MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY AND I PAID TO SEE XXX: STATE OF THE UNION

You know that feeling your tongue gets after you've had to lick a whole bunch of envelopes, like when you've completely run out of saliva? That's what my brain feels like right now. There's been no shortage of schlock, mostly outright crap, released to theaters thus far this year and no month more has been more ripe with dreck than this past April. What you're about to dive into is I do believe the longest Foyeurism ever. It would have been even longer had I not already posted my review of PATHFINDER, the movie where the only thing saving tired Native American stereotypes from Molly Hatchet album covers come to life is Karl Urban's complete lack of charisma, over on my blog the weekend it opened (review here) instead of saving it for the Foyeurism. April 2007 was quite the month for bad cinema and I didn't even see everything that came out. It had some genuine bright spots (GRINDHOUSE, HOT FUZZ), but the amount of movies that were subpar managed to make some movies that really weren't anything special seem better than I might have otherwise thought (DISTURBIA, VACANCY). But mostly, the month of April was composed of the movies reviewed below and folks, it ain't pretty. This month you're getting analysis and mockery of five April 2007 releases that all misfired in varying ways resulting in varying degrees of entertainment value, only one being awesomely bad. Three of the five are films betrayed by implausible third act plot twists; two of which actually do so in a manner that negates massive sections of the movie, one even earning the dreaded "F--- THIS MOVIE!"

I wouldn't say I'm feeling mentally burnt out right now (not like I was the early part of 2005) though I am feeling my supply of quip & vinegar running dry after being assaulted by four straight months of Hollywood b.s. topped off by one whopper of a month - not to mention the usual low budget horror DVD releases and Sci-Fi Channel premieres I've been doing for Dread Central and my blog and putting together B-WARE 2007. We're now entering the summer blockbuster season which means there will be fewer crap films being dumped into theater, although that's because the megabudget blockbuster films will be crushing everything in their path, some of which might make for good fodder. I'm just hoping there isn't another month like April anytime soon. So if I seem a little infrequent in my Dread Central and blog musings for the month of May and if next month's Foyeurism is shorter than usual (It'll damn sure be shorter than this month's installment) just know it's because I'm taking it easy in order to fully recharge my sarcastic analysis batteries. I don't know about you but I certainly believe I'm going to need to be 100% locked & loaded when I write that review of HIGHLANDER: THE SOURCE. Yeah, I've seen it, and, yeah, it's actually worse than HIGHLANDER 2: THE QUICKENING. But that's another Foyeurism for another month. For now, let's look back at the month that was...

 

APRIL 2007

 

THE REAPING has all the ingredients for a great supernatural thriller based on Biblical prophecy and yet these ingredients get squandered in a convoluted recipe that fails to satisfy one's cinematic taste buds. In a year that has thus far brought forth one mediocre (or worse) horror movie after another, here comes yet another. This time a religious-themed supernatural thriller (Don't dare call it horror!) that's only true redemption is some solid acting and a handful of effective scenes. The problems here stem from the page, and I don't mean the pages of the Old Testament that get referenced throughout the film. I really hope when the DVD is released it comes with an option that allows for something along the lines of VH-1's old Pop-Up Video show but with the producer' script notes appearing on the screen to coincide with the scenes matching the story revisions they demanded. THE REAPING is a purely mechanical potboiler and for all its religious aspects, the spiritual side of the film has no soul to it and the unholy side is almost completely devoid of menace. Don't expect to walk out of the theater afterwards pondering mysteries of the Bible either.

NEXT KARATE KID turned two-time Oscar winner Hillary Swank plays an ordained minister turned miracle debunker after losing her faith following the slaughter of her husband and child at the hands of a wacko shaman while doing missionary work in the war torn Sudan. Though Swank is good in the role I still couldn't shake the feeling that she was entirely too young for the role. This is a woman who was an ordained minister, had an eight-year old child, had written several books on the subject of debunking miracles, and even teaches at a major university. That's an awful lot for a woman barely in her thirties? Not since late 20's Ben Affleck played a Harvard-educated, ex-fed turned small town sheriff in PHANTOMS...

Opening with her debunking a perceived miracle in South America, things then jump to her Louisiana State University classroom where she brags quite smugly about how there are no such things as religious miracles and that everything believed to be such can be dismissed through scientific explanation. Though she loves debunking the Lord whenever possible, Swank needs some persuading by a handsome doctor (Charisma succubus David Morrisey, fresh from having helped suck the life out of BASIC INSTINCT 2) from a small town in the bayous named Haven where the local river has turned blood red and a young girl is being blamed because she was found menstruating over her brother's corpse right about the time the river changed.

Swank heads down to the backwater Bible belt town with her true believing sidekick who kisses his crucifix any chance he gets to play gender reversed Mulder & Scully. Every time something unexplained occurs and stubborn Swank begins trying to formulate a scientific hypothesis to explain the happening, he's required by law to play devil's advocate (or in this case, God's advocate) by declaring it to be an honest to goodness miracle. He'll get to do quite a bit of that since no sooner do they arrive than the town begins to experience one-by-one the ten Biblical plagues of Egypt: water turns to blood, amphibian outbreak, lice, flies, diseased livestock, boils on skin, hailstorm, locusts, darkness, and death of the firstborn.

Alas, the movie suffers from the seven cinematic plagues of supernatural thriller mediocrity: hallucinations, dream sequences, dream sequences that may not have been dreams after all, flashbacks, jump scares, the big third act plot twist, and the dreaded double twist. Stephen Hopkins, still atoning for the sins of having directed LOST IN SPACE, is listed as the film's director but I was left feeling this movie was edited more than it was ever directed. For roughly the first half hour, THE REAPING played like an intriguing mix of the X-Files and the "satanic panic" movies of the 1970's. And then the endless barrage of dream sequences and hallucinations began to take their toll on my interest - far too many involved flashing back to the murder of Swank's husband and daughter. I'm sorry, but after last year's WICKER MAN debacle, over-relying on dream sequences and hallucinations in a supernatural thriller is about as unwelcome to me as bullet time was after watching it run into the ground in HOUSE OF THE DEAD. Here's an idea - why not just try telling a linear story and keep the mind-bending aspects to a minimum so that when they do occur it has more impact?

THE REAPING is also plagued with another overused staple of modern supernatural thrillers: Creepy Child Syndrome. In this case it's the 12-year old girl with impossibly blue eyes who leads Swank on wild goose chases through the swamp and stares at her without saying a word for long periods of time. The town believes the girl murdered her brother and is responsible for the water turning to blood because, as we'll soon come to learn, her backwater family may have been part of a satanic cult. Swank becomes determined to not allow this girl to suffer the same fate as her own murdered daughter regardless of whether or not the girl is actually under the control of Satan himself.

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Physical contact with any Aryan purebred children of Satan may induce hallucinations and/or flashbacks to unpleasant experiences in either yours or theirs recent past. Non-Satan possessed children and epileptics are advised not to stay clear of blue-eyed blonde devil children whenever present.

Stephen Rea, having apparently joined the priesthood as atonement for his sin of leaning more than he needed to know about THE CRYING GAME, collects an easy paycheck in the superfluous role of a Catholic priest ex-colleague of Swank's who keeps calling her on the phone to inform her of the ominous warnings that's he's been experiencing wherever the hell he is (far away from the film's setting) and to provide pretty much all the motivations behind what's really going on down there in the bayou. In reality, his doesn't even qualify as an actual character, really more of a plot device - a vessel by which to quickly relay to the main character some crucial information at a critical point in the movie that the writers' couldn't figure out any other manner by which to have the main character learn this on their own. And then Satan roasts him alive in his monastery room hundreds, maybe thousands of miles away, wherever the hell he was, right in the middle of a crucial phone conversation with Swank.

Upon seeing the ominous shadow on the wall, the priest knew immediately that this was God's way of warning him that the creature from BLOOD BEACH had finally returned.

Since the very existence of this film should tell you that the plagues besetting the town are the real deal, the question becomes why is this happening? Is it God punishing the town? Is it Satan using God's plagues against his followers to confuse them? And will Hillary Swank find her lost faith before all is said and done? All I'll tell you is that, oddly enough, Swank doesn't really seem to renew her faith in God, but if God is willing to step in and help smite the forces of evil trying to kill her, she's down with that.

