August 2008 is over and I say good riddance. The past 30 days sucked a big one. One of the worst months I've ever had. First the headache of moving two towns over and then as soon as I finally began to decompress from that headache along came Tropical Storm Fay and a week after that Hurricane Gustav. If the anxiety of getting hit by these storms wasn't nerve-racking enough, when you work at a TV station like I do tropical weather situations mean things are about to get very busy. Or completely chaotic as was the case for me; somehow hurricane season seemed to come as a complete surprise to station management given how ill-prepared they seemed to be. So, yes, a very stressful month has come to an end - though the stress may not be over for me just yet because as I post this Hurricane Ike is taking a path that could potentially send it my way too. I need a vacation.

Even the movies of August almost universally sucked with very few exceptions. What a dumping ground August '08 proved to be. This month's Foyeurism wipes up a couple of August's biggest theatrically released turds. I think it's time for an...

AUGUST FLUSH

DISASTER MOVIE is that rarest of films: a self-reviewing movie.
The very first line of dialogue is "Ugh, shit."

August 29, 2008: On the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, with another potentially monster hurricane raging towards my home on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, it just seemed appropriate to me to head out to the multiplex to watch a movie titled DISASTER MOVIE that was guaranteed to be a Cat 5 storm of cinematic excrement. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a literal shit storm. I cannot say I didn't get what I expected; it rained crap all over me and blew harder than Hurricane Gustav. Between DISASTER MOVIE and Katrina I've now come to the conclusion that nothing good can ever come from the date August 29th.

Say, remember when Uwe Boll was the most hated filmmaker on the internet? Well those days are over. The new kings of crap are Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. They're like the Zucker-Abrams of suck.

I'd argue the art of the spoof film died sometime around the release of SCARY MOVIE 2. Since then spoof movies haven't really been spoof movies anymore. In fact, they've become less coherent movies and more a collection of references to recognizable moments from (then) recent movies, television, and other assorted nonsense going on in popular culture. When it comes to the cinematic works of Friedberg and Seltzer often there's no context to these references; it's just "Hey, remember this?" All Friedberg & Seltzer do is remind you of familiar stuff you've seen. There's no nuance to their jokes. Often there aren't even any jokes to their jokes.

So deep is their contempt for the audience they don't even trust those of us watching to grasp what they’re referencing on our own. That guy who looks like Dr. Phil, talks like Dr. Phil, and acts like Dr. Phil has to actually announce himself as Dr. Phil just to make sure we understand that he's supposed to be Dr. Phil. "I am Prince Caspian here to save Narnia!" You don't say? Jessica Simpson or Amy Winehouse show up and someone has to yell, "Look, Jessica Simpson or Amy Winehouse!" A spoof of HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL requires a character to say they’re going to put on a high school musical. The closest these two ever come to genuine satire in DISASTER MOVIE is with a character based on JUNO who talks in sarcastic, hip, pop culture quips and even here they shoot their own satire in the foot by having her explain that she can only talk in sarcastic, hip, pop culture quips. It's always bad form to feel the need to explain your jokes, even more so when the jokes are that obvious. Friedberg & Seltzer write films with the same mentality as that kid from LAST ACTION HERO who kept explaining the action movie cliches playing out before his and our eyes.

Neither of them comprehend the concept of less is more either. If you've seen the DISASTER MOVIE trailer then you've seen that bit with Hannah Montana getting killed by a falling meteor but keeps coming back to life to plug her merchandise. The full version of that run-on gag goes on for - I kid you not - almost two whole minutes. There's no shortage of jokes that bomb from the get-go yet go on and on and on. A lame STEP UP dance-off drags on forever. A fight with a guy in a KUNG FU PANDA costume goes nowhere and keeps going nowhere. A naked Beowulf repeatedly declares "I AM BEOWULF!" until the predictable gay jokes kick-in. The HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL number went on so long I think it might still be going on.

DATE MOVIE
EPIC MOVIE
MEET THE SPARTANS
DISASTER MOVIE

These two take the phrase "crimes against cinema" to such heights that you actually wish a legislative body would pass a bill making their body of work actual punishable offenses.

