Drive Angry 3D

This is a review for a movie two weeks old that nobody saw. Why am I writing it? Because we saw it, that’s why. And we’re probably the only ones who can tell you if it was any good or not. It’s not, by the way. So there you go. You can leave now, if you want.

The whole experience did not start well. On the way to the movie, we discussed how much money the movie had made (very little). I put the over/under of people in the theatre at 7.5 and took the over. Evan gladly took the under, and nailed it. There were four people there, including us. That’s why I don’t work in Vegas.

None of the previews were in 3D, which was a little disappointing. We did get to see some previews of movies on our list (Battle Los Angeles and possibly Hanna). Then we got the title screens of the five companies that worked on it. Yes, five. It used to be only one company did a movie. Then it was two. Now it’s usually two or three. But five seems excessive. One of them was Maple, though, and they did The Expendables, so that was a good sign.

The movie opens with an obviously computer-generated car jumping over an obviously computer-generated bridge in an obviously computer-generated Hell. Then it goes to the real world, where the 3D is so obvious it hurt my eyes. Seriously. They toned it down after about five minutes (or maybe I got used to it), but that opening scene was literally painful.

And ridiculous, which is what I’d hoped for. Most of the reviews had stated the movie is bad, but full of ridiculous things. So I was expecting it to be like The Expendables or The A-Team. Unfortunately, Drive Angry did not live up (or down) to the hype. Sure, there were some over-the-top things, but the whole movie wasn’t made of those. And the title was misleading too. Maybe Drive Perturbed would have been more appropriate. It’s also possible that Nicolas Cage was acting angry the entire time, but I’m so used to fury that I mistook anger for annoyance.

There were some good thing about this movie. The lead female is hot, and can pack a wallop into a punch. She’s got a mean right hook, which isn’t very commonplace unless your Michelle Rodriguez. Not even Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft had such good boxing movies (and I haven’t seen Million Dollar Baby, so I can’t comment on Hillary Swank).

There are some good action scenes, as well as some interesting shots. 3D might hurt my eyes, but it certainly has the capacity to make standard shots completely new again. So that’s nice. But the best thing about this movie is probably a character called The Accountant, played by William Fichtner, whom you may recognize as the shotgun-wielding bank manager from the opening of The Dark Night, but who I recognize as a pilot of one of the space shuttles in Armageddon and as the leader of the resistance in the criminally under-the-radar movie Equilibrium. He’s … interesting. Always calm (in the break-your-neck-without-changing-facial-expressions type of calm) and provides some remarkably creepy lines. Almost cheerful, but creepy. Plus, he does a cool coin trick to reveal an FBI badge. He’s not actually part of the FBI, but is part of Hell’s bureaucracy, employed to track down people who break out.

There are stretches in the movie of just driving. Which is apt, based on the title, but it’s also kind of boring. Going fast doesn’t mean excitement, especially on a straight road. Twisty-turny chases make things better, and using cars as weapons definitely raises the ridiculous level.

Still, it’s not quite to my liking. If I had to give it a rating, I’d say it’s at the high end of DVD. Considering the only other DVD movies are Jonah Hex and The Mechanic , there’s not much competition. But I can’t put it in the same category as Resident Evil or Predators. There’s just not over-the-top enough to justify that. So catch it on DVD, or TV next year, when it’s licensed cheaply because it really needs the money.