Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
The guys over at Zide/Perry and I have crossed paths many times over the last few years, and I’ve always walked away with a generally good impression of them. Warren Zide is hilarious, just a few degrees away from the cartoon image of a producer/manager, but behind the Hollywood smooth he wears like a suit, he’s an intelligent guy who seems to genuinely take care of his friends and clients. Craig Perry is all enthusiasm, and my one real conversation with him was a great one, marked by the energy he brings to each and every thing he works on.
In the last few days, I’ve had an opportunity to see one sequel they produced and read the script for another, and it’s interesting to see how they’ve approached these follow-ups to successes of varying degree. AMERICAN PIE, for example, was really the project that put them on the map, and the first sequel to it was tepid, a fairly naked attempt to cash in on the chemistry of the first. The only thing that saved it was the way certain performers simply stood out like Alyson Hannigan and Jason Biggs. They made the most of every moment they were given and actually made some of the film work. FINAL DESTINATION is a film I didn’t quite like, a great concept with some good scenes that was hampered by a cast I actively disliked. It felt wrong to root for Death to win, but when it’s Death or Devon Sawa, I think the choice is simple.
Today, I’m going to look at how these two new projects of theirs expand and enhance the films that they’re following up, and we’ll see what the State of the Union is for the guys who just signed up to bring you METROID in the near future...
AMERICAN WEDDING
I’m sure this script has gone through various drafts in the last few months. I read one from October by Adam Herz, and my first reaction to it was, “That was sweet.” And I don’t mean that in the slang version of “sweet,” either. I mean there’s a real heart to this, and if this turns out to be the last of the AMERICAN PIE films, then there’s a good chance they’ll close things out on a high note.
This time out, the film opens with a twist on the way the first two films started. Typically, Jim (Jason Biggs) finds himself cornered in an embarrassing sexual situation by his well-intentioned Dad (Eugene Levy), but this time out, it’s the other way around. Jim is trying to propose marriage to Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) and ends up stumbling across a one-way ticket to lifetime therapy, his parents in the middle of incredibly vigorous sex. It’s a funny scene, and it’s a chance for Biggs and Levy to reverse roles in a way that should allow both of them to shine.
The storyline is incredibly simple, and at the risk of being crude, I’d sum it up like this: the pie fucker marries the flute fucker, and Stifler throws the bachelor party. Several characters have either been written out or marginalized (Chris Klein and Mena Suvari are off in Europe for most of the film, Tara Reid and Natasha Lyonne are simply gone, and Thomas Ian Nichols is underwritten to the point that he might as well not be in the film), but that’s a good thing. It allows the script to focus on the dynamics that work best. Finch and Stifler step up their antagonism this time as they find themselves competing for the affections of Cadence, Michelle’s sister. I don’t know who they’ve cast as Cadence, but she needs to be a mega-honey if she’s going to be convincing as Michelle’s sister. Hannigan has that rare mix of Disney heroine-cuteness and grown-up sex appeal that has only gotten more pronounced over the last few years, and making her one of the film’s main characters is the single smartest thing about the film. It’s also great that there’s no wager or agreement or pact to fuel the film. The one time Kevin brings it up, the others shout him down and tell him to shut up. Instead, the threat here is that Jim simply isn’t mature enough and capable enough to give Michelle the wedding she wants, the one he feels like she deserves.
That’s a very real fear, too. I came very close to getting married once (and there are days I thank God himself for reaching down and putting a cataclysmic stop to things), and just the gearing up to it was exhausting. Left to my own devices, I’d plan a full tank of gas, nice weather in Vegas, and a phone call afterwards to the folks to let them know. That doesn’t fly with most girls, though, and it’s because of the incredible importance placed on a wedding their whole lives. As Michelle puts it, “It’s this one day... one day where every eye is on me for a change, and I’m all pure and beautiful. Don’t get me wrong. I kinda like being the quirky nympho chick. But... well... I’ve never walked into a room and had everyone go ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ and ‘isn’t she elegant!?’” Jim promises to give her just exactly that, and then spends the rest of the film trying to overcome his omnipresent bad luck and make it happen.
Have no fear, though... the film’s raunch factor is enormous, even with all this sweetness going on. Stifler’s version of a bachelor party is pretty unbelievable, and wait until you see why Finch can now call Stifler a “grandmotherfucker” with impunity. Pubes on a wedding cake, the search for Leslie Summers, Stifler’s dancing skills, and Michelle’s mother’s love for chocolate truffles are just a few of the more outrageous elements along the way, and I hear they’ve done a lot of punch-up work since this draft.
