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Customer Reviews: Average Rating:  Rating : - Almost there, but not quite. (2.5 stars)
My introduction to Richard Kelly was with the fantastic "Donnie Darko". In my opinion, this was just a perfect movie. The dialogue, the story, the twists and turns, the characters, the special effects, the music, all of these things make it hands down one of my favorite movies ever. So naturally I was looking forward to "Southland Tales". Slightly discouraged by some of the merciless negative reviews I was hearing, I still had to see it for myself.
Well, while I don't quite agree with the aforementioned negative reviews, I can't say that I was terribly pleased with this one either. The concept is initially compelling, the look at a post-apocalyptic future in which World War 3 is in full swing, and society in general has descended into chaos. America is divided between extremists on the left-wing and right-wing sides, and both are so voracious and corrupt that they don't even seem to be at odds for any reason other than the pure sake of it. In short, things just aren't really going too well.
Unfortunately, the problem here is that the concept never really takes a particularly interesting form. In fact, it's so incredibly all over the place that it pretty much just breaks down into a total mess. The huge ensemble cast, consisting of The Rock, Sean William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and countless others makes for a hugely complex storyline that in my opinion ultimately lacks focus. There's not enough concentration on any one character to really get behind them, and many of the characters are fairly stupid and uninteresting, which makes it sort of hard to care too much about them.
Another big problem here is that the movie seems to recycle many components from "Donnie Darko" (I won't go into it, but you'll see what I mean), as well as many other movies for no apparent reason. Chief among them is the weird musical number with Justin Timberlake lip-synching to the Killers, which looks like some sort of pointless nod to "Across the Universe". Then there's the cameo appearance from Rebekah Del Rio, who you may remember as the woman who sang in "Mulholland Drive", who is again singing in almost the same sort of surreal fashion. Now granted it is pretty cool, and she's an amazing singer, but hey, David Lynch got there first.
Then there's the hilariously cheesy plot twist of spacesuit wearing evildoers (one of which is fortunately a cool cameo from Kevin Smith, complete with long gray beard)who have come up with the ingenious plan of slowing down the earth's rotation to drive everyone crazy, which looks and sounds like something straight out of an Ed Wood movie. If by this point you still haven't figured out that this movie is trying to do way too many things at once, this will definitely cap it.
I really hate to sound so harsh here. This isn't really terrible by any means, but considering that Kelly is obviously a really talented guy, my expectations were much higher than this. Maybe if I watch this a few more times, I may appreciate it a little more, but this definitely lacks the focus and flawless execution of "Donnie Darko". Not to mention compared to other gritty apocalyptic sci-fi future-type movies that have come out recently ("A Scanner Darkly", "Children of Men"), this one definitely falls short.
Check it out if you're interested, but definitely don't expect too much. Here's hoping Richard Kelly won't turn out to be a one-film wonder. I think he's still got it in him to do something great, but this ain't it. + See Full Customer Review |  |