My personal experience with the god-four-saken films of Friedberg & Seltzer, or F&S for short - sort of like S&M but without the pleasure derived from pain aspect - have been limited. I watched the first 20-minutes of DATE MOVIE on Cinemax before I could take no more. Strange to look back on it now and realize that as painful as DATE MOVIE was for those 20-minutes at least F&S seemed to be trying to craft a cohesive narrative instead of just throwing out random references every 30-seconds. Then I caught 5-10 minutes of EPIC MOVIE on Cinemax and was simply appalled by what I saw. MEET THE SPARTANS - I couldn't even sit through the trailer without feeling my intelligence insulted. DISASTER MOVIE was the first one I saw in a theater, the first one I sat through from start to finish, and I can all but guarantee you it will be the last. When it comes to the films of F&S once in a lifetime is more than enough.

There was just something about DISASTER MOVIE set off my "Foydar" beckoning me to go see it. As I've explained in the past, "Foydar" is like "gaydar" except instead of detecting gayness in another person "Foydar" detects a movie's potential schlockability. I think it may have been the irony of the release date or just my resolve to not allow two of their anti-funny films to occupy dual slots high on my annual TOP 10 MOVIES I DIDN'T PAY TO SEE IN 2008 AND, DAMMIT, I PLAN TO KEEP IT THAT WAY list. I don't want to spoil this year's list already but as of right now the title of the #1 movie rhymes with "Beat the Partons".

So against my better judgment I put money in their pockets by attending an opening day showing of DISASTER MOVIE, the latest pop culture vomitorium from the F&S dungeon. In just the opening ten minutes alone they bombard us with laugh-free references to 10,000 BC, American Gladiators, INDIANA JONES & THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, Amy Winehouse, WANTED, Flava Flav, SUPERBAD, Dr. Phil, JUNO, Calvin Klein underwear models, WWE divas wrestling, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, and HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL, and still they found time to work in grossout gags involving both poop and belching. The very first joke has the lead character falling face first into a huge pile of feces - no doubt a metaphor for what the audience is about to go through.

Stringing all these random pop culture references of the past eight months together is the film's central plot... Who am I kidding? Who are they kidding? There is no plot. There is no story. Just a series of completely random references barely strung together by the faintest resemblance of a plot backbone that is itself nothing more than a reference to CLOVERFIELD.

Yet - and this truly is a sign of what talentless hacks these two are - they parody CLOVERFIELD but never once bother to have a giant monster of some sort appear to do something funny. Just take a second to try and fathom such a thing. These guys are so unfunny that when referencing JUMPER the best gag they could come up with was to have him eating watermelon like a slob and not even by using his jumping abilities to do so. The best they could come up with to poke fun at SPEED RACER was carjacking him and driving through a funky color scheme for ten seconds. I'd ask if they're not even trying except I know that they're not trying yet F&S are still so lousy at what they do you can't even tell when they're not trying.

What you call hell Friedberg & Seltzer call comedy!

This guy (WARGAMES 2's Matt Lanter) has to rescue his girlfriend (ex-Entertainment Tonight correspondent turned Nick Lachey penis recipient Vanessa Minillo) trapped across town as the world begins to end in the form of random catastrophic events few of which are even attempted to be played for laughs, most likely because Roland Emmerich didn't make a new disaster movie in the past year so F&S figured there was no point trying to be funny about it. The only way to stop it all is to return the Crystal Skull to its rightful place. His girlfriend, apparently, the way she just randomly pulls it out from under her dress during the climax, had been using the Crystal Skull as a tampon. Why any of what's happening is happening is never explained, and, amazingly, the movie never once attempts to spoof THE HAPPENING.

Joining him on the quest across town will be his wisecracking black friend, characters based on JUNO and Amy Adams' ENCHANTED princess, and Reggie Bush's current bush, Kim Kardashian.

There are things I'd be willing to pay to watch Kim Kardashian do - acting is not one of those things. Like Paris Hilton, Kardashian is famous solely for being famous. She's never really done anything to earn her fame unless you count getting peed on in a sex tape by a rapper. Now she wants to act? Stick to getting pissed on, honey.

I'll still take Kardashian over the "Mad TV" cast-off (of which there are far too many rounding out the cast) doing the Amy Adams riff; the joke being her princess is actually a crazed crack whore living in the sewers. Her psycho ENCHANTED shtick isn't funny to begin with and after awhile her performance became so shrill, so nails-on-the-chalkboard grating that every single time she opened her mouth or giggled or whatever it felt like someone had injected liquid nitrogen into my genitals and was trying to carve an ice swan out of 'em.