Long story short, this is the model of how to learn from what worked in the first film and didn’t work in the second film, and Jesse Dylan (HOW HIGH) just needs to create the right atmosphere for these actors to really let loose. Just as marriage is a major step into a new life for young people, this film could serve as a great conclusion for these characters and set this cast free to pursue other interests in the years to come.
FINAL DESTINATION 2
Okay... before you even begin to wallpaper the TalkBacks with it... yes, I know that many of you don’t like the “breaking glass” sound effect on the FD2 banner ads we’ve been running. If you write New Line and you don’t sound like a barking asshole, your voice will no doubt be heard. I don’t have anything to do with that, though, so please stop yelling at me.
I’m also aware that many of you have trouble with the concept that I could give a fair review to something advertised here on the site. Remember those SIMONE banner ads? Remember me naming it one of the worst films of the year? Remember Harry peeing on STAR TREK: NEMESIS right under the ads for that? Our advertisers deal with our webmaster, not with us, and that’s the way we like it. We’re free to write whatever we want, as we need to be. New Line doesn’t care what I write on this site as long as I’m fair, and I always have been. They make good films and they make bad films, and in this case... they made a pretty darn good one.
Director David Ellis is one of those guys you might not know... but you should. You know his work. This summer, when you’re sitting wide-eyed in the movie theater, jaw on the floor, trying to process the car chase in THE MATRIX RELOADED, keep in mind that Ellis was the second-unit guy who put that together. He’s an expert stunt director, and a quick glance at what he’s done over the years (the “killing box” sequence in CLEAR & PRESENT DANGER, among others) reveals a guy who is able to coordinate chaos.
Can’t think of a better choice for this film.
FINAL DESTINATION 2 picks up exactly a year after the end of the first film, and thankfully Devon Sawa is already dead. True, I would have taken great delight in watching Mr. Puffy catch a stray brick in the head, but this film’s loss was EXTREME OPS’s gain. Instead, we start with Kimberly, played by the adorable A.J. Cook. She watches some of the anniversary footage of Flight 180, and it freaks her out a bit as she prepares to leave on a road trip with some friends. She’s not prepared for what happens when she actually gets out onto the freeway, though. If you’ve seen the first film, then you remember how the plane crash was handled. There was a massive fake-out, the audience is led to believe something has actually happened, and then we learn it was all just a vision. Kimberly has the same sort of premonition here, and what we see is one of the most harrowing car crashe pile-ups ever staged for a movie. There’s some of it that should make anyone who went to BNAT 4 this year howl in recognition, as it seems to be lifted shot-for-shot from NIGHT WARNING, but this goes so much further and is so incredibly visceral that even if you’re a gore fan, it may shake you.
Oh, yeah... I guess we should address the gore issue right now. If you like gore... if you’re a fan of make-up effects and extreme imagery... then FINAL DESTINATION 2 is a fanboy’s dream come true. If you’re not into graphic up-close fantasy violence, then stay away, because that’s pretty much the reason this film exists. You see, Kimberly manages to evade the car accident thanks to her vision, and she also keeps an entire on-ramp of cars from joining traffic. That means there’s a whole group of people who are lifted out of Death’s design, and Kimberly’s actions set off a chain of events just as deadly as those in the first film, eventually leading her to seek out the help of Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), the only survivor from the original movie. One by one, they each confront their mortality in elaborate sequences designed to fake the audience out as many times as possible before delivering money shots that you won’t believe you saw. I found myself laughing out loud and even applauding twice at the sheer audacity of the film’s big sequences. This is the kind of movie you need to see with a huge crowd because the fun is infectious. You’ll end up cheering right along with your friends at each new atrocity, and you won’t even feel guilty about it afterwards.
This film is an improvement over the original in pretty much every way. Ellis has a much more confident eye as a director than James Wong did, and the script by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber obviously impressed the studio so much they let the writers direct their own script for THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT. It takes the preposterous premise of the first film and twists it just enough that it makes sense for this sequel to take place. It also plays dirty. No one is safe in this film. They kill characters you don’t think they can possibly kill, and they do it with a certain amount of glee. The result is a film that flies by, that will elicit major responses from the audience, and that delivers exactly what it promises. It’s a winning combination, and it makes me want to go all Joe Bob Briggs for a minute and say something like, “FINAL DESTINATION 2 is this year’s red-meat masterpiece, a boatload of gore that’s executed with real brains... and guts... and eyeballs and severed spines and all sorts of other organs, too.” If that sounds like your sort of movie, then I’ll bet you enjoy this weekend mightily.
This Friday night, I’m getting a glimpse at one of the biggest releases this spring, and I’m also working to finalize details of the next special AICN screening I’ll be hosting here in LA. Keep your eyes peeled for info on that and more in the next couple of days. Until then...
"Moriarty" out.
