We’ve had a few reviews for this one in the past, but it screened again, and now we’ve got a fairly disappointed look at Michel Gondry’s newest film.
I loved THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP more than most, so maybe I’ll love this one. At the very least, I can’t wait to see it and make up my mind for myself as soon as possible. I’m kicking myself that I didn’t try to sneak into this one.
Dear aintitcool,
So tonight (3/22/07) we went to a free screening in Pasadena for Be Kind Rewind. Our hopes were high as the premise seemed funny, Jack Black erases all the videos in a rental store and he and Mos Def must remake them, and those people are pretty cool...so hey, probably going to be a good movie. Couple that with Michele Gondry, and our interest has peaked.
And boy were we wrong.
This movie was DEFINETLY a working cut. I'm going to quote Plant! Plant! in his review published on this site last month: "It doesn't have a release date yet, but I think it might come out this summer. The version
I saw was pretty complete." I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you were duped. I'm sorry, it happens to the best on us. In any case, the movie is not complete, no where near it. In fact, its one of the choppiest feeling films I've ever seen at one of these preview screenings. Let's start at the beginning though... (SPOILERS...i suppose...doesn't really matter though, the movie doesn't make too much sense.)
BEGINNING:
The film opens with this sort of old-timey sequence in which the story of Fats Wallar tries to get told. Notice i say try. You have an excess of fragmented scenes in homemade black and white, where Mos Def, Jack Black, and others parade around in fat suits, etc. Doesn't really make a lot of sense. It is all very confusing and you get some idea that this Fats guy plays piano and evryone like him and when people get shot pizza comes out of them... yep. So, that's the beginning, and all of this transitions to color and Jack Black on the street yelling for Mos Def. Jack Black wears glasses in this one... very out of character.
The rental place, Be Kind Rewind, is then introduced. Danny Glover owns and operates it and only caries VHS's and rents them out for a dollar. He only carries one copy of each, WHICH IS VERY IMPORTANT! Everyone is very anti-dvd, but hey, we remember VHS's, they were fun, so we can dig. Yeah, so Mia Farrow pops up as the store's best costumer, but she is either over-acting, or under-acting...we couldn't tell. We watched Hannah and Her Sisters the other day. She's good in that. She's not good in this. There is also a weird romance between her and danny glover that is never concluded beyond the fact that he calls her every night to see how she is and they obviously like each other, but come on, why bring conclusion to a movie?
Here's a big problem with the film: everyone is fucking weird, or slow, and it goes way beyond having interesting round characters. For the first 20 or so minutes of the movie, Jack Black is complaining about some power plant infiltrating peoples minds, but he drops that act pretty quickly. So...eventually he gets electricuted at the plant behind his house and becomes magnatized and walks into the store and erases all the videos. Danny Glover is out of town spying on the big corporation video store, so Mos Def, now in charge, must make everything right.
The middle:
The better parts of the film. The way the remake the films is creative and the Ghostbusters parody is funny. We especially like the 2001 remake. But again, a problem: they spend a lot of time reamking Rush Hour 2...that's a little to indie for its own good. I mean, its funny to see Jack Black be Jackie Chan, but why not remake something a little better...a bit more classic? Brett Ratner's Rush Hour 2 is far from classic cinema.
Moving on, the remakes get popular, a lot of things go unexplained, plots are dropped here and there, and finally Danny Glover returns. Oh yeah, i forgot, on top of everything, if they don't get $60,000 or something the store is going to close because some evil company is going to tear it down and build nice buildings. Can you start to see a muddled plot? On Glover's return he is huffing and puffing about needing DVDs and only wanting his store to see action movies and comedies, and he tells them that they have to stop making/selling their movies. A BIG deal is made out of this. BUT literally in the next scene he's cool. They never address his concerns again. It feels really awkward, much like the entirty of this film.
New plot twist, Sygourney Weaver shows up and tells them she works for the movie industry and they are suing them for 3 billion dollars and that they're going to have to go to jail for 60 or so years and that they are going to destroy all their movies. The movies are thrown outside in the front of the store and run over by a bulldozer. That's the last we hear of this plot twist. Nothing is ever mentioned again about being sued and going to jail. It is completely left out.
Hey, remember that Fats guy. Well, now the movie tries to explain the beginning. Notice i've mentioned nothing about Fats until this moment, well, because they don't really talk about him. Instead, they decide that they should make a movie about Fats, and for some reason the entire community is going to help, BUT OH MY GOD, Danny Glover's been lying. He's been telling Mos Def his entire life that Fats grew up in the building that became the video store, but Whaa??? ITS A LIE! completely earth-shattering. the rug pulled right out from under him. But, instead they go on to make one last movie, about the life of FATS WALLAR.
END:
They make the movie, break into the corporate video store to steal the projector, some dude comes out of the closet who seems to know Mos Def. This guy has this weird character arch. Like, never do you know who he is, but he also seems to know Danny Glover and there is some unspoken and unexplained thing between them, but when Jack Black breaks the TV they are going to show the movie on, this unnamed guy saves the day. They project the movie on a white sheet, but unbeknownst to them, everyone outside of the store can see the Fats movie too. At the film's conclusion, they walk outside and a huge crowd has formed and everyone is happy and laughing. THE END. nevermind the fact that the building is still going to get torn
down and that they owe 3 billion dollars and are going to go to jail. none of this is adressed. I get what the filmmakers were trying to do, but it just doesn't work. They wanted this to be the big emotional moment
of the film, but there is no emotion throughout the rest of the movie. You do not care about what actually happens to these characters; you have no emotional attachment, thus, without an emotional foundation, the movie lacks any punch.
This was a movie that had no idea what it wanted to be. Did it want to be funny? serious? its constantly over the top, but occasionally "under the top" It was simply awkward. Really REALLY awkward. The whole thing was confusing. Not necessarily because of what was happening on screen, but the processes behind them. The over-complicated an idea that needed to be
simplified.
Jack Black and Mos Def erase movies and must remake = Funny.
Jack Black and Mos Def erase movies and must remake, while trying to save their building, while commenting on the influx of technology on how we make movies, etc = not funny.
This movie did not need a message, and the message was forced.
And before i forget, you want to know how Jack Black becomes demagnatized half way through the movie: he eats a bottle of asprin, gets sick, a girl makes him drink a bucket of salt water, he pukes, and then decides to pee on the street, THUS peeing out the magnatism...seriously. This green liquid pours down the street and the camera pans on it menicingly while metal objects stick to it. That's the last we hear of the maganatized sub-plot.
Be Kind Rewind has potential in better hands. This is a muddled, occasionally funny, but ultimately amateurish film that feels way too much like a student film. Pretty Dissapointing.
Sincerely,
The Last Starfighters
