The Ugly

Reindeer Games

The One

The ripoff theme of this movie reads like the bible. And Adam begat Seth who begat Enos who begat Cainan and so on. In this case, “The One” ripped off “Sliders” who ripped off novelist Jack L. Chalker’s “G.O.D. Inc” series. “The One” also ripped off “The Matrix” who ripped off Jack L. Chalker’s “The Wonderland Gambit” and “The Rings of the Master” series. Everyone is ripping off everyone else.

But unlike Sliders and The Matrix, “The One” doesn’t do anything with what they steal. This is disappointing because I love Jet Li. He is a gifted athlete and (along with Chris Rock) made “Lethal Weapon 4” moderately watchable. (as watchable as unrealistic action catchphrase laden buddy flicks can be, that is) Besides, Jet Li could kick my ass with both hands, one leg, and four of the toes on the free leg tied behind his back without breaking a sweat. So I’d be nuts to sit here and trash the Jetster.

But his acting DID rise to new levels of suckiness. (runs for a hiding place) I mean, when you’re in a movie playing more than one character because of twins, clones, evin shape shifting aliens, or in this case parallel worlds ... the audience has to be able to tell the good you from the bad you. And Jet Li (like Van Dame before him) proves that there is not an ass kicking athlete/jock/actor in this world who is capable of this kind of subtle acting. You can change all the clothes, the hairdos, makeup, tattoos, scars, wounds, and whatever else you want but I was never convinced for a second that the “different people” were anything other than Jet Li scowling and sweating.

You sucked in this movie, Jet Li. With a capital SUCK. Please don’t kick my ass for saying this.

Begging aside, the writing was even worse than Jet’s ham fisted contortions that some deluded people might term “acting.” The plot had more holes in it than Adam Sandler’s head. The movie spends the whole driving the point home that Jet Li and his double must both stay alive! If either of them dies, the other because a Super God who will probably destroy the multiverse. Of course, this is to keep us interested in Evil Jet Li not killing Good Jet Li. But of course, if Good Jet Li can’t die then neither can the evil one! This is simple first grade deduction. My new puppy could piece this together in about five minutes! In fact, this is more than deduction, the movie actually TELLS you this is why they don’t kill the bad boy and instead banish him to Hell World. So what does the movie do! At the end they set up an admittedly impressive pull away shot that makes it clear Evil Jet Li is going to die!!!!!!! Unless you believe that he can successfully defend himself from thousands of people, one after the next. IF EVIL JET LI DIES THEN GOOD JET LI BECOMES THE WORLD DESTROYING GOD THEY’VE SPENT THE ENTIRE MOVIE TELLING US WOULD BE A BAD THING!!!

This mind numbing blunder turns a shallow rippoff action piece into a true out and out howler of a movie. I’m used to action movies being illogical and unrealistic. I’m used to them showcasing very little good acting or writing. But Jesus God at least PRETEND you use your brain for more than something that keeps your ears from slamming together!

I meant that about not kicking my ass, Jet. I can dance. Would you like to see me dance?

“Been getting some mail about the motion picture The Matrix noting just how many elements of it were lifted almost verbatim from The Wonderland Gambit. It's true, and they stole them and that's why I got nothing, no credits, no money, from it. Were I in better shape financially it would be worth going after them, but, alas, unless you know a contingency lawyer with Hollywood experience willing to take it on it's just going to have to be another rip-off that Hollywood is famous for. And if they don't like me saying that, then let them sue me! Oh—that goes for The Thirteenth Floor, too, but nobody saw that one and at least they credited the late Dan Gallouye for the heart of it....”
-Jack L. Chalker

Reindeer Games

The worst movie ever made is an abomination entitled “A Simple Plan” but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to force myself to think about it long enough to write a review of it. However, I did pay someone to hold a gun to my head to force me to review this, the second worst movie EVER made.

This pain factory starts off with Ben Afleck and some other dude (I shall call him Vern. I don't remember the character or actor names) sharing a prison cell. Vern has been writing some woman for 6 months. She has sent him a HUGE number of pictures, enough to fill the wall next to his bunk. Apparently the two have exchanged a lot of letters. For some unexplained reason, Vern reads all his letters out loud to Ben, and Ben helps Vern reply to this woman (Charlize Theron) because apparently Ben is better at romantic lingo than Vern is. (how incompetent a writer would Vern have to be? Isn’t reading letters from a hot babe to other people in prison like asking Colonel Sanders to guard your chickens? I wouldn’t read a letter from my mother out loud in prison!)

During the opening segment that lasts longer than press conference questions, it is revealed that Vern and Ben are both getting out the same day and that Charlize will be waiting for Vern at the front gate. Apparently Vern is hung like the Wizard of Oz because not only has he been reading his cell mate these letters and plastered pictures of her all over the wall in plain sight, but he brags that he is going to be having hot sex with her right after he gets out and ridicules Ben for not answering a pen pal ad. I kept waiting for Vern to offer to send movies of them having sex to Ben to further rub it in, but he apparently had some limits.

Even the moron in the row ahead of me who bragged that he had finally replaced his Betamax VCR with a lasardisc player last year and planned on investing in Internet companies saw what was going to happen next. And it did. Vern is killed in a riot in the kitchen and in the morning Ben walks out of the prison by himself.