I'll also tell you that the absurd finale involves people getting incinerated by fireballs from the sky and a big plot twist you probably won't see coming, mainly because it makes so little sense. I sometimes wonder if The Sixth Sense was the worst thing to ever happen to modern thrillers. Now it seems every thriller has to culminate with some out-of-left-field plot twist that turns everything on its ear, generally accompanied by some rapid fire flashbacks showing the audience all the clues we supposedly missed or the stuff we weren't privy to seeing that will allegedly make this shocking turn of events seem remotely plausible. THE REAPING does this twice much to its detriment. What's meant to be shocking instead comes across as silly; what's meant to elicit gasps is more likely to generate groans.

As I said from the beginning, the movie isn't entirely without merit. It's perfectly watchable even as it quickly degenerates before your eyes into a great big bundle of convolution and clichés thanks to screenwriters Chad & Carey Hayes (The House of Wax remake) relegating the entire Biblical plagues aspect to nothing more than asides to the less intriguing satanic child aspect of the plot. There are some good scenes to be found that pound home what a missed opportunity the movie is: the initial mystery as to why the river turned red, a suspenseful mad bull attack, Swank rattling off a series of scientific explanations for the Egyptian plagues described in the Bible, and a locust attack scene that left me wishing I'd been watching a nature gone amok flick about killer locusts rather than this pseudo-religious hokum. But mostly it's about predictable clichés (I cannot help but roll my eyes whenever a movie resorts to having a despondent character make a rambling confession and then promptly kill themselves right in front of the main character) and sloppily edited dream sequences - lots and lots of dream sequences!

Still, THE REAPING doesn't feel bad enough to have warranted sitting on a studio shelf for a year and a half as it did. It's not good enough to be good or bad enough to fall into the trap of being intolerable or so bad it's good. No, THE REAPING is just a block of cheese that's still edible on one end and moldy on the other. If you must see it, I suggest you "Passover" THE REAPING in theaters in favor of waiting for the DVD. Yes, I realize that was a very bad pun of the Joel Siegel variety and, no, I do not apologize.

Just then in bed Hillary Swank was overcome with a blood-curdling chill, and suddenly she remembered two words that she'd hoped to have long since forgotten: THE CORE

What's that? You actually want me to spoil the surprise ending? You want me to reveal the two silly plot twists? Okay; just don't say I didn't warn you (in more ways than one!)

Remember how the whole movie was building towards Hillary Swank having to kill the very child she'd been trying to protect? Surprise! It turns out the girl isn't evil after all. Nope, it's the townspeople that are all evil! They're all part of the satanic cult led by the handsome doctor. Seems they all got fed up with praying to God and getting hammered by hurricanes so they switched teams and set upon trying to spawn a perfect child to serve as Satan's earthly vessel. The girl is the angel or something along those lines that can put a stop to them by bringing about God's various plagues. The townspeople lured Swank to the town because Christian bylaw states that only a minister that has lost their faith can slay the angelic child putting the kibosh on all their satanic mumbo jumbo. The townspeople feel God's wrath and Swank and the girl drive off into the sunset. But wait! That dream Swank had earlier in the movie where she dreamt that she had sex with the handsome doctor who she'd found outside chanting that night - something she didn't think anything peculiar about - and proceeded to get her drunk; it wasn't it a dream after all. And she's pregnant! WITH SATAN'S BABY~!

Who cares if it doesn't make any sense? Who cares if stuff contradicts other stuff from earlier in the film? Who really cares if the movie ends with not one, but two - TWO~! - asinine plot twists? These days it's more important to pull the rug out from under the audience than to build a story to a logical conclusion and they don't seem to care whether the end of the movie makes sense anymore either. Look how much money the SAW franchise has raked in.

Oh well, at least THE REAPING was still better than THE CORE. And carrying Satan's seed is still better than getting knocked up by Chad Lowe. Now there's a bullet Hillary Swank dodged.

Let me warn you right now that anyone genuinely interested in getting jerked around by this wretched movie should just skip this review because I'm going to reveal the shocking third act plot twist. If you don't want to know then I suggest you stop reading right now and jump ahead to the next review.

We're not even to the halfway point of the year and I've already come to the conclusion that the movie year of 2007 is going to go down as the year of the implausible third act plot twist. This increasingly annoying trend has now officially reached epidemic proportions. THR3E, DEAD SILENCE, THE NUMBER 23, you just read about THE REAPING, and now add PERFECT STRANGER to the ever-growing list of climactic improbability in 2007 already. If only we could get both another SAW movie and a new M. Night Shyamalan flick before year’s end the amount of third act implausibility could potentially cause some sort of metaphysical anomaly to rip into the very fabric of time and space. Of course in keeping with the spirit of the implausible twists, it would be revealed that the time-space phenomenon was not due to the succession of third act plot twists, but rather something else entirely - perhaps the box office success of WILD HOGS. Or maybe we'll find out Halle Berry did it.

Of all the inexplicable third act plot twists to come along thus far this year, PERFECT STRANGER’s actually managed to do something truly incredible - everything between the first and last ten minutes turns out to have been nothing but pointless filler. That's right; everything after the initial set-up until the shocking revelation at the end turns out to have just been one giant red herring designed to fill time until it finally came time to sucker punch us all. They reportedly shot three different endings to this murder mystery, and obviously they settled on the one they no doubt deemed the most surprising; kind of hard not to be surprised when the revelation makes this little sense and you've been given no clues before hand that this turn-of-events was even a possibility. At no point did the studio seem to take into account the fact that this shocking reveal renders everything a complete waste of time. Had the final shot been the entire cast gathered together to collectively flip us all the bird, that would have been the most fitting way to end this screwjob of a movie.

Investigative reporter Rowena Price (Halle Berry, almost begging the Motion Picture Academy to demand the return of her Oscar at this point) is drowning her sorrows after the New York City newspaper she works for kills a big political scandal story she’d been working on, when she's confronted by childhood friend, Grace, a skuzzy tramp wanting Rowena to investigate a big time advertising exec named Harrison Hill with whom she's been having an affair. Grace then turns up murdered (the killer having poured fatal amounts of belladonna in her eyes) and Rowena vows to prove that Hill did it; the reason being that Hill's wife had all the money in the relationship and if Grace revealed their affair... You get the idea.

So with the help of her dorky tech guy assistant Miles (Giovanni Ribisi, who wildly overdoes the character's creep factor long before we're supposed to know just how big a creep he is), Rowena creates a false identity, gets a temp job at Hill’s posh advertising agency, and eventually catches the wandering eye of Hill himself (Bruce Willis, an autopilot performance consisting of playing it suave or acting pissed off), leading to all the suspense that comes from watching people typing on keyboards, attempting to hack into other people's computers, sneaking around office buildings, engaging in workplace gossip with extraneous coworkers, meeting people for drinks, and phone calls, phone calls, phone calls. A sexy, suspenseful thriller that crackles like a melted Kit Kat bar...

See Halle Berry stealthfully glare to the right! See Halle Berry sneak a glance to the left!
See all this and more in the new edge of your seat thriler, Perfect Stranger!

I've complained in past reviews about how there is absolutely no way to make people typing on keyboards thrilling or exciting. After seeing PERFECT STRANGER I'd like to extend that to watching people engaging in cybersex. Sorry, did I say cybersex? Make that cyber foreplay - they don't even get to the sex. Too many scenes revolve around Rowena using yet another false identity to lure ad executive Harrison Hill (His online chat name being "adex," just in case identifying him online wasn't obvious enough) into some racy instant messaging only slightly more kinky than that found in a Leisure Suit Larry game. We never actually see Bruce Willis on the other side of these tepid exchanges, just Halle Berry and her talking computer, often giggling at the silliness of it all. At least someone was amused; though I was taken back hearing everything "adex" types get spoken aloud phonetically perfect by her computer, doing so in a computerized voice that sounds as if it’s astutely aware of the connotation of the words it’s reciting. Even having the HAL9000 reset to amorous mode fails to make these scenes exciting or arousing.

