Shoot 'em up

GoldenArmz

Anyone else think this was great fun?!

Not much for making you think but if an orgasm of bullets, blood and cheesey dialogue is to your taste then this is your man! Great too the way it doesn't take itself too seriously! U gotta love Paul Giamatti too!

Mossy Monk

I thought it was fantastically over the top.

jasonbourme.cs

yep was completely rediculas but was awesome !!!

missingtime

The most ridiculous movie i have ever seen.
Thats both a compliment and and an insult.

Great film.I loved the bit where Clive owen shoots the lettering on the sign to make it say fuk you, and yer man shoots it afterwards to make it say fuk you too. Class

Creature

It's great. Explosions, gunfire, using carrots as weapons, Monica Bellucci, more explosions and more gunfire. Pfft who needs a plot.

The Denouncer

I'm 35, so obviously I'm too old for this..but I thought it was the biggest pile of crap I have seen in a long time, and Clive Owen possibly one of the most over-rated actors of this generation. What a horrible movie. Zero character development, zero charisma, zero acting ability, zero everything.

Otacon

The Denouncer wrote: »

...Zero character development, zero charisma, zero acting ability, zero everything.

But... but... those are all the film's good points!?

Personally I felt this was a better film than Crank was. Lots of fun and thats all it was meant to be. You could tell everyone was having fun making it. Paul Giamatti was perfect, funny yet sadistic (reminded me of Takeshi Kitano in Battle Royale in his performance actually but angrier).

gandalf

It was so bad I actually enjoyed it

And of course Monica Bellucci is in it

film_gonzo

The Denouncer wrote: »

I'm 35, so obviously I'm too old for this..but I thought it was the biggest pile of crap I have seen in a long time, and Clive Owen possibly one of the most over-rated actors of this generation. What a horrible movie. Zero character development, zero charisma, zero acting ability, zero everything.

Not necessarily. I'm 24 and I thought it was the worst movie I had ever seen to that point (It's now vying for the top spot with 'Wanted'). I've NEVER had such a strong desire to leave the cinema, and I have sat through some stinkers. This is movie making at it nadir. It's not silly OTT fun. It's just silly.

Why do modern action movies (And I'm directly a lot of this bile at 'Wanted especially) get away with such atrocious standards of moviemaking by use of the 'we're not taking ourselves seriously' excuse. If not then why bother making the bloody thing in the first place.

I'm all for a daft, fun movie but seriously you have to invest 'something' in the making and writing of it. It can't just be the first nonsense that pops into your head. Which is what this movie felt like.

Galvasean

film_gonzo wrote: »

I'm all for a daft, fun movie but seriously you have to invest 'something' in the making and writing of it. It can't just be the first nonsense that pops into your head. Which is what this movie felt like.

But why? If you're gonna do something don't do it by half. Ballistic Ecks Vs Sever tried to include character development and intricate sub plots but due to poor writing/direction fell flat on its face. Shoot em Up on the other hand knows its strenghts so doesn't bother with the rest.
I also think your comparison to Wanted is off the mark. Wanted looks like it's trying to be clever, but failing.

Fysh

The thing with Wanted and its ilk is that it seems to be the product of a directiorial approach based on "cool comes first" ie so long as it looks cool it's fine. And sadly that leads to some godawful sh*te, but there's an audience for it. (Mark Millar, scribe of the comic Wanted is sort-of-adapted from, seems to base a lot of his comics writing on this approach, and Rob Liefeld openly admits that this is his comic drawing approach).

The problem is that this approach leads to doing frankly stupid things because they meet someone's definition of "cool" eg that part of Wanted from the trailers where Angelina Jolie skids the car around with the door open and scoops James McAvoy into it. There's a point where "cool" is no longer enough of a justification for something because it's too jarring or unbelievable.

GoldenArmz

There's nothing I can't stand more than stupid action movies trying to be more than they are! (WANTED) But the great thing about Shoot 'Em up is it doesn't ask you to take it seriously. It has a 'tongue in cheek' attitude from the beginning. I mean, obviously the producers know that it's not gonna be nominated in any category in the Academy awards, which is why they can have so much damn fun!

I for one anyway applaud this kind of movie making. You can leave your brain at the door and just enjoy the assault on the senses that it is! (And of course, Monica )

So I say, no more action movies that try to be more than the sum of their parts! Let's have more films that have a firm understanding of what they are, and are firlmy able take the p1ss out of themselves, a la Shoot 'Em Up!

Karl Hungus

GoldenArmz wrote: »

So I say, no more action movies that try to be more than the sum of their parts!

Yeah! No more action films like Leon, Die Hard and Lethal Weapon! Substance? Characters? Who needs 'em? Lets have no more of it!:rolleyes:

Honestly, I really enjoyed Shoot 'em Up. Pure ridiculousness, but remarkably clever in some aspects. An action film with a firmly anti gun message? I love the irony of it.

GoldenArmz

Karl Hungus wrote: »

Yeah! No more action films like Leon, Die Hard and Lethal Weapon! Substance? Characters? Who needs 'em? Lets have no more of it!:rolleyes:

Honestly, I really enjoyed Shoot 'em Up. Pure ridiculousness, but remarkably clever in some aspects. An action film with a firmly anti gun message? I love the irony of it.

I'm not talking about decent films such as the ones you have listed. I'm talking about action films that try to be deeper but don't just quite make it. Let's say in the vein of Collateral Damage?

Karl Hungus

GoldenArmz wrote: »

I'm not talking about decent films such as the ones you have listed. I'm talking about action films that try to be deeper but don't just quite make it. Let's say in the vein of Collateral Damage?

If they try and don't quite make it, then it's probably because of poor direction, or writing, or any number of other issues. That's not to say that films shouldn't put the effort in any way, and just use tongue-in-cheek as a crutch for bad film-making, because it'll still be a poor effort no matter how you try and disguise it.

I'm all for silly action films, but when they succeed (Crank for example, and to a lesser extent, Shoot 'Em Up), it's not because they're covering up a bad film with humour, it's because they're genuinely good, funny and exciting films.