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trismugistus.com
and digital-bondage.net
are my web sites.
trismugistus.com
is where I upload my anime, manga and tv&film reviews,
and also where I occasionally post short stories and longer
works I've written.
digital-bondage.net
is my wallpaper site and provides anime, manga and other
desktop wallpapers in a variety of resolutions. I also
have a few tutorials and some resources, such as psds
for you to download.
I also run a site called scan-city.org,
which provides scans from the latest japanese anime magazines
for you to download and use in your wallpapers.
You can also read my blog here
or check out my anime list here. |
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| details |
| The Genre: Action/Parody |
| The Format: DVD |
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| The plot: A gritty, fast-paced action thriller,
Shoot ‘Em Up kicks into high gear with a memorable
opening scene and never relents. Clive Owen stars
as Mr. Smith, a mysterious loner who teams up with
an unlikely ally (Monica Belluci) to protect a newborn
baby from a determined criminal (Paul Giamatti)
who hunts them throughout the bowels of the city. |
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| opinion |
| I really enjoyed the first 20 minutes or so
of Shoot Em Up.
Then I didn't really enjoy the next few minutes.
Then I enjoyed it quite a lot again.
Then not so much.
And then more so... and so on and so forth.
What am I getting at? Shoot Em Up is kinda the
sort of name for a film where you're almost making
a rod for your own back.
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When a film is called Shoot Em Up, that's
what you expect to happen - people shoot stuff.
Constantly. And that's the crux. You can't
actually make a film where people are just
continuously shooting stuff.
Well, I guess you can't. Maybe you can. I
guess in some ways, many war films could be
said to involve constant shooting. But 90
plus minutes of action film style shooting
stuff? That's going to be a strain on budget
as well as the film makers and the audience.
You need at least some breaks in the shooting.
Breaks that get filled in with the plot. And
character development. And all the other shenanigans
that go into making films actual films and
not just cinematic experiments.
And guess what; the plot is kinda where Shoot
Em Up falls down.
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But, and here's the thing - it's not really because
the plot is bad, as such, it's more because the
plot doesn't involve people shooting guns at each
other. And because the shooty bits we do get, especially
at the beginning, are so good and intense, the other
bits just feel like somebody's slammed the brakes
on.
One of the keys to Shoot Em Up is that it's essentially
parody. It's not parody aimed at damaging the target,
it's the same sort of friendly parody that they
did in Hot Fuzz. It's saying "this is silly,
but also pretty cool." It's like having your
mate in the room, going "woah, awesome"
at all the woah, awesome bits, but then also going
"lol, whut?" at all the lol, whut? bits.
However, where this differs from Hot Fuzz is it's
not an out-and-out comedy film. The parody is presented
as being an entirely serious film within its own
boundaries. The film is self aware, but not in the
same vein as Hot Fuzz.
The plot itself is pretty much ludicrous, with
some twists and turns in it that are quite frankly
stupid. But then, as I say, that's meant to be part
of the parody. You know that feeling you get a couple
of hours after watching an action film?
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No, not that one, the other one, the one about
how what you've just watched is actually totally
daft and implausible. But at the time you were watching
it, it didn't seem that way - it all made sense
at the time, it's just after the fact that it seemed
silly.
Well, Shoot Em Up takes that seems-convincing-at-the-time-but-doesn't-bear-up-to-scrutiny
thing and does away with the first part. While you're
watching Shoot Em Up you'll realise just how daft
a lot of the stuff is that happens. But that's not
a criticism - it's the point.
It's hyper-unreality. But not to the extent of
making it into a comic book. Well, I guess that
depends on what comic books you read, but you get
my point.
But earlier on, didn't I say the plot let it down?
Ah yes, but that's my point, the plot doesn't let
it down because it's doing a bad job at what it's
there for, it's just that it's getting in the way
of all the shooting people.
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However, this isn't the only reason for
the 3/5 rating.
Unfortunately, there's a slight degradation
in the quality of the shoot-outs as the movie
progresses. The thing is, though, that I'm
not entirely sure if that's because the action
scenes aren't quite as good or because they
set the standard so high to begin with that
they've nowhere to really go.
Certainly, as the film progresses, the location
and set-up for the shoot-outs get increasingly
more "gimmicky". Where we simply
start off with shoot-outs in warehouses, we
end up with sky-diving shoot-outs and shoot-outs
where our hero controls everything with bits
of string.
And for me, this just went a bit too much
in the direction of them tweaking the movie
so that they could have the shoot-out, rather
than it being a natural consequence of anything.
In other words, you end up feeling the planned
action sequence has dictated the things that
happen in the story to set it up.
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It's like the Director makes mention of the John
Woo classic Hard Boiled in his commentary and interview,
and you can really see the influence. But where
in Hard Boiled the big shoot-out in the hospital
and the need to protect the newborn babies is all
about the plot being carefully woven into the action,
here, the sky-diving fight is simply a result of
the bizarre twist that "oh, the guy will only
meet you onboard his plane". Really? Er, well,
okay, but then how predictable does that make the
skydiving shoot out?
I guess you could argue that this is also a part
of the parody, but I dunno, it just made things
that little bit less good for me.
Best thing to do? Skip the chapters on the DVD
that don't involve people shooting each other.
Extras are pretty good. I've seen quite a few of
these lower budget movies have no extras at all,
but we get commentaries, interviews and featurettes
and all sorts here. |
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| summary |
| The Summary: The things it does well, it does
well - the other stuff, not so much. |
| The Score: 3/5 |
| The Pictures:
(click for larger versions) |
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