A taste of the red hot daiquiri-drinking eroticism found in the sexy new thriller, Perfect Stranger!

There’s also the matter of Rowena’s rather cryptic recurring nightmares Rowena that hint to her having been sexually molested as a child by her father. Ah, dream sequences and child molestation, another annoying gimmick overused in a thrillers and all the tastelessness that comes with tossing in some good ol’ incest for good measure. PERFECT STRANGER just keeps getting better and better.

Now if you want to know the idiocy of the script in a nutshell, one scene has Hill discovering the identity of a corporate spy operating within his company. Like any good CEO, he promptly bursts into the guy's office and beat the snot out of him. One would think the multi-million dollar lawsuit that would no doubt result from assaulting this dude would ultimately cost Hill far more than the profit lost from the insider information the spy was stealing. Then later on, Rowena’s attempt to break into Hill's office computer in order to find definitive proof that he is “adex” is thwarted by the state-of-the-art anti-spyware blocking her flash drive’s access to his database. Miles tells her that this is surefire proof that Hill must be hiding something. Sure, of course, that's proof he's covering up a murder. I mean it's not like the CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation who has already been shown falling victim to industrial sabotage would have any need for top flight security on his personal computer. Sheesh...

Ah, the real reason Bruce Willis agreed to co-star in this movie.

Now about the murder weapon… Turns out that Mrs. Harrison Hill is into photography, specifically taking photos of the insides of people's eyeballs, doing so requires the use of belladonna. The ad agency is decorated with her art photos that look more like stuff you'd see on the walls a Beverly Hills optometrist's office. Small doses of belladonna in the eyes are perfectly safe and commonly used by eye doctors or art photographers that like snapping pics of the inner workings of the human eye or people trying to transform themselves into a werewolf, but mass quantities of the stuff is lethal. Her odd choice for photography gives both Mr. & Mrs. Hill access to the murder weapon.

Or could Miles be the killer? Why Miles, you ask? Near the end of the film, Rowena will pay a visit to Miles’ apartment while he’s out only to find a secret room with photos of her all over the walls and a creepy shrine to her; plus the computer in this room just happens to have easily accessible footage of him having S&M sex with nymphomaniac Grace, who he previously claimed to have barely known. We’re supposed to be shocked to find out that Miles could actually be such an obsessive creep, even after we’ve been shown him spying on Rowena having sex with her boyfriend from the next room, masquerading as “adex” a couple times in order to have cyber foreplay with her, and let’s not forget all those scenes where he all but sexually harassed the woman, which she somehow mistook for puppy love. But this, oh, yes, this is supposed to make him REALLY creepy.

Rowena’s investigation is enough to get Harrison Hill arrested, put on trial, and convicted of Grace’s murder. Did he really do it to keep her from telling his wife, ruining his marriage, and leaving him financially ruined? Was Mrs. Hill who was barely even a character in the movie and didn’t have a single line of dialogue the real murderer, having finally decided to get rid of her philandering husband once and for all by framing him for the murder of one of his many mistresses? Or was it indeed creepy, perverted Miles who murdered Grace because, uh, well, he’s creepy and perverted?

Sorry, any of those three choices might have made some semblance of sense. That’s why the makers of PERFECT STRANGER decided to put one over on us all by revealing Rowena to be the killer. Would you believe Halle Berry did it and then spent the whole damn movie pretending to be investigating the murder she actually committed? Didn’t see that coming, did ya?

You see Rowena’s dad had been molesting her as a kid until one night when Rowena’s mom had enough and killed him with a blow to the head. They buried the body in the backyard, but young Grace next door witnessed them doing so from her bedroom window and has held it over Rowena’s head ever since, occasionally blackmailing her and what not. When Grace showed up demanding Rowena assist her in bringing down the rich playboy advertising exec that got her knocked up, that’s when Rowena finally had enough and killed her. Having used her investigative reporting skills to find out about Mrs. Hill’s eyeball art photography and knowing doing so required the use of belladonna, she decided to use this in the murder to help frame someone with the last name Hill.

The only possible clue we had to go on about any of this along the way was that we knew Rowena and Grace had been on the outs because Grace had slept with Rowena’s boyfriend. That’s all. Everything else was completely pulled out of the screenwriter’s ass. Everything we watched for 90-minutes: her going undercover at Hill’s firm, the snooping around the office, the attempted seduction, all the cyber foreplay – pointless bullshit, every last bit of it! Oh, excuse me; she did use this opportunity to plant some evidence in Hill’s car. That still doesn’t change the fact that the revelation of Rowena as the killer negates the bulk of the movie and the overpaid morons that made this movie seem to think that can be overlooked because she needed a way to plant some evidence in Hill’s car to guarantee a murder conviction.

But Rowena wasn’t counting on creepy Miles figuring all this out on his own, but instead of going to the authorities, he decides to pull a page out of Grace’s playbook and attempts to use it to blackmail Rowena into finally getting into bed with him. So Rowena murders him too! A knife to the gut and Rowena is on the phone with the cops declaring Harrison Hill an innocent man and pinning Grace’s murder on dead-on-her-kitchen-floor Miles.

And she would have gotten away with it too if it hadn’t been for that perfect stranger (Cue the irony!) staring through his window across the way into her kitchen window who witnessed her sucker gut Miles with a carving knife and mess up the place to make it look like a struggle had occurred. DUM… DUM… DUMB!

FUCK THIS MOVIE!

Real estate investor Daniel Sadek shelled out $26 million of his own money just to finance a movie for the sole purpose of showcasing his private collection of super-expensive (and in some cases, super-rare) exotic sports cars. Hey, the man has made countless millions that have afforded him the luxury of purchasing some of the hottest cars around, such as a Phantom Rolls Royce, Lamborghini Murcielago, Porsche Carrera GT, Enzo Ferrari, Ferrari F430, Ferrari Scaglietti, two Mercedes SLR McLarens, etc., and, dammit, he wants the world to know it!

So Daniel Sedak went up the mountain and said unto the Lord, "Screw all that crap you said about humility! I want to make a movie that celebrates my lust for fast cars, hot women, and money, money, money!" And the prophet Sedak then descended from Mount High-On-I, found himself a screenwriter and a director, and commanded them to craft him a Frankenstein's Monster of a movie composed from parts of the FAST & THE FURIOUS films, Andy Sidaris flicks, Hot Wheels cartoons, hip hop booty videos, street racing video games, and a little kung fu to boot. REDLINE is the product of Sadek's hubris, and really it could have just as easily been titled "Lifestyles of the Fast & the Furious."

I found myself wondering if any of the characters in this movie were based on Sadek himself since the crux of the film is built around bored mega-millionaires with nothing better to do than to put on these lavish extravaganzas loaded to the gills with hot cars and hotter women where they get together to blow countless millions wagering on 220 mph street races. And their home life isn't all that different; all the money men in this film live in posh mansions where they're surrounded 24/7 by bodyguards and scantily clad women. Even the one evil rich guy in the movie who is completely insane and complains of being bored with all his money and toys still has his own private harem on the premises.

From start to finish, REDLINE is an often grotesque celebration of excessive materialism and misogyny - though the filmmakers would no doubt argue against that second part being true since the lead character is a strong-willed female. The movie is loaded with wall-to-wall scantily clad women (you won't find a female in this movie that doesn't have either a low cut top or the top three button undone) and the camera ogles them without an ounce of subtlety. If a female butt in something tight or skimpy goes walking by then you better believe the camera is going to zoom in on it. One brief scene has the camera focused on an extreme side close-up of the lead actress' ample bust line as she walked across a room, not until she got where she was going does the camera pan up to remind us that, yes, she does indeed have a head. Look, there's a difference between making love to the camera and getting groped by it. Not since Jessica Alba's derriere in INTO THE BLUE has cinematography so dangerously courted that which is tantamount to sexual harassment. And yet it's all for tease, not for show. This is a PG-13 movie, after all. Sorry, no actual nudity - just more cleavage than you'll find in the entire DVD boxset of Acapulco H.E.A.T.

