FILM: DRIVE ANGRY

Elliot Hyams buckles up for the latest offering from the man who makes bad acting look easy, Nic Cage.

Last year a viral video named Nicolas Cage Losing His Shit appeared on YouTube highlighting the strange acting style of the Oscar winning actor. Over the years Cage has garnered an almost cult like status for giving terrible performances in a string of increasingly dire films, to the point where one can’t help but wonder if it’s all some sort of genius Andy Kaufman style joke that the rest of the world has yet to cotton onto. From the Wicker Man, to Ghost Rider, to Bangkok Dangerous it often feels as if Cage doesn’t even bother to read the scripts he is sent before signing on the dotted line. Yet despite this there are moments of genius, such as Raising Arizona and Wild at Heart and through it all Cage remains a likable figure who this month returns to our screens in Drive Angry.

Cage plays Milton, a man who has escaped from hell to seek revenge on the leader of the satanic cult that sacrificed his daughter and now intends to do the same with his infant granddaughter. Milton is aided in his mission by the beautiful but tough Piper, played by Amber Heard, and pursued by The Account, a demon posing as an F.B.I agent, played by Prison Break’s William Fichtner. Drive Angry starts as it means to go on with Milton escaping from a vision of Hell as a flaming prison city in a classic car and proceeding to rid several Satanists of their body parts via the means of a large shotgun. This film has it all, car chases, cool one liners, shoot outs, and gratuitous nudity all presented in 3D, it is also one of the most ridiculous films ever made. In fact this film is so bad that one can’t help but wonder if it was an intentional decision on the part of director Patrick Lussier to create such a farce just to see if he could get away with it.

Lussier tries to compensate for the clichéd riddled script by piling on countless overblown set pieces, including a mid-sex shoot out stolen directly from the far superior Shoot ‘Em Up. Nic Cage is actually fairly underplayed in this film, mostly grunting and shooting people, which is a shame as it is actually a lot more fun to watch him ‘lose his shit’ and he is at his most boring when in ‘bad ass action star’ mode. The true star of the film is Fichtner, he seems to be having a lot of fun in his role, accepting the film for the nonsense it is and delivering ridiculous lines like “Jesus? A carpenter, who actually preferred short hair.” with the campy glee that they deserve. Drive Angry is a terrible film that should be avoided at all costs. Whilst there is a certain amount of silly fun to be had, the viewer soon becomes exhausted by the sheer stupidity of it all, and all the car chases and shoot outs in the world can’t suppress the feeling that Milton should leave the poor Satanists alone and start hunting down the makers of this film before the inevitable sequel happens.

Review by Elliot Hyams

FILM: TRON LEGACY

Elliot Hyams returns to the world of sexy programs and killer Frisbees in Tron Legacy.

It’s happened to all of us at some point. A drunken conversation leads to some nostalgic reminiscing about a brilliant film from our youth until finally someone claims to own it on VHS and puts it on. The room falls silent until finally someone says what everyone is thinking “Actually this is a bit shit isn’t it?” One such film that falls under this category is Disney’s Tron. This may be seen as heresy by the many fans of the film, whilst it does deserve recognition for its ground breaking special effects, it featured a ludicrous script and one of the most nonsensical narratives of all time involving Jeff Bridges being sucked into a digital universe to lead a cyber rebellion. But regardless of this, it came to be regarded as an iconic classic with fans just as passionate as any Trekkie or Jedi wannabe. Now nearly thirty years after the release of the original, Disney has once again embraced cutting edge visual technology to take us back to the world of Tron.

After his initial voyage into the grid games designer Kevin Flynn returned to the real world where he took control of software company Encom and fathered a son before mysteriously disappearing. Twenty years later Encom is a mega corporation run by a greedy board of directors much to the chagrin of Flynn’s son Sam. When his father’s best friend Alan receives a mysterious message Sam heads to his father’s office where he is digitized and sucked into the grid. There he encounters Clu 2, a program created by his father twenty years ago who controls the new system as a ruthless dictator. Sam escapes Clu’s clutches with the help of a mysterious program named Quorra who leads him to his father who has remained trapped in the system since Clu defeated Tron and seized control of the grid. Together they attempt to defeat Clu and find their way back to the real world.

Like its predecessor Tron Legacy uses the latest in C.G.I to wage an assault on the senses. The world of the grid is fantastically designed and realised, this combined with an amazing score by Daft Punk make watching this film akin to watching a laser concert, and it is thoroughly engrossing. Fans of Jeff Bridges will be thrilled to know he is on great form both as a CGI enhanced version of his younger self in Clu, but also as the older Flynn who has become a Lebowski style cyber Jedi. Tragically like its predecessor it isn’t a particularly good film, the script draws genuine laughs for the wrong reasons and the gaping holes in the narrative can cause physical pain to a viewer’s brain. But Tron Legacy doesn’t pretend to be anything more than it is, it is pure spectacle and as such it does succeed. It’s sleek and sexy in a way not seen since the Matrix, it features action, light bike chases and everything a fan boy could ever want. In many ways watching this film is like going on a date with Cheryl Cole, she may not have anything intelligent to say, but boy is she nice to look at.

Review by Elliot Hyams