One series of sight gags sums up the humor quotient better than any other. Tornadoes are coming and someone yells we need a hero. An anorexic Iron Man steps up, declares "I AM IRON MAN!" just in case you didn't know who he was, and then a fake cow drops on him. Then a guy made-up like Hellboy starts talking smack to the storm. A fake cow lands on him too. He then jumps up rambling about how he doesn't need this crap because one of his hands is "a lobster claw". Then a nerdy guy turns into the Incredible Hulk and his pants explode off, and then a fake cow strikes him as well. If any of that sounds even remotely clever to you and you're over the age of 6 I sincerely hope you're killed by a falling cow.

I will confess that they did succeed in getting me to laugh out loud one time. One time! ONE LAUGH IN THIS WHOLE DAMN MISERABLE MOVIE! Throw that much shit against the wall something is bound to stick eventually, I guess. It came when they introduced Alvin & the Chipmunks. They were puppets that looked and moved like the singing animatronics you'd have seen performing at a Chuck E. Cheese or Showbiz Pizza over twenty years ago. The chintzy visual was mildy amusing and then they suddenly had demon eyes and began singing death metal. That actually got a laugh out of me. First time... Last time... Only time! I even chuckled lightly when the chipmunks went on the attack and for one brief moment, as actors ran around pretending to be getting mauled by dolls, I began flashing back to movies like HOBGOBLINS and MUNCHIES. But like just about every other sight gag in the movie, it's pointless, goes on entirely too long, and doesn't lead to any real pay-off.

Death metal Alvin & the Chipmunks: the greatest mix of beloved cartoon icons and unholy hard rock since that episode of The Flintstones where they met Marilyn Manstone

Strangely enough, that one ENCHANTED character was the only thing about DISASTER MOVIE I found to be truly pain-inducing. I think the only reason I wasn't writhing in agony from start to finish was because 1) I'd already resolved myself to the fact going in that this movie was going to be a low point in my very existence and 2) I chose to look at it from an analytical point-of-view trying to comprehend how anyone could consistently fail at the art of humor to this pathetic a degree. There was an initial sense of bemusement on my part at how unbelievably atrocious their attempts at humor were.

For example, there's a scene involving Batman so devoid of anything remotely resembling humor, so lazily conceived that it fails to even capitalize on the fact that the character being poked fun at is Batman. He acts scares, talks about getting out of town, keeps changing his voice from normal to deep, and then tosses a grappling hook that snags a passing car bumper by mistake and drags him away. I'm amazed the Mad TV guy in the Batman costume didn't just start adlibbing his lines out of protest. Anything - and I do mean anything - this guy would have come up with would have been wittier than the scripted material even if he'd just started reciting the alphabet.

I can think of a movie or two that was more painful to sit through this year but I can't think of a worse written movie I've seen - possibly ever.

I briefly entertained the notion that the Friedberg & Seltzer’s filmography of the damned could potentially gain favor amongst future bad movie aficionados except that 95% of their movies are composed of pop culture references most of which will already be badly dated by the time their next atrocity is released. I mean DISASTER MOVIE concludes with a musical number spoofing Sarah Silverman's "I'm Fucking Matt Damon" song. That's already quite dated. Their version is "I'm Dating Matt Damon" because you can't say "fucking" in a PG-13 movie and they didn't even think to bleep the word out like when the song aired on Jimmy Kimmel Live. It's just a medley of the different celebrity/movie character look-a-likes singing "I'm Dating... (the name of the next character to sing their part)” that dies a slow, pitiful death.

Given the DVDs of their movies tend to include audio commentary tracks from critics ripping on how bad their movies are it seems these two are well aware of the "quality" of their work. They make garbage, they know they’re making garbage, and they're happily making millions making this garbage, Friedberg & Seltzer aren't just untalented hacks of the highest order, they're outright scam artists. They know they've got a great scam going. Just load up a film with pop culture references, recognizable scenes from recent films (or in this case, recognizable scenes shown in the trailers of summer blockbusters that hadn't even opened as they were filming this latest movie) and you got yourself an instant spoof movie to be thrust upon the unwashed, undiscriminating masses. I'm sure they'll be back sometime next year with their next scam covering all the big movies and blips on the pop culture radar to come along in the gap between now and then. They're not the cinematic antichrists many online have hailed them to be. They're just con men - very untalented con men. Screw'em!

