Locally Controlled Confetti

Rating: Null/10 (19 November 2007)

Some films come baked. They're whole. Once they adjust you into the space, they can do things with the shared imagine that cannot be done anywhere else.
And then there are the candy store movies like this. They are incoherent, a jumble of notions and gags from all sorts of different perspectives and conceptual modes. You take it in bits as small as 30 seconds and only as long as 5 or so. Its a TeeVee thing, and to buy into it at all requires a step back from expectations of anything that really works.
So when you comment on this, you're really commenting on the one or two elements that offended or pleased you. I'll comment on the one that I thought was clever, cinematic, fun.
Its toward the end, before the big scene where our designated doofus makes his big jump, gets the girl, restores his family, achieves fame and becomes a man. It starts with the familiar march, first of our hero. Then from the sides come his sidekicks. I think there was some of that triumphant slomo strutting with swelling music. Then more and more people come from the sides and join the procession, literally behind our boy. Then at the appropriate time, they break out in song, rising in excitement over the forthcoming climax which we know will go well because of his resolve.
But then in what is perfectly timed crescendo, the energy increases until it seamlessly tips into a riot. Its not a bloody, violent thing, but a Jerry Bruckheimer sort of riot with cinematic movement. Cars get turned over, people move.
Its a pretty brilliant effect  very, very effective  and would have mattered in a real movie.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.