by faking his death? It's not like the bazooka would totally
vaporize his henchman's body. I mean, the police would figure out
pretty freaking quickly from DNA testing on the corpse that it wasn't
Mercier.
Alex tells him to look out his window,
as Mercier sees a dozen or so heavily armed men running towards his
house. Alex reveals his assistant Paramita got busted for buying
drugs and gave up her boss for immunity. Mercier says he has nothing
to do with drugs, but we learn Paramita planted a huge amount of
cocaine in his house. Alex tells Mercier the punishment for
drug smuggling where he's at is death by firing squad. Mercier
screams “you framed me!” as the authorities drag him away, which
sets us up for another epic Alex Cross one liner:
“My wife is dead because of you, and
soon you'll be dead because of me!”
Come on Rob Cohen, I just got done
trying to figure out if Showgirls was a satire or not,
don't make me go through that again. Tommy drives Alex home, telling
him he's going to apply at the FBI and join him to threaten us with
more adventures of these two friends in the future. THANK
YOU JESUS! I can't wait for more laughs with these chuckleheads!
Alex's house is completely packed up,
as his family gets ready to move to Washington. Nana tells Janelle
the movers will be there soon and to make sure she's got everything
because “you don't want to leave behind anything you love”. Alex
nods approvingly at this sentiment as the movie ends, as does our
misery.
Cue the credits, which are set to a
hilariously bad rap song about the recaps the movie called “I,
Alex Cross (Only God Can Judge Me)” that
makes me sad they didn't try to get Will Smith for this because I
really miss him rapping about the plot of his movies.
This was the WORST kind of a bad movie:
completely generic and forgettable while being as cruel and sadistic
as possible. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I expected better
from Rob Cohen! While his previous efforts like Fast and the
Furious and xXx were terrible, they were at least fun
mindless action films that were totally inoffensive. Well, with the
exception of Michelle Rodriguez's
“acting” that is.
The action here can barely even qualify
as such, as this is one of most extreme examples of shaky cam I've
ever seen. When you have to freeze frame every single scene to
actually see what's going on, Rob Cohen Is Doing It Wrong. But
really, that's almost nitpicking compared to the rest of the film.
My real problem with this film is how
vile it is as it resorts to one of the lowest tricks in all of
writing: “Women in Refrigerators”. Named after a Green Lantern
comic book where his girlfriend was killed and stuffed into a
refrigerator for him to find, this is a gimmick you've all seen a
million times. The murder of a woman spurs our noble hero into action
to take out the bad guy, cut paste repeat. It can sometimes be the
hero's male friend or relation, but that is quite the rarity.
It's lazy writing personified, the
woman only exists to fuel the hero's epic revenge, and maybe throw in
a sex scene here or there. And hey, this film did it TWICE! Pregnant
Maria and Moni are both brutally murdered to give Alex more than
enough ammo to MAKE IT PERSONAL. Because doing the job he was already
doing wasn't captivating enough, I guess. Although he could have
cared less about his good friend Moni, after her death he never
mentioned her again but hey, at least she had a nice sex face.
You know what though? Even THAT wasn't
the most offensive thing in the movie to me, extraordinarily enough.
It was the scene where Alex tries to comfort his daughter Janelle
over her mother's death. It's actually an EXTREMELY well done and
heartbreaking scene with easily the best acting in the entire film,
but it's also completely reprehensible. Janelle's pain is just used
as more fuel to motivate Alex to take the law into his own hands, not
as any kind of character development where Alex has to deal with
being a widower trying to help his children through this nightmare.
Hell, we never even see him talking to his son at all. But why try to
do any kind of deep story that deals with the repercussions of
violence, we have MORE VIOLENCE to get to as stylistically as
possible!
This scene is beyond manipulative, as
it wants you to feel so moved by Janelle's loss you want to cheer for
Alex was he starts sawing the barrel off his shotgun and loading up
for war. You don't cheer for him, even though the film really REALLY
wants you to. All I could think about was this poor girl being left
all alone so Alex could go off and fire guns in slow motion. Major
props to the actress who played Janelle, Yara Shahidi, who out-acted
everyone else in the entire film in one short scene.
I hate this movie so much for this that
I checked out and could've cared less about what happened next.
Fortunately nothing happened for the rest of the movie, so that
worked out at least. Perry was absolutely horrible with his
bland performance, Fox was UTTERLY WASTED on a role he busted his ass
for thanks to the one dimensional writing, Reno was laughably bad,
and Edward Burns really needed a lozenge. Hey,
remember when Burns was going to be like the Next Big Thing? No?
Easily the worst movie of 2012 I've
reviewed... so far. I have some real winners in my review stack like
Silent Hill: Revelations, the Apparition, the Cold Light of Day,
House at the End of the Street, Gone, Ghost Rider: Spirit of
Vengeance, Chernobyl Diaries, Paranormal Activity 4, Underworld:
Awakening... WHY DID I COME BACK FROM THE GRAVE FOR THIS?!?
Avoid at all costs as this movie is
vile trash, but do try to track down the ending credit song online,
it is laugh out loud funny.
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