Now Daniel Sadek may be a real estate tycoon and have exquisite taste in luxury sports cars and possess more money than he'll ever know what to do with, but when it comes to making movies, I do believe Uwe Boll could give the guy a few pointers. The first half hour of REDLINE sucked so hard and to such a degree that I was starting to worry that I'd be in for yet another stultifying BIKER BOYZ experience. I'm sitting there watching this movie that had all the makings of a parody of FAST & THE FURIOUS except for the parody part. But then something magical happened; REDLINE just started getting goofier and goofier and goofier... But in a good way, mind you - a go-for-broke sort of way. By the end, REDLINE had become one of those movie where when someone asks you later on how the movie was you reply, "Oh, it sucks! It was so awful!" but you can't get those negative words out of your mouth without say them with a big old grin on your face. It's that kind of bad movie. And let me assure you, REDLINE sucks! It was so awful!

Hip hop mogul Infamous (Eddie Griffin, doing everything he can with his performance in this film to wrestle away the mantle of "most annoying black comic actor alive" from the clutches of the Wayans brothers - his mouth moves at a thousand miles an hour and I'll be damned if not a single funny comment ever came out of it) arrives at a Los Angeles speedway to pick up the new exotic sports car he's just purchased from the garage owned and operated by auto mechanic, aspiring singer, female Speed Racer, and all-around uber babe Natasha Martin, played by doe-eyed beauty Nadia Bjorlin, who I do believe may have won her lead role in this movie by having been the finalist on the reality TV competition "America's Next Top Carmen Electra." With her statuesque beauty and leaden acting, the lovely Miss Bjorlin seems more suited to opening suitcases on Deal or No Deal than playing an emotionally wounded hellcat on wheels. Now to be perfectly fair, the film requires her to put on more of a fashion show than a performance; only thing really required of Miss Bjorlin is to be easy on the eyes, showing off her long legs and ample cleavage any chance she gets, and in that sense she gives an Oscar caliber performance. Besides, Helen Mirren couldn't make anything out of the material this young lady has been saddled with and, frankly, the whole darn movie is ripe with Baywatch quality acting, save for one great performance that I'll get around to later on.

You really mean it? I got the part? I'm going to star in your movie? And I didn't even have to say anything or read anything to get the role?

Natasha is the daughter of a race car driver killed a few years back in a race crash that continues to haunt her. That crash is brought vividly to life when she stares at a newspaper headline denoting her father's death complete with a photo of his mangled vehicle still in mid-roll that suddenly springs to life for a black & white recreation of the death crash that ends on a freeze frame of the mangled debris with the sound of a heart monitor flatlining - just in case you weren't aware from the countless clues preceding it that this was how the man died.

Though Natasha isn't above taking Infamous for a hellacious high speed spin around the racetrack that nearly results in multiple fatalities, when Infamous offers her the opportunity to drive the car in a high stakes car race on the outskirts of Vegas that a bunch of gazillionaires with way too much time and money on their hands put on for kicks, she declines - just still too traumatized from watching daddy die in a race. However, when Infamous offers her band a gig to perform for the high rollers attending the race, that she'll accept. See Natasha is the lead singer of an unsigned band called (Get this!) Moving Violations, an absolutely horrendous name for a band to begin with let alone a band that performs R&B/pop-style ballads, especially one fronted by a woman emotionally scarred by her daddy dying in a car accident. If he'd been killed on 9/11 would she be fronting a band called Airline Hijackers?

Nadija Bjorlin in a bosom-hugging top - her finest acting in all of REDLINE

Meanwhile, young Special Forces soldier Carlo has just returned from Iraq and is waiting at the bus station to be picked up by his flashy kid brother, Jason. Carlo is played by SNAKES ON A PLANE's Nathan Philips, now sporting scruffy facial hair that makes him look like he's going to a Halloween party as Dr. Alex from Grey's Anatomy. Philips needed Samuel L. Jackson's help in SNAKES ON A PLANE to keep him alive; this time everyone else wishes they had protection from him. Though Carlo may be back from Iraq, the war isn't over for him. Some gangbangers start trouble with Jason at the bus station and Carlo kung fu's the hell out of them. Next time we see him at a Vegas party, some dude will start getting fresh with Natasha and next thing you know Carlo's beating the ever lovin' bejeezus out of that guy and anyone else that comes within radius of his fists and feet. Thugs, security, and random partygoers: you don't even know who the hell these people are that he's kicking the crap out of. No joke; Carlo can't seem to go anywhere in this movie without it leading to violence or him vowing violence to come.

The young actor playing Jason looks like the sort of trust fund baby who should be snorting lines of cocaine in Hollywood nightclub bathrooms and getting herpes from Paris Hilton. That's actually a plus given that's exactly the sort of character this Jason guy is, although instead of being a trust fund baby he just works for their shady Uncle Mike as his designated illegal gambling exotic race car driver. Carlo so loathes Uncle Mike and everything he stands for that he joined the military to get away from crooked Uncle Mike and now that he's back all seems to want to do is lecture Jason non-stop about being involved with seedy Uncle Mike's business (whatever that may be.) Bitching about or trying to kill Uncle Mike will encompass about 75% of Carlo's contributions to the plot.

Jason will soon be tragically killed in his big race when the nitrous boost sends his vehicle airborne for a fatal crash. That will lead Jason to go running out to the flaming wreckage; first screaming his brother's name and then screaming that he's going to kill Uncle Mike. When two guys had to pin Carlo to the ground while he kicked and screamed about how he was going to kill Uncle Mike, I almost fell out of my seat laughing. If you've ever seen the old Simpsons episode with the McBain spoof where his partner gets gunned down by bad guy Mendoza's henchmen and McBain looks up yelling, "MENDOZA!!!" That animated spoof will come to life before your eyes right here.

What Gary & Wyatt will look like if Neal Moritz ever produces a remake of WEIRD SCIENCE

Now that race was doubly important because the driver of the other car was none other than Natasha. Despite her vows to never race, Infamous was able to rope her into getting behind the wheel for him. Even though Jason's car went flying through the air at the end, it still technically hydroplaned across the finish line ahead of Natasha, so Uncle Mike won the race. The problem with that is Uncle Mike fell madly in love with Natasha upon seeing her on the stage performing earlier and when Infamous didn't have the extra million to cover their multi-million dollar bet, he got the rap magnet to offer her as collateral. Infamous being, well, a scumbag to put it mildly, agreed to these terms without her knowing it. Natasha got knocked out during the race-ending wreck and is loaded into an ambulance... An ambulance staffed by henchmen working for Uncle Mike who somehow had the where-with-all ahead of time to know that on this day he would need henchmen dressed as paramedics in a phony ambulance ready on standby at the race meet ready to abduct someone. That level of forward thinking is why guys like Uncle Mike have gazillions of dollars and we don't.

Natasha is then whisked away to Uncle Mike's heavily guarded villa where she'll wake up in his bed in her underwear to find the creep leering over her and rambling incoherently about the wonderful life together and all the babies they're going to have. All the while, a vengeance-minded Carlo has paid a visit to an old buddy of his to get his hands on some weapons and explosives and is plotting an all-out assault on Uncle Mike's estate.

I would just like to pause here for a moment to assure everyone reading this right now that I am not making any of this up. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the actual plot to REDLINE. One doesn't tend to see a b-movie on the big screen these days with a plot this loopy that is preceded by the WWE Films logo. REDLINE is the sort of goofball b-action movie that THE MARINE wishes it could have been.

And it gets better!

It turns out that Uncle Mike is a major counterfeiter in deep with some nameless, faceless bad guys unhappy about the bad batch of fake bills he sent them and are now demanding that he pay them their $80 million in either undetectable counterfeit bills or real money; they don't care which just as long as they get it real soon. So you get crazy Uncle Mike dancing around a fire in his underwear burning the bad counterfeit bills as Natasha dons a halter top and seeks an exit from the mansion in a series of scenes that feel as if they came straight out of an old Charlie's Angels episode, while American Ninja is outside the whole time picking off guards and goons one-by-one in order to break in and kill his uncle.