A movie about the rock band that did the theme song to ROBOCOP 2?

I should have known BABYLON A.D. was going to be bad; its very initials are B.A.D. Here's the weird thing. It really isn't that bad until the end. The end - oh yeah, it's bad. It's real bad. It's so bad it might be the worst ending to any movie I've seen since MONSTER A-GO-GO and MONSTER A-GO-GO at least had the excuse of being an unfinished film someone bought, shot some new footage for, and released it. The start of BABYLON A.D. should have been preceded by a MISSION IMPOSSIBLE warning: THIS MOVIE WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IN ONE HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTES.

Before the implosion it's not so much bad as it is all too familiar territory. Vin Diesel brings his deep voiced Diesel-ness to the run-of-the-mill role of a compassionless ex-soldier turned mercenary-for-hire given an assignment that involves protecting a young girl that causes him to rediscover not only his faith in humanity but his own humanity as well. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. You know the drill.

BABYLON A.D. could have easily been retitled THE PACIFIER OF RIDDICK: CHILDREN OF XXX MEN. Vin Diesel's character is definitely a hybrid of Riddick, XXX (I think he even recycles the same winter coat he wore in XXX too), and like THE PACIFIER, he's an ex-military guy now having to play babysitter. Has Vin Diesel's career already reached the point where he's just recycling his previous film personas? Considering a trailer for a fourth FAST & THE FURIOUS flick starring a returning Vin Diesel previewed before this newest flick of his, I think it's safe to say that while the price of gasoline may be rising to new heights, the value of Diesel has dropped dramatically. Even his character from BOILER ROOM would advise investors to sell their stock in his film career.

His character is named Toorop. I cannot stress how amazed I am to find myself reviewing a movie boasting a character named Toorop that doesn't have the word POKEMON in the title.

Toorop operates in Russia, unable to return to his home in upstate New York because he's now branded a terrorist in the United States. What's the deal behind that, you ask? I asked too. The movie replied with a "no comment".

Mr. Diesel, your services are requested on the set of THE PACIFIER 2.

It's the not-too-distant future and in a shocking twist unlike most every other futuristic action movie, the world has gone to hell. To give you an idea how tough times are the film opens with Toorop being interrupted by gunmen as he sits down to enjoy a lovely gourmet dish worthy of an episode of IRON CHEF assuming the secret ingredient that week was dead cat.

The reason for Toorop's Garfield Ala King going to waste is that an old acquaintance of his, a Russian crime boss played by an unrecognizable under make-up Gerard Depardieu - looking like either a live-action Dick Tracy villain or Art LeFleur's facially deformed Russian twin - has an big assignment for him. He’s just one of several characters Toorop will encounter who he has a history with. None of those histories are ever revealed to us. We're even kept in the dark about Toorop's own history. History in the future is very vague.

The mission is a one-way trip transporting a girl from an Eastern European convent to New York City - no questions asked. He'll get an impossible-to-fake passport of the future that'll get him back in the US. Fake passports in the future involve injecting stuff in your neck that won't set-off scanners. That means passports in the future involve simply walking through a scanner. How exactly does this all work, you ask? I asked too but the movie told me explanations are for people with attention spans.

The nun is Aurora, played by a lovely French gal with amazingly blue eyes. She's no ordinary nun as we'll soon find out. Another nun insists on going too - Michelle Yeoh, also not your typical nun for obvious butt-kicking reasons. The writers settled on naming Yeoh's nun Sister Rebeka instead of the more befitting Sister Mary Streetfighter. But they are not Catholic nuns. They're members of the Noelite faith. What exactly is the Noelite religion, you ask? Just stop asking questions already. The movie doesn't like it when you ask questions.

Their trek to America is complicated due dangerous terrain and opposing forces in pursuit of Aurora. Some want to keep her alive. Others want her dead. Nobody cares much for explaining who they are or why. People are beat up, people are shot, people explode, cars explode, planes explode, snowmobiles explode, more people are shot, and then Vin Diesel explodes, but don't worry because he survives to ensure that more people are shot and more cars explode.

