Southland Tales (2006) -Eric Smith
Southland Tales (2006)
By Eric Smith
When you add two popular pop stars, a former pro wrestler, three SNL alums, this generation’s scream-queen and Stifler from the American Pie films, it sounds like a pretty good ingredient for a movie, right? Well, it could’ve been and it should’ve been. The result is this over-blown, over-the-top mess of a movie, that 99% of the time, doesn’t even make sense.
The story is narrated by Justin Timberlake. He plays an actor who was sent into war because of the draft, and is now a war hero. In between his spouting scripture, he informs us that, in 2005, WWIII broke out when foreign militaries nuked the U.S. Now it’s 2008 (near future because it takes place in July) and the world is in growing chaos. The war rages on between multiple countries and there seems to be no sign of letting up. He introduces us to the story’s main focus, Dwayne Johnson (formerly known as "The Rock" for those of you who can’t seem to wrap your heads around his real name), who plays a former boxer who has woken up in the desert with amnesia. He’s dating a former porn star (Sarah Michelle Gellar), now a pop star/screenwriter/TV show host (?). Together, they have written a screenplay that more than likely has something to with how the world will actually end. What he doesn’t know is that he’s really married to the daughter of the Vice Presidential Candidate (Mandy Moore). Meanwhile, there’s a gang of idiot terrorists, part of the Neo-Marxist group, who have their own agenda.
They have kidnapped the twin cop brother of one of their own (Seann William Scott) and plan to use him in a staged killing or something. There’s also a crazy Nobel Prize winner (Wallace Shawn, sporting one of the worst hairdos in cinema history), who’s unveiled a new technological thing involving the use of the ocean to power cars (another thing that confused me), as well as his incredibly large zeppelin that makes the Hindenberg look like a toy. Now, there’s talk of assassinations and the idiot terrorists do stuff and Dwayne Johnson limps about as he attempts to figure out who he really is.
The main problem is, well, everything. The whole cast looks uncomfortable, the story delves into itself more and more, making less and less sense. The special effects are shoddy and the direction, by Richard Kelly (who’s last attempts were Domino and the more effective Donnie Darko) is off the mark here. This film is not only a huge mess, but it’s boring as well. You’d think with a cast this good, they’d be able to reach down in the muck and pull out something halfway decent, but not when you’re drudging through waste as bad as this.
Copyright C. 2008 Eric Smith