Again, I'm not making any of this up.

Not surprisingly, Natasha and Carlo end up hooking up in more ways than one. Given the ordeal they've both been through escaping from Uncle Mike's estate and knowing the lunatic has gunmen out looking for them, their next stop is to a bar where they'll take turns downing shots while regaling one another with sorrowful tales of family members that died in horrific car accidents before finally heading off to a motel room to have sex. Given his propensity for resorting to violence at a moment's notice, I'm amazed Carlo got through the bar scene without throwing down on someone. These were pretty much the only scenes in the movie where Carlo was neither kicking the crap out of someone nor contemplating kicking the crap out of someone. This movie was desperately lacking the legally required b-action movie bar brawl.

Uncle Mike's got bigger problems than his hostage bride-to-be running off with the nephew who has vowed to kill him, what with those guys wanting their $80 million ASAP. He doesn't have it in cash and he can't make any more funny money because his counterfeiting machine is broken. How's a guy to get $80 million and fast? Why stage another high stakes race where the minimum bet is $25 million, of course! But Uncle Mike knows that there's no guarantee he'll win, which is why he has Natasha's mom kidnapped and orders his former hostage/bride to drive his car in the desert race and win or else he'll make her an orphan once and for all.

Once again, not making this up. How could I? How could anyone? Well, someone clearly did and that someone probably got paid more money for doing so than you or I will ever make. But still.

And that someone also decided that despite a small army of gun-toting henchmen behind locked gates proving no match for commando Carlo earlier, this time Uncle Mike would just have his hostage be held captive by a couple of kickboxers inside a poorly guarded gym.

And that someone also decided that the Asian millionaire taking part in the final race should bring in a pro racer to drive his car - a pro racer with a burn-scarred face who just happens to be the driver that killed Natasha's dad. Unless I missed something during the first three or four minutes of the movie (I was little late into the theater), I wasn't aware that the fatal crash that killed Natasha's father was somehow caused by another driver. Like I said, maybe there was some prologue at the very beginning of the film that I missed recapping this, but when Natasha started silently staring daggers at this guy I'd never seen before and a character asked who it was and another character then responded, "The guy that killed her father;" it was like the scene where you saw the goat-headed guy playing the instrument in 300. Sure, it was beyond believability, but by this point there'd already been so much ridiculousness prior to it that you'd either long since given up or just went along with it, threw your hands up in the air, and said, "Sure; why the hell not?" I was in the latter camp for both films.

If you need just one reason and one reason alone why you should hop into your own vehicle and speed your way to the movie theater it would be just to see the performance by Angus Macfadyen as crazy Uncle Mike. Not since Marlon Brando in ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU has an actor taken the role of an eccentric wacko to such delirious heights. Macfadyen is clearly aware that he's appearing in a crap movie but has decided against simply phoning in his performance in favor of playing Uncle Mike as an over-the-top combination of Robert Evans, Brando's Dr. Moreau, and an old school James Bond villain. Never is he more insane than as he watches the big climactic car race dressed like a Mexican bandito, screaming at the top of his lungs like a psychotic sports fan whose team is about to score the game-winning touchdown, and faux masturbating with a champagne bottle. Macfadyen's wacky performance is the sort where it simply has to be seen to be believed. The moment we first meet Uncle Mike at the first big race about a half hour in is the moment REDLINE goes from sucking with a frown on your face to sucking with a smile. It’s the stuff future camp classics are made of.

This is still better than co-starring in EXTREME OPS; so blow me, Rufus Sewell!

But what about the cars? You haven't told us about the cars, Foy! Fine, I will. They're bright and they're shiny and they go real fast. Happy now? Is there really anything more you need to know about them? There's nothing in REDLINE's racing scenes that you haven't seen in any of the F&F films. I didn't denote any CGI so at least the cars we see are the actual cars in action. Still, it's more like The Fast & the Familiar.

What the street racing scenes in REDLINE excel at more than any other recent movie is collateral damage. Now I fully realize this movie is made with what essentially boils down to the mindset and morality of a video game, but REDLINE is still a movie that's supposed to be set in the real world and, thusly, some semblance of how things work in the real world should apply. Am I really supposed to cheer for people that repeatedly, flagrantly cause innocent motorists to wreck violently? I just saw a street racer slam into a commuter with such impact that it sent that unfortunate person's vehicle flipping into the air and landing upside down. You just killed or crippled an innocent person, but who cares, right? Come on; what really matters is, "Wasn't it cool seeing that minivan flip in the air in slow motion?" The whole movie is filled with moments like that and it's not even limited to the racing scenes.

For example, After Carlo gets his weapons to go stage his big assault on Uncle Mike's villa, he hops on his sporty motorbike and goes rocketing through the busy city streets causing at least one serious accident and nearly causing several more. It's not even like there was any particular urgency where he was in a race against the clock to get where he was going, and, frankly, maybe I'm just applying too much common sense, but if you're packing C4 explosives on you, perhaps driving your motorcycle through crowded streets like you're recreating the climax of TORQUE isn't the safest way to go.

The movie even ends with our two lovebirds celebrating with a street race through the suburbs of Los Angeles that would earn you at least a three star arrest rating playing Grand Theft Auto. The ending voiceover by Natasha tells us, "Good cars will get you where you're going, but great cars will get you in trouble." Well, yeah, I guess if you insist on driving that great car like a maniac through populated areas, treating public streets like the Autobahn, showing a blatant disregard for civilians, and violating god knows how many laws in the process, then, sure, you're going to get in heaps of trouble. Deservedly so, I dare say. Somewhere along the way we went from "I Can't Drive 55" to "I Can't Drive Mach 5."

And for those wondering why the movie is called REDLINE, that was the original working title of a certain film that would come to be known as THE FAST & THE FURIOUS. That should tell you just how much genuine thought went into the making of Sedak's folly.

Next up is NEXT, one of the most far-fetched science fiction movies I've ever seen. We're supposed to believe that Jessica Biel falls in love with Nicolas Cage? I mean, seriously now...

That's right, Jessica. It's me, and I'm your love interest.

Kind of feel bad for Biel; she's one of the most lusted after women on the web, inching ever so close to surpassing Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Alba as the young Hollywood hotty apex of internet geek lust, and this year she's finding herself in movies as the love interest of unlikely suitors sure to only further fuel the sometimes unsettling level of obsession many young starlets find themselves the target of online. Here she's required to fall almost instantly in love with older, oddly haired, all-around oddball Nic Cage, and later this summer she'll be getting romanced by Adam Sandler of all people in I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY. Now that idiosyncratic nutjobs and immature ass clowns are covered, she need only get herself a role in a movie as the love interest opposite Horatio Sanz in order to complete the internet cycle of life by giving fat losers hope that they too can one day bag a girl like Biel.

NEXT is based on a short story by Philip K. Dick in much the same way that SHE'S THE MAN was based on Shakespeare's TWELTH NIGHT and Pamela Anderson's BARB WIRE was a remake of CASABLANCA. I've not actually read "The Golden Man" short story but I am fairly certain it wasn't a DEAD ZONE meets "24" meets THE FUGITIVE hybrid and at no point involved the main character outrunning an avalanche. With Lee Tamahori in the director's chair, he of XXX: STATE OF THE UNION and DIE ANOTHER DAY fame, this is yet another Philip K. Dick story that's been given the PAYCHECK treatment.

To be honest though, I really don't understand why the studio didn't screen NEXT ahead of time for critics. There's good stuff, bad stuff, and so bad its good stuff. It's got a plot that's preposterous from start to finish, actually managing to be under and over written at times. Sure, it suffers from some serious dead spots (i.e. anything involving the Cage-Biel romance aspect) and anyone that claims that the ending didn't leave them with a very sour taste in their mouth clearly has no palate, yet I'd dare say NEXT is still a better made film than THE WICKER MAN and GHOST RIDER.

Boy that Nic Cage really is on quite the roll of late. Not counting his ten second cameo in GRINDHOUSE - his best performance in ages, none of Cage's last three films have been screened for critics. THE WICKER MAN (destined for bad movie infamy), GHOST RIDER (which somehow diluted some people into actually believing it was a fun flick), and now NEXT. Perhaps it's time that Cage took a break from movies where he takes his shirt off and tries to play a heroic leading man and go back to his arthouse roots for awhile, at least until he remembers what a good screenplay looks like.