It was a bold casting choice to have Vin Diesel star in a Ross Perot biopic

It turns out Aurora is a virgin and pregnant with twins. Does this mean she's carrying the second coming that will save this dystopian future? The twist is - I don't think I'm spoiling anything to reveal what I'm about to reveal since it's not like the movie bothers to even explain much of this nonsense - the devious high priestess in charge of the Noelite religion hired a kind-hearted mad scientist to breed a woman who could one day experience an immaculate conception so that this young lady could be unveiled to the world proving the Noelite religion to be the true faith and thusly become the #1 religion in the whole wide world. How long until the Church of Scientology tries to pull a similar stunt by turning Tom Cruise into the world's first pregnant man, I wonder?

This might have been an intriguing twist if the movie had bothered to tell us something, anything, about the Noelite faith. And if Aurora is so valuable to the future of the Noelite faith and the Noelites are as powerful as they supposedly are then how come they entrusted her safe passage from the dangerous Eastern European landscape to the luminous neon metropolis of New York City to this lone thug mercenary gun-for-hire other than the plot requiring a hero there to protect her and undergo a change of heart. It was the Noelites who hired Toorop to transport her, wasn't it? So very confused.

“20 years ago they kicked me out of the medical community for trying to put artificial intelligence in babies,” Aurora's "father" tells Toorop. Ummm... what? Does that even make sense? Even speaking as someone who has seen the movie D.A.R.Y.L. I don't think that concept makes much sense.

Okay, so Aurora's super smart and genetically designed for parthenogenesis (virgin birth). Alrighty, now explain to me why she seems to have magic powers? Explain to me how having A.I. in her brain gives her precognitive powers? Explain to me how being capable of spontaneously knocking oneself up gives her this calming effect she seems to have on certain others? Somebody forgot to put some artificial intelligence into the script.

Aurora shoots Toorop in the gut because, as she tells him, she needs him to live, which she'll do seconds before a rocket blast she'll shield them both from using yet another unexplained supernatural ability results in Toorop's death. No, I did not garble that sentence. That's exactly what happens. Feel free to re-read it a few more times to try and soak it in.

Toorop will be revived via the miracle of cyberpunk. Like Lindsay Lohan in I KNOW WHO KILLED ME, he gets outfitted with a robotic foot and a cybernetically enhanced hand. Coincidentally, this whole movie makes about as much sense as I KNOW WHO KILLED ME. I mean the only way to find where Aurora vanished to after the explosion is to jack into Toorop's brain using a cyberpunk eye patch in order to reveal the secret location message Aurora mumbled to him a split second before they both blew up and didn't die except for him. Oh, and to do this he has to die again. I told you this movie had one of the worst finales ever and we haven't even gotten to the worst part yet.

Ready?

Aurora's been hiding out in the empty shack that was once the Toorop family farm he mentioned to her one brief time during the trip to America. The evil Noelite High Priestess murders doctor daddy when he refuses to reveal Aurora's location. She then orders a couple of her armed acolytes to go get Aurora even though they don't know where she is. They still somehow find her and the next thing you know there's a car chase and gun battle that ends with Diesel blowing those goons up. One scene later and Aurora's very pregnant in the hospital about to give birth. She pleads with Toorop to be a father to her babies with tears in her eyes as if this were her dying wish. Very next scene after that we see two young kids that look about four-years old (one white, one black - no explanation how) playing outside a house. Vin Diesel stands over them like a proud papa dressed like he just got in from his night job working as a bongo player at a lounge. He takes their hand, they say "hey, dad", he walks them towards the house, and the movie ends.

A movie with no explanations tops itself off with no pay-off and no resolution to the central conflict - it just ends. Aurora died? How? The Noelites gave up? Why? To quote the guy sitting three rows in front of me when the end credits began to roll, "What...? What the hell? What happened?"

I knew going in that the director of BABYLON A.D. was irate over how the studio cut the film. Initial reports said a whole hour of film got chopped out but that may not be the case; the European print is reportedly just 15-minutes longer. Watching I just figured the hatchet job was the reason why so much of the story was left blank and the emphasis was put on the humdrum action sequences. Then came that non-ending. There's no way to truly convey in words how jarring it is to watch this climax jump from that car chase to the hospital scene to the final shot with the kids and then just have the credits roll. In the old days of drive-in theaters people would have started blowing their horns to let the projectionist know he skipped a reel.

