Flaccid comic-strip riff

Rating: 5/10 (18 April 2006)

With all the emotional plausibility and depth of a Bazooka cartoon strip, this "high concept" bad-Playboy-fantasy-gone-bad riff is already more inert than its more unfortunate leads before it inexplicably morphs into, of all things, an escape movie. Unfotunately, Hostel turns out to be the kind of escape movie where a time-traveling Captain Kirk must break out of a Nazi fortress populated by hapless extras, existing solely to walk around menacingly and get clomped on the head. A crashing disappointment for Eli Roth after Cabin Fever, the only horrifying thing here is the planned sequel. Yeah, yeah, there are one or two comic touches involving a half-funny twist on the Oliver Dickens youthful vagabond shtick, and there's the inevitable revenge on the bad-guys; but by the time Hostel staggers to its paint-by-number payoffs it's all too late.