Nicolas Cage is Cris Johnson, a genuine precognitive psychic with the ability to see two minutes into the future, an ability he wastes on a two-bit Las Vegas magic show under the stage name Frank Cadillac (derived as he tells us from his two favorite things: Frankenstein and Cadillac’s) and uses to beat the house at the card tables and slot machines, much to the chagrin of perplexed casino security who know he's cheating but don't know how.

As Cage tells us in voiceovers at the film's open and close, the thing about the future is that once you've looked at it just a little bit, it changes, if only a little bit. That's how Cris knows to tackle the armed robber that just walked into the casino before he kills a few people during the botched robbery to come. That's how Cris knows exactly where to go and what to do in order to escape the casino when being pursued by its security. Cris will see how trying to outrun that train at the wrong speed will lead to his death, so he just speeds faster to clear the tracks in the nick of time. He'll see himself getting shot and know just the precise moment to dodge the bullet. The way we'll see him engage in multiple versions of the same conversation or event until he sees the one that works out in his favor gives the movie a sort of GROUNDHOG DAY feel, though this time the laughter is often more unintentional than not. Cris Johnson is a living, breathing "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.

The screenplay's degree of convolution is nothing short of remarkable, but at least it makes for an extremely silly film that's hard not to be amused by. The only bad thing is that sometimes it's hard not to feel a little jerked around watching little scenes play out and then come to learn afterwards that it was all just a vision. One point he'll have a conversation with a major character that felt like it went on a lot longer than just two minutes and then we see that this conversation hadn't taken place yet - all one of his visions of things to come and it never will because Cris skips out on it already knowing what he needed to and not like where it was heading. NEXT does have a tendency to take on that annoying dream sequence aspect that so often plagues horror movies. It does keep viewers on their toes though; I'll give it that.

International terrorists have stolen a Russian nuke and smuggled it into the United States. Enter counter-terrorism agent Callie Ferris (a slumming Julianne Moore) and the small platoon of counter-terrorism agents she commands, riding around in a caravan of SUVs and a motorized command center equipped with enough high tech surveillance equipment to make Jack Bauer envious, all of which is being used for the express purpose of...

Spying on Nicolas Cage?

No, I'm not going to waste inordinate amounts of time and manpower on locating those terrorists and the nuke they plan to detonate any moment now because the clock's ticking and there's just no time for such needle in a haystack investigations. Instead I'm going to put all my resources to keep tabs on a psychic whose powers will do the job for us and faster. At least it will once I'm able to get close enough to subdue him since his powers allow him to see us coming and therefore slip away repeatedly. I'm going to get that psychic and make him telepathically locate that nuclear bomb even if I have to track him halfway across the country for days on end. Those terrorists have to be stopped before it's too late, dammit!

The above paragraph is Agent Ferris' logic in a nutshell. Just pause for a second and let that logic soak in, unless you're a Vulcan, in which case this amount of illogic could cause a brain hemorrhage.

Julianne Moore's agents had to chase her down for several blocks when she made a run for it after they proposed she co-star in a Nicolas Cage action flick.

While we're batting the wiffle ball of logic, there's the matter of the terrorists. Who are they and why do they want to nuke us? Only way you're going to find that answer is by wrangling yourself up a legit mind reader and sicking him on any of NEXT's three screenwriters. We do know these terrorists are not of the Islamic variety because, you know, portraying terrorists in movies these days as being of Middle Eastern persuasion is considered politically incorrect. That's why these mystery terrorists are just a ragtag crew of various European accents. That still doesn't tell us who or why? I suppose these days it seems everyone has it in for the US. Seen any South Korean films lately? They could make a movie that was just a guy standing on the screen for two hours reading from the South Korean phonebook and somehow they'd still find a way to work in some anti-American sentiment. Why do these terrorists want to nuke us? Why not, I guess. It's what all the cool terrorists want to do these days.

One thing we do know about these nameless, motiveless terrorists is that they've gotten orders from their nameless, motiveless, faceless, only-referenced-once-in-the-whole-damn-movie superior to kill Cris Johnson. They know about this Agent Ferris being the fed leading the charge to stop them and they know she plans to use this Cris Johnson guy to thwart them even though they don't know how he could do so because they don't know about his psychic powers; therefore, Cris Johnson must be eliminated before Agent Ferris gets to him. No, even though we've already smuggled the nuke into the city of Los Angeles where the casualty rate will be catastrophic, we cannot just go ahead and set off the blasted thing. No, first we've got to put all our energy into tracking down this mystery man who the lady who hasn't been able to find us is looking for in order to find us. That's the terrorist's mindset and that pop you heard was Mr. Spock's skull exploding.

But Cris Johnson and his receding mullet has no interest in helping stop a terrorist plot. Seems he already spent some time at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, decided he didn't much want to join the X-Men, and doesn't want to go to be used as a psychic guinea pic again even it could mean saving millions of lives. Besides, he's after some tail: Jessica Biel's most delectable hump to be precise. Like most heterosexual males, he keeps dreaming about Jessica Biel. But in his case, it's because of a weird, never explained or even attempted to explain loophole in his psychic powers' two-minute rule that makes it so she can allow him to see visions of the future infinitely further and to locations far away just so long as she's somehow, someway involved in it. He's become obsessed with this beautiful mystery woman he keeps seeing entering a specific cafe at a specific time of day. So determined is he to meet her he's been hanging out in that cafe at precisely that time for some time now anxiously awaiting the day the lovely lady haunting his dreams finally walks through the door. I do believe that in some way qualifies as stalking.

Having seemingly forgotten about the local police and federal agents both in pursuit of him, there he is in that cafe and, sure enough, today's the day. After using his powers to formulate the correct combination by which to properly insinuate himself into this young woman's life, she actually allows this perfect stranger to tag along with her on her drive to Flagstaff, Arizona back to the Indian reservation next to the Grand Canyon where she works as an elementary schoolteacher. Take a moment to reread that last sentence and try and pick out the part that seems most implausible. Would it be the way Cage keeps using his precog powers GROUNDHOG DAY style to figure out what he should do to get in her good graces? Would it be that we're supposed to be believe a gorgeous young woman who has just met an older man with strange hair who behaves oddly would allow said person to hitchhike along with her after he suddenly tells her that he just happens to be heading to the exact same location as her without even bothering to offer an explanation at why he just coincidentally needs a lift to where she's going? Would it be that we're supposed to believe a woman that looks like Jessica Biel works as a schoolteacher on an Indian reservation? Don't bothering answering because nothing proves more improbable than when she realizes she's falling in love with this weirdo she barely knows after seeing him entertain a child with a sleight-of-hand parlor trick. Entertain a small child on his birthday by turning a rock into a small lizard and by that evening you too might find yourself making love to Jessica Biel. Only in the movies, folks.

But the next morning after they awake post-coital in one another's arms, that's when the movie goes from ridiculous speed to ludicrous speed. Agent Ferris gets to Liz (Jessica Biel) and tells her that her new lover is a dangerous mental patient who they need to subdue and to do so they want her to slip him a knockout drug, but not administer said drug into his orange juice until precisely two minutes after he's exited the room in which she'll do it. Liz is so in love with him that she slaps the drugged glass of juice out of his hand and tells him about the feds outside their cottage, to which Cris then spills the beans about just how real his magic act is and why the feds are after him. This Liz chick teaches Native American school children on an impoverished Indian reservation in the middle of the desert. I'm thinking she's the sort of hot chick who'd much prefer her superpowered boyfriend help the feds stop the nuclear bomb and save millions of innocent lives. But instead of slapping him across the face and dumping him for being a selfish prick, she helps him stage an escape that involves a mountainside avalanche of boulders, cars (including her own), Wild West relics, and tons of lumber. His escape involves out running this avalanche of crap, all the while also doing some precog bullet-dodging due to the terrorist sniper who has been waiting to pick off Cris the moment he got a clear shot. When the dust settles, Agent Ferris has managed to finally snare Cris and the terrorists have nabbed Liz.