I do believe the A.D. in BABYLON A.D. actually stood for "answers denied".

If nothing else, at least Roger Corman got a nice paycheck.

There's a scene early in DEATH RACE where an inmate complaining about the poor quality prison food asks, "How do you fuck up oatmeal?" I think that line may have very well sum up the filmmaking career of one Paul W.S. Anderson. How does this guy keep fucking up oatmeal?

I realize there are many online who would argue that beating up on Paul W.S. Anderson is just the fashionable thing to do, but so what? He deserves it. He's earned his bad reputation. Given his credits Anderson should be a hero amongst the fanboy community. He isn't. Why’s that? Because as both a director and a screenwriter he doesn't have any fresh ideas or the cleverness to make stale material seem fresh. His films are instantly forgettable at best. Name an iconic moment from a Paul W.S. Anderson movie. There are none. Now ask yourself how many moments in a Paul W.S. Anderson movie you've seen that reminded you of better moments from better films. A lot I'm willing to bet. The guy is a recycler. He's capable of directing his films with a workmanlike precision but the "wow" factor is totally absent. Anderson is either a less talented John Carpenter or a more talented Uwe Boll. Either way you slice it, Anderson's medium is making mediocrity out of properties that ought to be cool.

Case in point, his MORTAL KOMBAT was already obsolete six months after it came out. Saw it on opening night with a red hot crowd and had an absolute blast. Then I tried watching it again when it came out on home video and wasn't anywhere near as entertained. Today it's almost unwatchable. It was dopey niche film that seemed fresh action-wise during that brief window in time it occupied between the downfall of the Seagal/Van Damme style and the arrival of the state-of-the-art Hong Kong martial artists.

DEATH RACE is just another great big pile of mediocrity brought to us by the current king of big screen b-movie mediocrity, Paul W.S. Anderson. It's not unwatchable but it's certainly no damn good. Not only does Anderson's DEATH RACE lack the social commentary of the original DEATH RACE 2000 (on which this film is very loosely based), it also greatly lacks the violent media lampooning of THE RUNNING MAN and the sardonic satire of ROBOCOP. Anderson could have poked fun at violent sports, NASCAR culture, the video game mentality, etc. We get none of that. Where's the wit? That's the sort of thing that makes a ROBOCOP a classic, a DEATH RACE 2000 a cult classic, and makes lesser action films seem better than they really are.

Instead the recycler strikes once again by recycling elements of THE RUNNING MAN, THE LONGEST YARD, the video games CARMAGEDDON and TWISTED METAL BLACK, and every single movie about a futuristic bloodsport you've ever seen. And those are just the comparisons that immediately came to mind. They could have still called this movie DEATH RACE 2000 only this time the 2000 wouldn't have been a date, it would have stood for the number of clichés Anderson recycles. Like Roland Emmerich and especially Stephen Sommers, Paul WS Anderson is one of those guys who simply should not be allowed to write his own scripts under any circumstances.

DEATH RACE feels like the kind of movie John Carpenter could have done in his prime and made it into a cult classic today. Hell, Paul Bartel already made it in his prime and turned it into a cult classic today. Anderson, however, decided to ditch the whole cross country race where the competitors can turn civilians into roadkill to earn extra points as a commentary on violent media being the opiate of the masses. Such substance is alien to the screenwriting of WS. Though he clearly grasps the violent media being the opiate of the masses part; being a pusher of said opiate is what keeps him gainfully employed.

Three reasons why Paul WS Anderson should never do a remake of BUCKAROO BANZAI

We're informed in the opening moments that in 2012 the American economy will completely collapse. Times are bad, jobs are scarce, money is tight, and somehow tens of millions tune in to watch the most popular spectator sport of the future: the three-stage, pay-per-view, prison Death Races that cost $99 per stage to watch or $250 if you buy all three in a bundle pack. I paid $6.50 for this movie and still don't feel like I got my money's worth; you expect me to believe these cash-strapped people in the future are shelling out three figures for this junk?

The Death Race has condemned prisoners driving around what looks like a bombed out warehouse district while firing machine guns, smoke screens, napalm, rockets, and whatever other weapons drivers have at their disposal at their opponents in hopes of crossing the finish line first. Most weapons only have a limited effect because these cars seem to have better armor than the President's limo. Even when windshields get broken bullets can't seem to penetrate.

