Not quite heartlessly in love with you, MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D.
Written: Jan 17 '09 (Updated Jan 17 '09)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Bang For The Buck |
 |
|
|
Pros: One wild moment that would qualify the movie as a guilty pleasure.
Cons: Lose the 3-D and the rest of the movie is as one-dimensional as you'd imagine.
The Bottom Line: To quote from the book of Def Lep: "I'm sorry, but it's true/You're bringin' on the heartbreak."
|
|
|
| deadmilkboy's Full Review: My Bloody Valentine 3-D |
Patrick Lussier's remake of My Bloody Valentine harkens back to an unsung golden age of horror, the kind which needed three dimensions because everything else was merely 1-D, from the acting down to the story. Even though I wasn’t old enough to endure them theatrically, it's clear that the sight of sharks breaking through aquarium glass and Jason Voorhees lurching towards the screen with an ax in his head must have been worth it for someone, somewhere. Without those special glasses in the comfort of your home entertainment zone, it becomes clear just how dreadful movies like Jaws 3 or Amityville 3 are. Even with the advent of digital technology, which affords Friday the 13th Part III to at least be double-dipped in its "preferred" version, I don’t feel the pressing urge to consider it a substantial shopping priority.
Although we’re not talking about creatively liberal blasphemy on the order of the Night of the Living Dead cash grab from earlier in the new millennium, MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D did manage to make one pine for that slab of raw Canadian bacon that was George Mihalka's 1981 original. Although it wasn't the bloodiest film (a situation rectified once again thanks to DVD, albeit very cynically late), the Great White North's most memorable slasher import (due largely thanks to the shoegazer band that borrowed its name) felt unpretentious and even atmospheric. It was part of an era, sure, but manages to hold up a little better over time. I don’t know if I will say the same two decades later of the new model, but at least I’ll have memories to hold now that I've kept my "Real D" blinders.
In case you forgot, the legend of Harry Warden goes a little like this: on the night of the Valentine’s Day dance in the small town of Valentine Bluff, Harry and four other miners were left unsupervised when a methane explosion caused a collapse. Harry was the only survivor, and was institutionalized for a year until he exacted revenge by using his trusty pick-axe to pan for something rawer than gold: the human heart. Harry became the Jason Voorhees of rural Nova Scotia, but, like Madman Marz and Cropsy, nobody was itching to make a franchise out of this masked maniac. The world was safe for homicidal leprechauns and medieval warlocks to roost.
The new version opens with a newsreel collage and flashback for its own Harry Warden origin story before cutting to the comatose miner as he duly wakes up and dispatches the entire hospital before Sheriff Burke (Tom Atkins) can stop him. Harry then returns to the Hanniger mine shaft in the small town of Harmony to go on another bloodthirsty rampage, one which separates young lovers Tom and Sarah as the former is abandoned to fight for himself after the latter is driven away in a rather shady escape thanks to a boy named Axel.
As a voiceover and title scroll reads "ten years later," Tom Hanniger (Jensen Ackles) mysteriously returns to town with intent to sell the family mine and thus ruin the entire town. Grocery store owner Sarah (Jaime King) is now married to Axel Palmer (Kerr Smith), who is even more unctuous and heated with age, freely cheating on his wife with Sarah’s dizzy co-worker, Megan (Megan Boone). Axel stews upon the arrival of Tom, who still carries a torch for Sarah but whom is conveniently implicated in a series of Harry Warden-style homicides which arise the moment one of the other survivors, Irene (Betsy Rue), is dispatched in after a hotel tryst goes outlandishly sour and leaves three dead bodies, including Irene, the skeezy trucker she just f***ed and the pintsized but well-endowed desk clerk.
The aforementioned sequence would seem to paint the movie as a delirious camp masterpiece (with a buck nekkid Rue recoiling from the sight of hiding in a closet with...eghads, clothes!), but the story progresses in as mechanical a manner as one could expect. Tom once again witnesses the psychotic miner kill again and tries to uncover the man's identity, which may or may not be the supposedly surviving Harry Warden. Suspicion arises between Tom and Axel, while periphery characters get picked off and have their hearts literally stolen by this lovesick murderer.
The movie offers up myriad red herrings because let's face it...anyone who’s seen the original will know Harry Warden was merely a man and died just like his victims did. Could it be Tom, whose taking medication and stumbling upon the infidelities of his rival? Maybe it’s Axel, who has impregnated Megan and seems to bear a teeth-gnashing grudge against Tom. And what about the reserved black deputy (Edi Gathegi) who takes pains to remind Tom that he’s the suspect at one point. The movie plods along like the type of Agatha Christie-indebted mystery the genre has adopted, but houses a pretty monumental cheat which makes this particular mystery feel more wretched than even the conclusion of High Tension.
The kill scenes offer up enough 3-D carnage to logically satisfy the $12 admission price, as numerous body parts and sharp objects lunge at you with relentless glee. There’s even another real-time bullet sequence late in the game. Although you can notice the CGI in some instances, the movie delivers enough gore that it’s tempting to want to get a deeper understanding between the mindset of the MPAA in 1981 vs. 2009. These scenes, however, tend to repeat themselves in ways that'll prove potentially numbing, with the only really suspenseful moments occur when Sarah, who is still unaware of her hubby’s private life, and Megan have to band together in the store late at night to escape from the killer. The rest of the movie plays like a compilation of clichés from any dozen random slasher flicks you might notice on cable TV one late night. The killer walking in on a boy watching TV made me think of Dr. Giggles, bizarrely enough.
And that's what is dispiriting about MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D, the notion that what is supposed to be a rollercoaster ride with the most tackiest of soap opera subplot in the middle (another moment which tries too hard to be intentionally campy) feels as stale as a box of forgotten chocolates. Lussier tries to redeem his film’s obvious lack of joy and adeptness (there's a scene which borrows that old mirror gag from Vaudeville but doesn't really know what to do with it) by adopting a self-aware posture that feels preordained and undeserved. The acting is uniformly dull, with even Tom Atkins, the supporting actor du jour from Night of the Creeps and Maniac Cop, feeling severely wasted despite a charmingly profane bit of introductory dialogue. Lussier probably directed his lead actors to be either wooden or over-the-top purposefully, but their characters left me with an indifference bordering on misanthropy. I wanted them both to have their hearts ripped from their chests and stuffed in their mouths. As for the lovely Jaime King, there’ll always be Sin City.
If you must go see MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D, do so at a theatre that will actually show the movie in 3-D. I almost went to see it at a theater which offered digital projection and stadium seating, but no 3-D, which is like being deprived of getting to third base. But be forewarned: I felt like one of those zombies you'd find at an old-fashioned 3-D movie screening wearing those cheap paper-made glasses with the anaglyph frames. The experience would've improved tenfold had someone actually ripped through the screen with a real live pickaxe. Now that would’ve really scared me.
MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D is a Lionsgate Films release, rated R for graphic brutal horror violence and grisly images throughout, some strong sexuality, graphic nudity and language. The run time is 101 minutes and it's theatrical release date is January 16, 2009.
Recommended:
No
Movie Mood: Die-hard Fans Only
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Script
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
deadmilkboy
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Member: John Bishop
Location: Tempe, AZ, U.S
Reviews written: 453
Trusted by: 118 members
About Me:
"Boys and girls...ACTION!" It's never too late to love THE STATE.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.