Movie Review: Drive Angry 3D
So like I said (threatened) yesterday I went to a late night showing the latest opus from Nicholas Cage, Drive Angry. Given the last Cage movie I saw and lambasted, Season of the Witch, I did not expect a lot and for the most this film met with my expectations. I got home, thought about writing it, and decided to sleep on it to see if the movie looked any better in the daylight.
Sadly, it did not. Don’t get me wrong. I love grindhouse. However, this movie feels less like true grindhouse and more like some Hollywood guys trying to either do a high budget tribute or parody of grindhouse. In either case it feels plastic and fake, like brown hair extensions on a redhead.
Also, remember when Nicholas Cage would act and actually deliver some level of emotion with his lines? Like in Raising Arizona, the Rock, Kiss of Death, 8MM, Valley Girl, or prelude-to-a-suicide Leaving Las Vegas? Right before doing Ghost Rider I think he was kidnapped and replaced with a robot who can simulate life but not quite deliver emotions. The lines “Coffee, black, with sugar”, “Ever heard of a place called Sweet Water?”,” and “I am going to kill you” are all delivered with the same monotone deadpan delivery that would work well for a 
sidekick or secondary character (especially if the sidekick was the computer voice from War Games) but which makes me think I could do a better job filming the movie using World of Warcraft toons as actors. For a movie called “Drive Angry” there doesn’t seem to be a lot of anger or any other emotion from the main character. (Murloco’s Taco’s image courtesy of the World of Warcraft t shirts)
That being said, there are elements I liked. Just not the story, acting, action, dialogue, or all but two of the characters.
Honestly, I think the synopsis will be the hardest part of this review for me to write as I spent the first 45 minutes of the films saying “What the hell is going on?” I appreciated a film that doesn’t reveal everything to us like we are ten year old short bus riders, but at some point you have to make an effort to give us a clue of what was going on. If I hadn’t read a blurb before the movie I would have been totally confused.
Anyway, Nicholas Cage plays John Milton who escapes from Hell in a hot car with a stolen gun called the God Killer a few years after being killed in some ill defined crime spree and is somehow unkillable. He is trying to save his infant grand daughter from being sacrificed by a Satanic cult leader (Billy Burke, one of the two characters I liked). He somehow convinces Zombieland hottie Amber Heard (playing the kick ass waitress Piper. Come to think of it, she actually has a lot of anger in her roll. Maybe she is supposed to balance out Mechano-Man Cage) to help him in her boyfriend’s stolen Charger. They are pursued by the other only character I liked, William Fichtner, who plays Hell’s repo man sent to collect Cage and bring him back (it is later revealed that he is actually a former Egyptian god who I will not name but you have seen on Stargate SG1). There is also a cool looking and sounding police captain who seemed to get a lot of character buildup and development and then fell off the screen like a lead seagull. They travel through Louisiana mixing it up with white trash kooks and local color. Car driving hijinx ensue, and there is a final battle scene not so much lifted as taken frame by frame from the car destroying the undead army scene in Army of Darkness.
OK, the stars. The opening and closing scenes with Cage driving to and from Hell are pretty cool. One star. There are four amazing muscle cars, including a 69 Charger and a beautiful Chevelle. Two stars. I will give a star for every totally gratuitous grindhouse style nude girl, so like two and a half stars. The Accountant from Hell (literally) was kind of cool. One star. The driving action, while over the top, was actually pretty cool and well filmed. One star. While headache inducing, the film was actually shot with 3D in mind and has some fairly cool things flying out of screen. I actually found myself jumping a couple times. One star. Total: 8.5 stars.
Now the black holes. Nicholas Cage acts like a Tweekie dealing with irritable bowl syndrome. Two black holes. The story kind of blows. On black hole. The dialogue blows. One black hole. As good as the driving sequences were (which was only moderately good) the fight scenes were horrible (at one point Cage kills about 20 guys while in coitus with a trampy waitress and doesn’t pull out until they are all dead. On the other hand, this is one of the nude scenes that netted them a star). I know grindhouse is supposed to be over the top, but this is just dumb. Hire a fight choreographer. Two black holes. For no explained reason whatsoever Cage’s character is not only unkillable but somehow heals himself from a gunshot wound in the eye. One black hole. For the life of me I cannot figure out where Pipers motivation to do anything but run screaming into the night comes from. One black hole. Total: 8 black holes.
So we end up with a net of 0.5 stars, which is very slightly higher than the review I gave for Cage’s last movie, Season of the Witch (where he also portrayed a character with less emotion than the suit of armor he was wearing). However, remember 2.5 stars come from my appreciation of rated R style nudity and 2 more from a love of American muscle cars. If you do not share these interests then it swings heavily towards the black hole end. Definitely not a date movie. Honestly, if you love driving action then I would say see it on a screen. On TV I don’t think it will really have the impact the big screen would have. If you miss it wait until you see it in the $4 bin at Best Buy (or the #2 bin at Walmart).
For yesterdays who-would-win question, Jayne Cobb versus Snake Plisskin, I think it is kind of situational. If Jayne had Vera and all the hardware he carried on a typical day of Firefly and Snake just had the gear he had in Escape from New York, I would have to bet on Jayne. On the other hand if Snake had his choice of weapons (or was armed like he was in Escape from LA) then I would bet on him. You can’t beat him in a gunfight, Bangkok style.
For today I will again go with Jayne, as I am in a Firefly mood. Who would win, Jayne Cobb (with Vera again) versus John McClane from Die Hard?
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