STAGE 1: Drive around the track three times. Weapons don't get activated until lap 2. Survivors move on.
STAGE 2: More of the same. Survivors move on.
STAGE 3: Same as the first two only at night. Winner wins.

70 million viewers for this at $99 bucks a pop? The villain even realizes the monotony and tosses in a hulking 18-wheeler called the "Dreadnought" for Stage 2 to help kill off the competitors. Logically speaking (a dangerous phrase when diagnosing a Paul WS Anderson screenplay), what sense does it make to want to kill all the racers off before the third stage? Wouldn't that cost them money?

Your first look at Michael Bay's big screen version of BJ & THE BEAR

There are some isolated moments of entertaining carnage of both the car and person variety. Overall, however, Anderson shoots the races to the detriment of excitement. Too many rapid edits, too many close-ups of the cars, and the ever lurking problem that you have little grasp of the track or the objective. It's all a great big schmozz and not much fun even as mindless violence. Really makes you appreciate the direction of a movie like BULLIT.

Anderson is also once again living out his video game fantasy by having the cars roll over power-ups like in a video game; big manhole-looking circles on the ground with weapon symbols that if a driver rolls over while lit up will activate a particularly piece of the car's weaponry. The power-up aspect is one of those concepts that works fine in the context of a video game but looks ridiculous when applied to a flesh & blood world.

So Jason Statham's having a bad day. Then again, most Jason Statham movies are built around him having a bad day. I think only Jack Bauer has worse days than Jason Statham. First he loses his job and then he's framed for his wife's murder. Now he's on Terminal Island, the supermax prison of the future one mile off the coast where the ratings bonanza races to the death are staged. Guess who used to be a champion race car driver? I hope you just answered Jason Statham. If not then you really suck at this game.

Jason Statham pretty much sleep-Statham's his way through the film. Like Sean Connery, Statham doesn't actually play characters anymore, he just plays Jason Statham. He has an attitude not an acting style. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Statham brings nothing to his role here aside from his Stathamness and this time out he's not even as Stathamy as usual.

If you loved Sylvester Stallone in OVER THE TOP then you'll love Jason Statham in EYE TO I, the exciting and heartwarming tale of a desperate ex-con father trying to raise the money to win back custody of his son by competing in the World Championship Bald Guy Staredown Competition

Blah! Blah! Blah! Every futuristic prison movie you've ever seen featuring a wrongfully imprisoned straight arrow and at the mercy of an evil warden… Blah! Blah! Blah! Every futuristic bloodsport of the future movie where an honorable man is coerced into putting his life on the line for the entertainment of viewers… Blah! Blah! Blah! Violent prison guards... The kindly old lifer (Ian McShane as "Coach", the only actor in this mess to display any gravitas) who shows the heroic newcomer around and offers sage advice... The wisecracking ethnic sidekick... The smarty pants nerd of an inmate who seems out of place amongst these violent cons... The crew of stereotyped bad asses who think they run the joint... Blah! Blah! Blah!

The wrongfully convicted Jason Statham (sporting a UFC fighter level of pointless tattoos) finds himself being recruited by the devious Warden Hennessey who created the hugely popular death races and desperately needs someone skilled behind the wheel to don the mask of America's favorite driver, the scar-faced Frankenstein, who, unbeknownst to everyone, was killed at the end of the last death race. Exploding across the finish line will do that to you. Fearing that without the masked Frankenstein (Like Racer X mated with Jason Voorhees, Frankenstein's appearance reminded me of the Masked Magician from those Fox Network "Breaking the Magician's Code specials if the mask had been left to rust at the bottom of the ocean for a decade or so) the ratings will go down, she orchestrated the murder of Statham's wife and tries to convince him that by playing the role of the new Frankenstein and winning the next Death Race he'll gain his freedom and get his infant daughter back. You see if a prisoner wins five races they win their freedom and Frankenstein was up to four wins. Of course, no one ever will gain their freedom because the fix is in.

Given Frankenstein wears a full mask and it's established that even the last Frankenstein was not the original Frankenstein, it's hard not to wonder why Hennessey had to go to so much trouble to find a suitable Frankenstein replacement, especially since she obviously intended to ensure the new Frankenstein would never win another race. Statham can even take the mask off once he's in the car because the windows are mirrored on the outside and there are no cameras inside the car and, apparently, he'll have the where-with-all to put the mask back on were he to end up in a violent crash and has to crawl out of the wreckage like many other drivers in the movie do.