Agent Ferris transports Cris back to Los Angeles where he's strapped into a chair with eye-opening restraints ala a CLOCKWORK ORANGE and forced to watch the local news until he his psychic powers show him where the bomb is. He tells her it doesn't work like that. She don't care. Would it shock you to know it doesn't work? However, the Liz factor causes a vision, not of the bomb's locale, but of her strapped to a wheelchair and exploding on a parking garage rooftop a few hours from now. Cris to the rescue! Just as he escaped the casino before, he uses his two minute warning to help him escape a high security government installation in manner far too easy even for a guy with psychic powers.

At long last, Nicolas Cage is given a taste of his own medicine, forcibly restrained and unwillingly made to watch the director's cut of CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN

The whole Liz/wheelchair/bomb/parking garage scenario is only a ruse on the terrorists' part because they know Cris would know where to go to try and save her even though they still don't know about him being a psychic, but when he does show up to save her, their sniper will pick him off. And it might have worked too if it hadn't been Cris showing up an hour early and the feds taking out the sniper with one of those wonderful movie helicopters that can silently sneak up on people from behind - the kind that makes no noise until its time for it appear on camera and startle someone. I so love those choppers.

The Liz factor now allows Cris to see the dockside warehouse where the terrorists are hold up with her. The feds wage an all-out assault and it's a good thing they thought to bring so many tactical assault teams to the raid because that half dozen or so terrorists suddenly multiply into a full blown insurgency. In addition to smuggling a nuclear warhead into the US, that small band of terrorists must have also imported several dozen armed gunmen to keep on standby just in case of a Las Vegas lounge act turned out to be the real thing and successfully led the bulk of North America's counter terrorism units to their secret locale. It's like everyone in this movie has amazing foresight.

Now I'll say this, as fundamentally goofy as this whole turn-of-events is, at least it was fun to watch. Seeing Cris always one step ahead of everyone else: telling them precisely when and where to shoot because he's precoged what when and where bad guys were going to pop out of next, seeing him die multiple times and then not doing what we just saw him envision, watching him split into multiple versions of himself as he stops to precog what he'd find if he were to go in different directions at the particular point. This stuff is, dare I say, neat.

If we could only get Al Qaeda to kidnap Liz and then pair up Cris Johnson and his precognitive powers with unstoppable John Triton from THE MARINE, I'm convinced those two combined could single handedly win the war on terror.

Liz is rescued from the clutches of the terrorists (though not from the clutches of Nicolas Cage). The terrorist are all dead and it seems like the movies about over except there's the little matter of them not finding the nuke on the premises. Right then Cris begins freaking out, repeatedly yelling, "I made a mistake!" Before we get a clue as to what mistake he made, Sarah Connor's worst nightmare becomes reality as the nuke detonates somewhere just offshore, killing everyone.

Suddenly, Cris wakes up back in bed with Liz exactly as he had nearly half a movie ago. Yep, everything we just watched happen after they had sex was all one of his premonitions. The best parts of the entire movie were all just a dream, a precognitive vision of things to come, including the way he repeatedly used his precognitive powers and redid things based on what he foresaw within what ultimately turned out to be a great big piece of precognition. If they were going to do something this asinine that cheats the audience to such a degree with the old "it was all a dream" routine then why not have gone the extra mile by having Nicolas Cage wake up, walk into the bathroom, and find Patrick Duffy in his shower?

No, Jessica, that part wasn't a dream. I'm still your lover!

Cris wakes Liz and gives her a LAST OF THE MOHICANS "wherever you go, I will find you" speech before calling Agent Ferris up and volunteering his psychic services to help her stop the terrorists. We then get another Nic Cage voiceover reiterating the whole spiel about how seeing the future changes it, but we'll never get to see just how it all changed as he rides off in Agent Ferris' Range Rover and the movie ends. A 40-minute dream sequence followed by an open-ended conclusion that resolved nothing? No actual resolution to the story, the whole third act we'd watched was for nothing, and the terrorist sniper who had been outside the cottage waiting for a clear shot suddenly went MIA. Are you kidding me? What's most infuriating about this climax is that you just know the people responsible for NEXT believed this was being clever. A pity I didn't have a two-minute precognitive warning otherwise I'd have known to walk out of the theater the moment they rescued Jessica Biel thus avoiding having this movie, junky as it already had been, flipping me the proverbial bird as a reward for investing my time and money in it. Boooooooo! A groaner ending of the highest magnitude.

Add NEXT to the bonfire of 2007 Hollywood movies with idiotic third act plot twists designed to shock us that only succeed in leaving us feeling jerked around and in this case, totally cheated. Guess it's not really all that surprising given how NEXT cheated every step of the way: not explaining the terrorists, not explaining how Agent Ferris discovered Cris to have actual powers, constantly playing fast and loose with the rules and time restraints of Cris' powers, what it is about Jessica Biel's character that amplifies his powers, having a twist finale that voids nearly half of the movie we'd just watched, and then ending it all in an open-ended manner devoid of a satisfactory resolution to the whole mess.

On second thought, maybe I can see why they didn't screen this one for critics ahead of time.

There's no disputing that THE CONDEMNED is far and away the best movie WWE Films has yet to churn out. Of course, that's like saying getting ass raped in prison isn't nearly as bad as getting ass raped DELIVERANCE-style out in the woods by inbred hillbillies. I thought SEE NO EVIL was at least watchable trash, though an attempt at a second viewing led me to turn it off after only 15 minutes. THE MARINE... Well, sometimes a movie is so bad it's good and sometimes a movie is so bad its worse. THE MARINE was worse. THE CONDEMNED is watchable trash, but I'd argue it isn't trashy enough to be the big dumb action flick it ought to be as it suffers from delusions of being something more than what it is. I don't think the THE CONDEMNED is an outright terrible movie, but I'll be damned if I can think of a single reason to recommend why anyone should watch it.

A scummy TV producer (clearly based on "Survivor" producer Mark Burnett) looking to push the ultimate envelope is going to put on an internet pay-per-view broadcast called "The Condemned" in which ten death row convicts, male and female, from all over the world are dropped on a remote island in order to battle to the death for the viewing pleasure of anyone with a broadband connection willing to plunk down $49.95. The island has been rigged with cameras everywhere: mounted, gliding across overheard cables, and even some camouflaged cameramen sneaking about the bush, in order to capture all the action from every conceivable angle. The last murderer standing wins their freedom and a cash prize, while the producer looks to score record viewership. Somehow the mainstream media knows about this ahead of time and a journalist is brought in to interview (and, ironically, condemn) him for the show he's about to put on, yet the authorities are clueless as to even the location of the South Pacific island strewn with decrepit World War 2 encampments it's taking place on

Jack Conrad ("Stone Cold" Steve Austin), found on death row in Central America for blowing up a building, his background a mystery to even the Condemned crew, is brought in as an alternate to replace another killer who went and got himself killed. Hmmm... Mystery man with a mysterious past set to be hunted for sport? You don't suppose he might to turn out to be some sort of ex-military types whose superior skills will... Given the feat of strength and accuracy he pulls off during the film's climax, perhaps he's an ex-Olympic shot putter? For a guy on death row, he certainly seems opposed to killing, although that changes after getting pissed off by the brutal actions of another combatant played Vinnie Jones (Juggernaut from X-MEN: THE LAST STAND), an ex-British military psychopath that the slimy producer is secretly helping along the way because the guy's savagery puts on a good show.

Who's the Juggernaut now, bitch?

The first and biggest problem facing THE CONDEMNED is an identity crisis. The core concept behind the plot is a truly 1980's idea, but over-the-top, cartoonish, Reagan-era style action this is not. The filmmakers seemed to be aiming for something grittier, with a harder edge to it, yet doing so plays into direct conflict with the b-movie action mindset it plays out with. The action scenes are done a bit too realistically to be rousing fun, certainly not when you're watching a huge guy kicking the living crap out of a helpless woman and raping and murdering her in front of her husband or seeing a room full of crying people, begging for their lives as a gunmen selectively targets them one-by-one - sorry just too soon after Virginia Tech to be seeing that sort of thing. But by the same token, that violence, unsettling as it sometimes is, lacks a level of intensity to give it any real impact and the overall movie lacks the level of intelligence necessary to be a more gripping, thoughtful thriller that wants you to be disturbed and even put off by the carnage on screen.

