A Tale of Two Crappy Movies

I watched 300 yesterday and Shoot ‘Em Up today, neither with great expectations, but at least with the hope of some visceral pleasure. 300 was, to my mind, easily the worst 2007 movie that I watched. It’s pretensions to seriousness, its vicious message about masculinity and child-rearing, its frankly racist representation of “Persians” and its complete lack of irony and self-reflection mostly made me angry. Even the presence of McNulty as a Spartan traitor was not enough to relieve the stupidity of the movie.

Shoot ‘Em Up, on the other hand, despite a lack of any socially redeeming value, and some occasional lapses into misogyny (in particular, a scene with Giamatti, Bellucci and a gun), was a blast. It is exactly what it promises: a series of utterly implausible gun battles, leavened with some double entendres and deadpan humor. I have no idea what could have persuaded Giamatti, Bellucci and Clive Owens to have agreed to appear in the movie, and they appear to have made up the plot as they went along, but Owens makes a damn fine gunfighter with no name. The bottom line, I suppose, is that 300 is moronic, but takes itself seriously, while Shoot ‘Em Up is a little less stupid, a lot more fun, and does not take itself seriously at all.

5 thoughts on “A Tale of Two Crappy Movies”

  1. I can’t disagree with your response to either film Chris, but I still found Shoot ‘Em Up very difficult to wade through. Noting the ambivalence in your post (why indeed did anyone want to make this movie), I’ll argue the film is nothing more than empty, moronic calories. I wanted to have more fun but the ludicrousness of the entire enterprise (not to mention the film’s self-reflexive self-satisfaction) made me long for the sheer wierdness of one of my least favorite films of the year–Planet Terror.

  2. I was pretty much bored by Shoot ‘Em Up unless Giamatti was snarling or Bellucci was trying to speak in English. I was up for moronic fun, but I mostly found it moronic. This is the first time I’ve ever agreed with Jeff about an action flick. Damn you, Clive Owen!

    300 was lousy, too.

    Anybody got an action flick to recommend? I nabbed one off Arnab’s queue that looked intriguing — Shootout at Lokhandwala — is it any good, AC?

  3. The trouble with describing ‘Shoot ‘Em Up’ as moronic, is that you are then at a loss to describe ‘Condemned’ and ‘Alien vs Predator II’ both of which I watched in the last 24 hours.

    I quite liked the first AVP, not least because I have a soft spot for Lance Henriksen from the under-rated ‘Millennium’ series, and it was fun to see him back with the aliens, this time as a human not android. The storyline and action of the first one were vastly better than the second. A hybrid alien/predator ought to have been scarier and deadlier.

  4. ‘Meet the Spartans’ is way better than ‘300’; at least it addresses its “homer-eroticism” directly, and it has some great dance numbers. However, if you happen to be watching it with your children and your spouse walks in, be prepared with some sort of deniability claim.

  5. Just turn to the kids and yell “What is this? I don’t think this is appropriate!” I always try to steal the indignant thunder. I mean, rather, I hear that can be a strategy some employ.

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