Loosely based on a Twilight Zone episode and a Richard Mattheson story "Button Button," this mish mosh of WTF was that is another in Richard Kelly increasingly unlikeable films. Sure Donnie Darko worked but Southland Express was a mess and this crap was even worse. How Cameron Diaz, James Marsden and holy cow, Frank Langella ever wound up in this garbage is beyond me. The plot is about a mysterious stranger, with a hideous and utterly pointless facial disfigurement, gives Diaz a box. If she pushes it, she gets a million dollars. But the hitch is that someone she doesn't know will die. And it all takes place in the 70's. Why? No Idea. As a matter of fact, this film makes no sense at all after the first half hour. She presses the button chaos ensues. You would need cliff notes, the director's commentary and a Rhodes scholar of film to follow what happens next. She of course presses the button, gets the million but realizes that the next person to press the button will kill her. And the stranger is an alien doing some sort of experiment that is never explained. As people die all around her from some sort of mass button pushing scheme (I think), her husband is forced to make decisions that have no real outcome. And then the movie ends with her dead and her husband and son captured and no real concept of what you just watched. Yes I ruined the ending. trust me you'll thank me for not having to sit through this awful awful mess. One of the worst screenplays I have seen in a while making the great Richard Mattheson two for two in horrible screenplay adaptations of his work (the other being I Am Legend with Will Smith. He was great. The dog was great. The movie not so much). Maybe Richard M. should write the next one of his projects beacuse these hacks clearly can't. Pointless would be an undertstatment to this junk. All copies should be rounded up and see if we can plug the BP oil spill with them. A must miss.
1/2 star out of 5
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment