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J GRAHAM'S REVIEW | GNG'S REVIEW | LUCKYMONKEY'S REVIEW | MBRODERICK'S REVIEW | BLACKSMITH'S REVIEW J GRAHAM Reviews SAVING WILLIAM SHATNER 2 I've noted before that I despise 'stupid' comedies, being churned out by the likes of Jack Black, Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell today, to name a few. Pedro however, seems to be earning his bread and butter based on these films, with 'Generations' minting in theaters and '9021OC' in the pipeline. I loved 'Generations,' and think it's probably one of the better movies in the game right now, and 'Saving William Shatner 2' has had a magnificent ad campaign leading up to it. Now keep in mind I haven't seen the original, so whatever in-jokes the film had referring to the first, didn't work for me, and judging by the car wreck this film was, I really have no interest in seeing the original either. The film is horrible in every single way, written like a fever dream after a night of cocaine binging. Featuring cameos and performances from just about every body in Hollywood's B-List telephone book, 'William Shatner 2' doesn't elicit a single laugh, or smile. Just a lot of groans. The film is intended to not be taken seriously. Monkeys abduct William Shatner, and Kevin Sorbo and Christian Slater decide to use this to their advantage, creating several teams of Hollywood celebs to go find him. Antics ensue. It befuddles me to think how ANYBODY, especially the writer, could've found this mildly funny after awaking from his or her LSD induced haze. The film sucks, relying on fart, gay sex and lesbian sex jokes to get by, along with a ton of very unfunny physical humor along the way. Even the author's good ideas (the parody of The Deer Hunter) get lost among the sucktitude, and ruined by the author's general ability to actually string along a minimalist plot that is a horrible cross between 'Rat Race' and cheap porno flicks. I would recommend you avoid this. If you want to do yourself a favor and save an hour of your life, go skating or eat a whole bucket of buffalo wings instead of this. Or be pigheaded and watch it anyhow. Just don't say I didn't warn you. It has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. 0/100 GNG Reviews SAVING WILLIAM SHATNER 2 I've always been a fan of the "goofy celebrity cameo" movie ala "Jay and Silent Bob" and I've been a huge fan of Jack Black's style of comedy. I am also a huge admirer of the ego that is William Shatner. I could hardly wait to get a glimpse of all of my favorites rolled up into one. Little did I know it would be rolled up into what would equate to a bad sushi roll…stench and all. Let's face it, when you have a cast like this you do not expect Golden Globe performances, but I did expect to get more than one laugh out of the whole movie. (I'll get to that ONE laugh later) From the disgusting cocaine habit of Kevin Sorbo and a poorly aging Christian Slater, to the pornographic and zombie like sex scenes between Brittney Spears, Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton. It just left a horrible taste in my mouth, and I am sure it wasn't the popcorn from the vendor. Will Ferrell on a sugar buzz was mildly amusing until he ate not only a small child's cotton candy, but then decided to devour the small child. This movie is like Quentin Tarantino w/ ADD on Crack. I felt like I needed to go see a Priest and confess when I left the theatre, and I’m not even Catholic. I'm still not sure why Shatner killed the monkey, and I don't think I need to know. Shatner could have shone a little more, thrown in a "I'm Denny Crane" or a "Trix are for kids".. I feel like he phoned this one in, along with most of the cast. You could have hired Charlie O'Donnel, Kathy Griffin and Andy Dick and paid much less to produce this film and gotten the same results. The one funny point in the movie was an early exchange between Jimmy Fallon and Christian Slater: (cut to scene) Fallon: Dude that's Fucked up… Slater: Not as fucked up as "Taxi" but yeah…. Self deprecating humor does score some points, even when it's Jimmy Fallon. Buffalo wings, cocaine and Disney. It still wasn't enough to make me remotely interested in this fiasco. Beam me up Scotty, there is NO intelligent life on this screen. 20/100 LUCKYMONKEY Reviews SAVING WILLIAM SHATNER 2 Memory is a tricky thing. As an example, I look back on games like Robotron or Dig Dug with fond, glowing memories of hours of arcade-y goodness. The same goes for the original Saving William Shatner film. I recall it being a broad farce with some truly funny moments. I suspect that if I went back and watched the original again, much like when you install MAME on your computer and relive those ‘awesome’ games of the 80’s, only the best moments stand out through time. Usually you can compare the older works to newer ventures into the same genre. Superhero films have come a long way since the original Superman films of the 80’s, as is evidenced by the treatment of the Spiderman and X-Men franchises, as well as the recent resurrection of Batman. Time, however, has not been kind to the William Shatner name as this latest installment into the original franchise that bears his name is, to put it bluntly, dead Jim. Let me start out by saying a lot of respect for producer/writer Pedro’s work ethic. He cranks out films like a modern day Roger Corman, but unfortunately, his track record for quality falls along the same break-neck path. There are times when his films are fun, as with the surprisingly good (and I say surprisingly because the soap opera genre has no appeal to me what-so-ever) Generations and the unevenly paced but at least as good as what has come before it Resident Evil: Psychosis . However, I think that audiences would be much better served if the creative hose coming out of Baseball Mogul Productions would be turned more from the quantity to the quality setting. Saving William Shatner 2 does not represent the best work the writer is capable of, nor even something that is mediocre. Saving William Shatner 2 is perhaps some of the most puerile writing I’ve seen to date. The plot (monkeys kidnap Shatner and Kevin Sorbo and Christian Slater send teams to find him) is so simplistic it gives the viewer absolutely nothing to latch on to, is impossible to follow, and even fails in providing the actors (who would immediately fire their agents, if they had agents) good situations to riff off of. The movie is basically one long stream of gay jabs, lesbian scenes, fart and poop humor, poorly executed slapstick, and more in-jokes than a Saturday night at the Friar’s club. The constant streaming of well worn Hollywood faces that plod through the film do little to even try and make it fun because they don’t look like they’re having any fun. Pedro has made the over-the-top shock film his calling card. But unlike the works of Trey Parker and Matt Stone or the Farrelly brothers, there is no biting sense of satire here, nor any level of humanity. While this style of humor may be some of the easiest to write, it is also the easiest to get wrong. Also, the fact that this movie could have spent sixteen weeks and have made over 70 million dollars in theaters points to potential flaws in the overall box office system. We either need to see more movies gettingreleased, or find a way to better reflect true stinkers getting dropped out of the money faster a steaming pile of monkey poop from Babo’s behind. FINAL VERDICT: 10/100 MBRODERICK Reviews SAVING WILLIAM SHATNER 2 You know, I have a hard time reviewing this movie because in the words of Reno 911!’s Deputy Travis Junior “…it’s like throwin’ **** on a ****pile that already has too much **** on it…” but on the other hand, I’ll probably get some cash for it and it’s always fun to give a really bad movie a pan that it justly deserves. That could be taken as some kind of disclaimer, I guess. First of all, I’m really not a snob when it comes to this type of movie. And you don’t have to be in order to really hate it. The only reason this review isn’t angry is because I know Pedro’s a decent guy and really the movie is on the whole pretty harmless. The thing is, I’m really quite close to the target audience of this movie. I love Will Ferrell movies (normally I would really enjoy seeing Will Ferrell eat a child but this movie is just soooo baaaad) and Jack Black movies and Farrelly Bros. movies and South Park and really there’s no reason for me not to like this movie other than the fact that it’s completely unfunny and being funny would be it’s sole reason for existing. So monkeys kidnap William Shatner and some actor I’ve never heard of hires teams of people to get him back and blah blah blah this is stupid this is stupid this is so stupid. I mean really. This movie would probably be better described as a retarded person’s fever dream. And that’s really nothing against retarded people, its fine for them but I just don’t understand why you’d put anyone else through it. This movie doesn’t even do bad well. I mean it’s obviously conscious that it’s stupid and ridiculous and all but it barely plays with that. At the very least it could have more fun being bad and stupid. Additionally, Pedro manages to take the “value” out of “shock value.” (I’m not going to describe what I mean because honestly there are way too many examples of it). I haven’t really mentioned the original movie yet mostly because this sequel bares little relation other than the fact that it’s basically just takes the first movie’s script and grinds it up into little bits and pieces and serves that up as the movie when it’s basically been drained of everything that makes a movie a movie. This was worse than the Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey Christmas Special. This movie was worse than drinking bongwater (believe me). This movie was worse than watching the Home Shopping Network late at night because you accidentally nailed yourself to the floor. Dare I say it, this was worse than Godfather Part III. I better stop. I’m rambling. 10/100 (the 10 points are exclusively for the little fun I got out of writing this review and Will Ferrell eating a child) BLACKSMITH Reviews SAVING WILLIAM SHATNER 2 Pedro is back with a f**ked up vengeance with “SWS2”. He must have tons of free time because I think he releases something like two or three movies a month. Over the years, both at FM and here at HTG, he has carved a niche for himself in making profanity and vulgarity something of an art in his films. He puts strings of curse words in normal everyday lines of dialogue – so much so, that it becomes overkill. And that’s where SWS2 falls short. There is so much swearing and sexually charged dialogue that it’s hard to see through it and get the jokes. The movie begins with a plot by Kevin Sorbo (was he a coke head?) and Christian Slater having Shatner kidnapped by three monkeys in order to score some cocaine. They bring together various celebrities in teams to find Shatner for the prize of a lifetime supply of buffalo wings. The teams are paired perfectly, but with the exception of a funny cameo by Christopher Walken, nobody talks like their personas. Every celebrity on the teams talks in the exact same profane way. I’m not a profanity prude by any means, but I’ve always felt that it should be used sparingly for comedic or dramatic effect. The story is thin (but to be fair, most comedy movies are) and there are no real twists or plot devices to make this movie stand out. But on the flip side, there are some funny scenes. The parody of “True Romance” with Elvis and Christian Slater in the bathroom was well done. That’s what SWS2 should have had more of. It’s really too bad that the franchise of Saving William Shatner is a f**ked up comedy. The concept borders on brilliant and done with more parody, and more faithful use of the celebrities, it could become a big hit. But props to Pedro for keeping movies in theaters. 30/100
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