KYLE SMITH RIPS ‘DRAGON TATTOO’

Ouch:

Once the hype dies, this movie will be best enjoyed as a drinking game. Down a shot of Absolut every time Craig whips his glasses on or off and you’ll be blitzed by the halfway point. When he can’t figure out an excuse to do that, he does bizarre things with the specs, such as leaving them dangling beneath his face like a chin strap. The poor man is under the delusion that eyewear can make anything here seem intelligent.

Here’s “John Boot” at Pajamas, who seconds that emotion:

So take the critical hosannas for Larsson’s trilogy with a grain of salt. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo could hardly be pulpier, nastier, more contrived, or more risible. Its characters — morally pure crusaders, evil fanatics — could not be less developed. The sex scenes between Blomkvist and Salander seem thrown in to give us one more chance to see Mara (who is in her twenties but has the body of a high-school sophomore) naked, not because Fincher makes us see any connection (emotional or physical) between the characters. The film is as depraved as Caligula, but at least Caligula didn’t pretend to be anything other than smut.

It doesn’t sound as though Smith or ‘Boot’ were fans of the original trilogy of films released last year, either.

Though I haven’t seen the remake, I’m a big fan of the original trilogy. And while I do agree with both that the material is pulpy, nasty, and simplistic in both its politics and in the good and evil characterizations, I don’t see those qualities as bad things. None of that bothered me because at heart “Dragon Tattoo” is a vigilante film, and the most satisfying vigilante films are nasty, pulpy, and simplistic.

I cheered every kill.

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With 400,000 Americans showing up every year at the Indy 500 and 200,000 more buying tickets to see NASCAR’s premiere event The Daytona 500, you would think that the most creative minds in Hollywood would be looking for a way to cash in with more movies about car racing and car culture. NASCAR has an estimated 75 million fans, and it is second only to the National Football League in terms of television ratings, so where are all the good racing movies?

Jordana Brewster is reunited with Vin, Paul and Michelle in FAST & FURIOUS

Universal seems to have answered that question by getting its successful street racing franchise back into the fast lane this weekend with Fast & Furious. The movie, which reunites Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez for the first time since 2001’s original surprise blockbuster, has exploded to a high octane $30.11M or so on Friday and that could mean a $70M opening weekend. That would make it the all-time #1 opening for a car racing movie.

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Universal’s Fast & Furious will be “burning rubber” this weekend at America’s multiplexes as the original street-racing cast reunites after some sub-par chapters of the franchise.

The original The Fast & The Furious hit theatres in 2001 under the direction of Rob Cohen who had shown a knack for action with Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story ($35M US cume) and Sly Stallone’s Daylight ($33M US cume) and a savvy feel for bigger-than-life characters in his Golden Globe winning biopic The Rat Pack (which, if you’ve never seen you should put in your Netflix cue and prepare to be amazed by Don Cheadle’s turn as Sammy Davis, Jr.). In tow, he had a 34-year-old Vin Diesel in only his second starring role following the surprise low budget hit Pitch Black ($39M cume) and 28-year-old Paul Walker, who had just starred in Cohen’s forgettable The Skulls. Also in the cast was Jordana Brewster (As the World Turns) and a pre-Lost Michelle Rodriguez, whose most notable credit was a gritty little indie called Girlfight.

Vin Diesel returns for FAST & FURIOUS

The result was box office jet fuel. Seemingly out of nowhere, The Fast & The Furious scored a scalding $40M opening weekend and reached $144.5M domestic and over $200M worldwide. But Diesel, whose signature line in the original movie is “I live my life one quarter of a mile at a time,” didn’t like the script for the sequel (or they wouldn’t pay his asking price depending on who you ask). That led to the 2003 sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious directed by Academy Award nominee John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood) starring Walker along with rapper Tyrese Gibson and Eva Mendes. Despite Diesel’s conspicuous absence, 2 Fast still delivered $127M in the US. (more…)