Which leads to another problem: the movie seems to think it has a conscience. This film revels in the violence it puts on display, violence that's ugly without being horrifying and pervasive without being exciting. And then it has the nerve to turn around and try to lecture us about how awful we all are for being entertained by such violent entertainment. This is a mindless, chest thumping action movie designed to make the audience cheer the hero and want to see the bad guys killed that also wants us to feel ashamed for doing so. In order for a movie to have a social conscience it actually has to have a social conscience and not just be a no-brainer killfest with a few shrill public service announcements tossed in along the way. That hypocritical preaching goes from pious to sanctimonious along the way. It starts with that reporter interviewing the producer at the beginning, then two characters on the production side develop a conscience along the way (that you'd think would have done so long before they agreed to take part in helping to telecast what amounts to snuff programming) leading to several more scenes where the morality of the whole endeavor is debated; topped off with a denouement during the film's climax from that TV reporter denouncing the 40 million people that logged on to watch "The Condemned" that sounds an awful lot like it could just as easily be directed at any of us sitting in the theater watching the movie itself. THE CONDEMNED is like a bisexual eunuch; it wants to have it both ways but lacks the necessary equipment to make things work one way or the other.

But the jokes on all of us any since I'd reckon almost two-thirds of the action scenes are so poorly shot you can't even make out what is going on for the most part. You heard of shaky cam? This, folks, is earthquake cam. Most of the action consists of hand-to-hand combat and close quarters combat, virtually every last bit of which is filmed in such a manner that you can't even decipher what the hell is going on. It really is like the camera effect a low budget production would use to simulate an earthquake occurring. Guys start slugging it out and all you can make of it is bits and pieces because the camerawork is all over the place. Was Michael J. Fox the cinematographer? I swear I'd have gotten a better view of the action if I'd been one of the people that logged onto the fictional Condemned website in the movie to view the webcast of the event than I got watching the actual movie. I've seen pictures of Bigfoot that were less blurry. Someone needs to sit first-time director Scott Wiper down and explain to him how to shoot a fight scene. Could you imagine trying to watch a WWE wrestling match where the camerawork was shaky and darting all over the place?

Not that the action is all that anyway. The most common mode of death in the film is people blowing up after someone else triggers the explosive device attached to their ankles; at least half of the ten competitors die in such a fashion.

Credit where it's due, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin comes off better than monosyllabic Kane did in SEE NO EVIL and damn sure better than the walking mannequin John Cena got transformed into for THE MARINE. Austin starts out somewhat stiff but grows into his man-of-few-words tough guy role as the film progresses. His acting consists of little more growling out a few lines here and there and scowling his way to the finish line. Scowling and growling actually works here since his character is supposed to be gruff and it turns out the whole film was building up to a final shot where he finally, at long last, half-smiles. Still, I really question what, if any, future "Austin 3:16" has as an action movie star. He doesn't seem to have the acting chops for anything other than a stoic action hero and he's over 40 and physically broken down. His in-ring wrestling career is over because his knees are so completely shot and his neck is in such rough shape that one bad bump in the ring could paralyze him. I'd say "don't quit you day job" but, technically, he already has. A career as a supporting heavy ala fellow ring veteran Terry Funk (ROAD HOUSE, OVER THE TOP) might be what's in order for him. I'm going to get to work on a screenplay for a "Stone Cold" Steve Austin western to be called FOR A FEW MORE CANS OF WHOOP ASS.

Things tuned violent on the film set when a Japanese reporter showed up to ask the stars how they felt about THE CONDEMNED being just a blatant rip-off of BATTLE ROYALE.

The contestants aren't much to write home about either. Vinnie Jones makes for a worthy adversary albeit still a fairly generic action movie villain. He'll pair up with an Asian killer who has a thing for wearing shades like he's in a Hong Kong gangster movie in order to tag team other combatants on the island. This Asian character is also established to be a martial artist, a fact that he seems to forget when he actually engages in fisticuffs with Steve Austin. An African female killer, a character that showed some real potential, is squandered when she gets scrubbed from the film almost as an afterthought, caught in the crossfire between Austin and Jones. Equally wasted is Nathan Jones, the seven-foot ex-WWE wrestler who has since played decent screen bad guys opposite Tony Jaa in THE PROTECTOR (TOM YUM GOONG) and Jet Li in FEARLESS; the movie opens showcasing this guy being a Russian prison killing machine, seemingly indicating that he's going to be a major factor in the plot. Instead, he's the first guy Austin kills on the island. Even the reality that Jones physically towers over Austin is downplayed aside for one split second shot that shows us they're not actually the same height.

The TV producer behind this whole thing is quite the piece of work too. The guy is hellbent to put on this show to the point of obsession, adamantly defending it as giving viewers what they want and arguing against the snuff aspect saying the people killing one another are all death row convicts anyway; their viciousness excuses as just being the ultimate in reality programming. He doesn't seem to weigh the consequences that putting on this show is going to be the end of his career regardless whether or not the worldwide viewership rivals that of the Super Bowl. He's going to be univerally reviled in the media and a social pariah guaranteed to be ostracized on all fronts - none of which seems to phase him, assuming it ever even crosses his mind. He doesn't even seem overly concerned with becoming an international fugitive (the show he's putting on does constitutes murder, after all) until he gets word that Navy SEALS are en route to raid the island, at which point making a getaway suddenly becomes his top concern. Even the aspect that in the end he's going to be letting one of these convicted killers back out on the streets, one that's proven to be so dangerous they survived killing nine other killers, is completely glossed over.

And honestly, is a stone cold killer that just survived a ten-man fight to the death competition really a person you want to stiff on the prize money they're owed? If nothing else, a smart man would have the common sense to not remove the ankle bomb from the psychopath they're about to royally screw over after telling them they're shit out of luck.

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Padding out the film is a subplot involving some federal agents trying to track the island's location; a subplot that ultimately turns out to be little more than excuse to have a CIA guy show up and explain Jack Conrad's real backstory. Would it shock you to learn Conrad's ex-military turned black ops got caught by local authorities after taking out a major drug dealers' operation.

This also leads to the introduction of clueless Mrs. Jack Conrad. She knows nothing of her husband's moonlighting as a CIA assassin and thinks he must have just skipped out on her a year earlier. Jack will find his way to a phone on the island in order to call her for the sole purpose of giving her his secret bank account number so that she'll have money to help raise the kids. Trying to give her coordinates as to where he's at and getting her to send help is actually the last thing on his mind when he makes this phone call, preposterous given the lengths that he went to sneak into the TV production's base in order to do so. This then leads her to a local redneck bar where she'll log on and watch the show play out with a bunch of locals that knew Jack, all cheering him on like they're watching a wrestling match, only to wince in horror whenever he kills someone trying to kill him. This movie spends far too much time inside that bar.

Now would be a good time to mention that this movie clocks in at an excessive length of just under two hours. Why is that? Why is this movie so long? This should be a 90-minute movie, tops. Two hours is a long time for an action movie that isn't fun or edgy enough to be something more or clever enough to be satirical. I was left in the end with a feeling of complete indifference towards what I'd just watched.

I'd akin THE CONDEMNED to a porno movie with sex scenes filmed in a manner as to be almost completely indecipherable that pauses in between those unwatchable money shots in order to have the extras start lecturing us about how watching pornography is a bad for you and everyone doing so right now should be ashamed of themselves. If that sounds like something that will get you off then this is the movie for you.

As for me, I'm just going to sit back and count the days until June 5th when the cinematic masterpiece that is STONE COLD starring Brian "The Boz" Bosworth finally comes out on DVD.

JUNE 5TH, BABY!
"Don't son; that gun is loaded!"

MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY AND I PAID TO SEE STONE COLD (THREE TIMES!)