Thursday, February 08, 2007
Smokin' Aces - Officially the worst movie I've seen in 2007!

The past weekend Shaun and I saw Smokin' Aces, a movie we both knew very little about but were pretty pumped for. Our thoughts? Terrible. Just terrible. Which sucks, because it had such great potential. I mean, here's the premise:
- a man named Aces is going to squeal on the mob
- the mob wants him dead, so they enlist/hire a bunch of different assassins
- chaos and much fighting ensues

Spoilers follow. Don't read farther if you don't want to spoil the story, though it's a terrible story anyways.

I expected some great assassin plans, lots of variety in each hitman's style and killing method, and lots of fun, mindless action. Maybe a sword using guy, a poison using guy, an "evil James Bond" type...some kind of duo was a given, maybe twins or something...anyways, tons of opportunity for some creative characters and scenes. Instead, all the hitmen were bland and uninteresting, with the exception of one group of redneck brothers who had a very Devil's Rejects, crazy-carnage feel to them. They were pretty cool, simply because they were different!

Another problem I had with the movie was that the assassins were complete idiots. Charlie Brown would have seen these guys coming. Take one guy, some badass who chewed his fingertips off while in jail so he'd have no fingerprints. Pretty cool...except this "professional" assassin DOESN'T WEAR GLOVES. First of all, what kind of thief/spy/assassin doesn't wear gloves?! And if your one huge liability when in disguise is your mangled fingertips, wouldn't you cover those up? Idiotic. Naturally, a cop spots this while they're in the elevator, and they shoot each other. Yep, this supposedly experienced hitman doesn't even make it to the target's floor before being offed. Real pro stuff.

Another guy kills and molds a mask of one of the squealer's cronies to get close to the target, which is kinda cool and sounds good so far. Until you realize his impersonation "strategy" is to wear the mask so he looks like the guy and...just stand there and not respond when anyone talks to him. Seriously, he walks in and people start talking to him and he just kind of stands there with a blank look on his face and doesn't react at all. Geniuses. But what is even more insulting is that this dead henchman conveniently is an untalkative guy, so of course no one even notices!

Also, the first half of the movie was absolutely worthless. Tons of talking and exposition, which in itself isn't so bad, but let's be serious - no one went to this movie expecting a Schindler's List quality storyline or anything. Even worse, the "big twist" was eye-stabbingly obvious from first second you see it. To compare...well, you know the whole Darth Vader twist that he's actually Luke Skywalker's father? Big, shocking revelation moment if there ever was one. Now, picture the Star Wars movies if Vader's name was Darth Skywalker instead. Would you be as surprised when he says "I am your father"? Didn't think so.

I was actually 100% convinced that the twist would not be the twist, because it was so obvious. Alas, I was wrong.

There was also some TERRIBLE subplot involving one of the would-be hitmen, whose group was ambushed by the redneck bros before even reaching the target's hotel. He survives, and swims out of the lake the rednecks dumped the bodies in, which is fine. But then he ends up in the care of some old woman and her cracked-out ritalin kid who keeps screaming and waving nunchucks around and just generally being annoying. The movie would cut back to the actual plot, then go back to this guy in the tub or whatever while the kid harassed him, and keep cutting back and forth over and over again. For no reason! Worthless, worthless, worthless.

The target himself, played by that guy who was the Dean in Old School and more importantly, the TEN YEARS!! guy from Grosse Point Blank, was very cool. He had some great mannerisms and came across as very smarmy and slick. He spent waaaaay too much time soliloquying about how bad he felt about surrendering up his gang to the feds though. His buddy, some nameless black guy, was also probably the most entertaining person in the entire movie, simply because he ends up having to essentially take on the redneck brothers single handedly, with his hands cuffed, and (at the beginning) without a weapon. He was awesome. Oh, and he also got the girl. The 10-20 minutes he was onscreen were pretty rad.

Amazingly, there's yet more bad things about this movie that I could still go on about, but the feeling of disgust at having paid money to see this is starting to overwhelm me.

In summary, there were a few cool parts (one girl has a sniper rifle freaking cannon and annihilates some cops like ragdolls, and when the rednecks finally start killing, with guns a'blazing and chainsaws a'revving, it's sweet) but they were short and much too scarce. I would give this movie a 2/10.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Lorne has a blog!
"People think that vegetarians eat only plants because they love animals. While this may be partly true, the real reason is that they hate plants. Nothing pleases them more than masticating a helpless plant between their jaws. They derive some sick and vile pleasure with every bite, knowing that another plant will not grow up to reproduce. Genocide is the flavor of their twisted hearts, on a scale so large that Hitler never even imagined." (Good old Lorne.)


[posted by Rades at 2:00 PM] LINK ||