Really? One of the top 250 films? Really?

Rating: 3/10 (25 August 2010)

There are a few fun action scenes, but they're a small proportion of the overall action, and the movie overall is very poorly structured. (It's two hours long and it takes 40 minutes for the only strong characters, Nick Cage and Chloe Moretz, to finally appear.) The acting is so-so, with Cage doing a goofy impersonation and Moretz not terribly gifted at all -- she sounds like what she is: a little kid saying lines. The high school "nerd" (Aaron Johnson) is too genteel and good- looking to be considered on the fringe, but his buddies (Clark Duke and especially Evan Peters) make good funny faces. Superbad's Christopher Mintz-Plasse walks through his uninspired role, unable to play off a totally dour Mark Strong (who as a comic villain should display some humor). Michael Rispoli is his usual annoying self, playing what he always plays, unconvincingly, a rotund little mafioso, but Lyndsy Fonseca plays the cute girl cutely. Very much a modern Hollywood vehicle: technically proficient but overloud, overlong and stick characters were supposed to love immediately. And lots of violence and bad words to make it edgy. Ugh.