All of the drivers are issued female navigators, the most bootylicious hoochies from the nearby woman’s prison that always make their entrance filmed in a BET uncut music video style, walking in slow motion in their bosom-hugging, mid-riff baring tops and booty-enhancing shorts. We're told these ladies are there to add sex appeal to the Death Races. Yeah, the movie… Not the sport within the movie. They're in the cockpit of cars that don't have cameras in them. How is this supposed to be titillating to home viewers? It's not. It's for us watching the movie and that's as much thought was put into it.

What do navigators do? They occasionally push buttons on behalf of the driver while helping to navigate. Navigating consists of saying things like "take this shortcut" and "turn here". They're really useless other than to add some sex appeal to the movie. The actress assigned to navigate for Statham damn sure wasn't hired for her thespian skills.

Opposing Statham on the track are an evil Russian, a bald Chinaman, a redneck ex-NASCAR driver with anger issues, some other random drivers there only to die, and Frankenstein's top rival, Machine Gun Joe, a role played by Sylvester Stallone in the original.

The new Machine Gun Joe is Tyrese Gibson as a possibly gay African-American murderer who adds a slash to his face every time he kills someone during a race. Joe may or may not be gay. He dresses a bit fruity, for certain, but his gayety is only spoken of due to him being the only driver with all male navigators; that's attributed to him constantly getting them killed - a running joke - so they won't allow the ladies to be sacrificed or because he's more queer than a three dollar bill. The script never makes it clear which but given the end of the movie have him and Statham on the run practically living as man and wife raising Statham's baby... You do the math.

Jason Statham is Marty McFly's bad ass European cousin in TRANSPORTER TO THE FUTURE

Statham comes up with a radical plan for him and Joe to escape: use the vehicles' high powered weapons to blow a hole in the prison wall and make a run for it. Somehow, this idea had never dawned on anyone else prior to the arrival of the Stathamnator. The second it's established that the only thing connecting Terminal Island (one mile off-shore) to the mainland is a long bridge you immediately know the finale is going to go all ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK on us - and it does. With just a dash of THE BROKEBACK DEFIANT ONES tossed in for good measure.

Now for the million dollar question: What the hell is Oscar-nominated actress Joan Allen doing in this mess? My guess: a million dollar paycheck was involved. Joan Allen is the hard as nails Warden Hennessey, the woman who created the Death Races and rules over Terminal Island with an iron fist. Allen's talents go to waste because Anderson can only come up with two things for her to do: coldly recited every line in a stern voice and give the camera long icy stares that convey an overwhelming sense of dickish self satisfaction. There's a drinking game here: every single time the camera pans by Joan Allen standing in a window sneering, take a shot. Either Joan Allen has paid a visit to Dr. Botox or she's such a method actress that in playing an ice queen she managed to keep most of her face frozen.

Now I've joked for the longest time that the "WS" in Paul WS Anderson stands for "Writes Shitty". Never has that been more true than when he wrote the most mind-blowing line of dialogue of the year, a line of dialogue he's stated in interviews is the greatest line of dialogue he's ever written, a line of dialogue he's immensely proud of having written:

"Fuck with me and we'll see who shits on the sidewalk."

What does that even mean? What the hell does that even mean? And is Rob Zombie somewhere kicking himself for having not come up with that line first.

Remember, folks, Paul WS Anderson got paid millions of dollars to come up with that line and Joan Allen is an Oscar-nominated actress who hopefully got paid millions to humiliate herself by being immortalized on film saying that line. Look out "You got served!" "Fuck with me and we'll see who shits on the sidewalk" is gunning for the slot as the dumbest movie taunt of the 21st century.

Paul WS Anderson really needs to stop making movies based on video games and movies that resemble video games and just focus on his true love - making video games. You're working in the wrong medium, bub. Just give up the pretense of being a filmmaker and start making the damn games yourself already!

I'll ask the question one last time, how does this man keep fucking up oatmeal?

MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY AND I PAID TO SEE MORTAL KOMBAT, EVENT HORIZON, SOLDIER, ALIEN VS. PREDATOR, AND NOW DEATH RACE