There follows a tedious melodrama where Ben pretends that he is not going to show his true flying weasel colors and impersonate Vern so he can go out with Charlize and trick her into slicing off a piece of all this hot sex Vern had bragged about. But of course he does just this, momentary pangs of conscience having been obliterated under the heel of his raging libido and Charlize’s awesome sexuality. (I’m not saying she is so attractive that I would have down the same thing, I’m just saying that I understand the temptation.)

So Ben the Trickery Rapist gets off the bus right before it leaves and heads for Charlize. At this point she is crying, because everyone has left and Vern did not show up. He approaches her, grins, and gives her a big hug. She hugs back, and fade to black. The next scene is them enjoying PIE in a diner. She is asking him why he walked past her at first. He makes up a lie about being scared after so long of anticipation that is so lame it was painful.

Right after this translucent bullcocky about why he ignored her at first, Charlize remarks that she thought he had said that his hair was curly?

Okay, allow me to freeze the movie at this point. This is what has been implied so far:

1) Vern never sent a picture of himself to Charlize. Sure, some states don't allow pictures of prisoners to be taken, but there are always artists around. It is hard to imagine a prison where there wasn't at least one dude doing great pencil portraits for 50-100 bucks. But okay, fine.

2) They never talked on the phone!!

3) Charlize never visited him.

I can dig the no picture thing. It is unlikely but not beyond the realm of possibility. We'll give them that one. But no phone calls? Why on earth not?????? No visit???????????????????? Not even once? Even in the states that don't allow conjugal visits wouldn't it be nice to meet the convicted felon you are going to hang out alone with BEFORE he gets out? Especially when that felon is a murderer? No reason was ever given so we can only assume that it was a personal choice. "Honey, I love you, but I REFUSE to talk to you on the phone or visit you before you get out." Oooookay.

The movie expects us to believe that she loves Vern despite the fact that she has never seen his face, never heard his voice, and never visited him. Again, why???? She is going to go away with this guy for a loooong weekend, just the two of them, in a mountain resort right after he gets out, and she has never met him, never heard his voice? In the interest of enjoying a movie I have swallowed some BIGTIME horse>:-# from movies. I’ve swallowed that a computer virus can be written by humans in two days that is compatible with alien technology despite the fact that I can’t run games that are only three years old on my new computer. (for that matter I can’t watch a British made tape on my VCR when VCRs have been around for 30 years.) I’ve swallowed the fact that gangs of villains shoot machine guns like Barney Fife and the hero can shoot like Annie Oakley while running with a woman on his back and one arm blown off. I even swallowed the car driving through the building thing in Lethal Weapon 4 (I had to leave my brain locked up at home before I went to see LW4, but I managed to swallow this). But I refuse to swallow the fact that a woman hot enough to demand any breathing male between 18 and 88 sign over his soul in exchange for one night of love would fall in love with, and agree to spend a week alone having wall to wall sex with, a convicted murderer whose voice she has never heard and whose face she has never seen. No man on EARTH is this lucky! Not even Lyle Lovett!

Okay, accepting under protest the premise that they never talked on the phone or she never visited ... now we are at the fact that his hair is different than described. Opps. He gives another weak reply about it being curly when it is longer and that he had just gotten it cut. "I can grow it out if you like it curly!" "Oh no," Charlize replies, "whatever way you like it is fine. I was just wondering."

Ah. So she is the most gullible person on the planet! I was wondering who it was. SHE is the person who answers every spam email and thus encourages the vampires responsible that their hideously annoying form of advertising actually works! (Helpful Hint: If an entire cottage industry thrives solely to devise new ways of blocking your form of advertising, IT DOESN’T WORK!!!) SHE is the only who rushes to the grocery store hoping to find the items listed on sale actually available! She MUST be the most gullible person on the planet because anyone else would have, at this point, pulled out their list of "10 things that Vern should know immediately without thought."

But no, Charlize swallows this impuissant lie as she does the rest of his cover stories, as wholly and unquestionably as a helpless baby bird swallows whatever its mother offers.

Later, the two go back to her hotel room and make mad passionate love all night. (apparently Vern didn't tell her his penis size either, because Charlize is still unaware that anything is up) After they make love, Ben asked "so why would a beautiful woman like you be writing men in prison?" She is like "don't you remember when I answered that at great length last month?" He mumbles lamely that he wants to hear her say it out loud this time.

At this point I want to stand up and scream "Then why didn't you call her from prison on this new invention called the telephone, 'Vern' ????"

Right after this the movie actually begins. This has just been the first 20 minutes or so, believe it or not. When the first 20 minutes are so illogical and lame that you’re ready to kill yourself you either leave the theater or anesthetize yourself with massive amounts of super buttery popcorn. I chose the later. Near the end of the movie, long after your brain has completely shut down, a final plot twist explains most of the questions I have raised here. But this final twist is so illogical and requires the villain to be such a Chess Grandmaster schemer that it makes the ending of “Unbreakable” seem logical by comparison.

There MUST be better and easier ways to make money than what this villain schemed up and had to mastermind behind the scenes.

For instance, you could devise marketing schemes that make a movie this awful seem appealing.

Shadow Dog sez:

This movie is so atrocious our cat buried the DVD in his litter box.

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