Patrick Lussier
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The overly dramatic dialogue, which could have been lifted straight out of The O.C. , combined with its deliriously over-the-top blood drenched carnage also evokes the Scream films.
This is all very familiar - and take out the 3D element and My Bloody Valentine wouldn't be half as fun - but the film admirably decides not to take itself too seriously or push smug Scream -like self-reflexivity.
Director Patrick Lussier (noted as the editor of the Scream franchise) mostly just lines up the usual pretty girls and even prettier boys on an assembly line of slaughter, which ensures that his movie won’t live beyond a few weekends of audiences out for a cheap, lazy thrill.
Or someone else? "My Bloody Valentine" may not be horribly acted, but in a post-"Scream" and post-"Scary Movie" era, it's difficult to squeeze any more blood from this low-brow/high-camp turnip.
It's Scream before Scream, minus the deconstructive verve.
If the movie feels a little like a remake of “Race With the Devil” — the old drive-in hit with Peter Fonda and Warren Oates — well, it’s not.
What's really remarkable is how much of this pricey demolition derby feels ripped from cheaper, better drive-in films of yore, most obviously Jack Starrett's classic Race With the Devil and Robert Fuest's The Devil's Rain.
The Devil's Advocate (1997)
Directed by Taylor Hackford
influenced Drive Angry (2011)
Characters Themes
Oh, and his character's name is John Milton, like Al Pacino in The Devil's Advocate, because Hollywood still thinks that referencing Paradise Lost is being subtle.
But that sort of not-too-subtle joke was used up nearly 15 years ago in the similarly devil-themed The Devil’s Advocate.
What's really remarkable is how much of this pricey demolition derby feels ripped from cheaper, better drive-in films of yore, most obviously Jack Starrett's classic Race With the Devil and Robert Fuest's The Devil's Rain.
Since 1979, we’ve seen from other studios 1992’s “Dracula” from Bram Stoker with Gary Oldman, 2000’s “Dracula 2000” from Wes Craven with Gerard Butler and 2012’s “Dracula 3D” from Dario Argento with Thomas Kretschmann.
As an origin story, this is slightly less loony than the one offered by Dracula 2000, which posited that Dracula was actually Judas Iscariot.
So it’s not surprising that this characterization harks back to “Ghost Rider” and “Grindhouse,” among others.
It's like a discarded episode from Grindhouse, only longer and less funny.
This one, also in 3-D, doesn't have a screenplay that's nearly as smart as the Tarantino/Rodriguez "Grindhouse" double-bill, which is a movie in the same vein.
Drive Angry 3-D shows the same affection for the genre that Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez lavished on their delectable 2007 double-feature Grindhouse except Drive Angry 3-D is possibly less classy.
Nicolas Cage’s hilarious, split-second cameo as Fu Manchu in Grindhouse’s Werewolf Women of the SS faux trailer must have whetted the actor’s appetite for headlining feature-length throwbacks to the disreputable fare of yore, as evidenced by many of the movies he’s accepted over the last few years.
Lussier and Farmer’s next project is a remake/reimagining of Clive Barker’s “Hellraiser,” which was initially rumored to be targeting a PG-13 but is now expected to be as R-rated as anything the filmmakers have done so far.
It’s too bad the rest of the movie shows no interest in rising to his level; instead, it contents itself with more cop-car pile-ups than a Blues Brothers sequel, more oafish southern-boy buffoonery than a Smokey and the Bandit reunion and more gleefully gratuitous depravity than a Hellraiser-Saw-Elm Street mash-up.
Patrick Lussier’s Drive Angry tries to spice things up with its effective use of 3D and by cobbling together as many exploitation clichés as possible: the Daisy Duke-wearing hot girl who can kick ass; the badass who grizzles, shoots and drinks; the overqualified character actor providing exposition (David Morse); and, finally, the smooth villain (Billy Burke) with better hair than the hero, if only to compensate for a lack of manhood and, as Rutger Hauer put it in Split Second, “bigger fucking guns.”
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace
influenced Drive Angry (2011)
Finally, regular scene-stealer Katy Mixon (2009's " All About Steve ") does just that in the small role of Piper's flirtatious co-worker Norma Jean, while genre veteran great Tom Atkins (1982's " Halloween III: Season of the Witch ") gets the best line as crooked police chief Cap: "When I tell you to aim for their tires, I mean aim for their heads."
He got his start working as an assistant editor in the '80s working on TV, and then moved up to cutting shows like "MacGyver" before hooking up with Wes Craven on "Nightmare Cafe," which led to him cutting "New Nightmare," Craven's attempt at redefining his own Freddy Kruger.
Death Proof (2007)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced Drive Angry (2011), My Bloody Valentine (2009)
Visuals
Its everything Quentin Tarantinos Death Proof (2007) ought to have been and never was.
If they wanted to make it exciting, they should have taken a page from Quentin Tarantino ’s recent grindhouse homage, Death Proof , and tried to have more realistic stunts instead of random explosions and gunfire.
My Bloody Valentine could have easily played along side Planet Terror and Death Proof as the third part of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s tribute to Grindhouse exploitation cinema.
( Clive Owen , in the similar -- and similarly disappointing -- steroidal action film " Shoot 'Em Up " at least did a better job of maintaining a Gonzo intensity that Cage can't quite find here.)
And the scene is a complete rip of a funnier and sexier moment between Clive Owen and Monica Bellucci in Shoot ’Em Up, a film much smarter than this one.
Take Death Proof, combine it with Michael Davis’ Shoot ‘Em Up (2007), add a supernatural component, ramp it up and you have Drive Angry 3D.
Although the big shootout in which Milton tries to finish his lovemaking while finishing off an onslaught of would be assassins falls far short of a similar action sequence in "Shoot 'Em Up."
Before I explain why Nicolas Cage is not quite as good at having sex while shooting people in Drive Angry 3-D as Clive Owen was in Shoot 'Em Up, allow me to introduce myself — or reintroduce myself: As a contributing editor at New York, I’ve edited arts coverage, covered film festivals, written scores of profiles , and obsessively analyzed Mad Men .
Despite these visual miscues, Drive Angry should prove certainly amusing enough to those who enjoy the colorful, button-pushing, non-stop lunacy of flicks like Running Scared, Shoot ‘Em Up, Crank, and Smokin’ Aces.
He’s the funniest satanic figure since Mr. Skin in Bruce McDonald’s Highway 61, and that was 20 years ago.
Lussier worked on some troubled films over the years, and must have amazing battle stories from "Mimic" and "Vampires In Brooklyn" and "Halloween H20" and especially "Cursed."
Much as 1970s drive-in pulp appears to have been the inspiration, it’s more a triumph of the exploitation video-game aesthetic in a derivative plot that fuses Mad Max with The Fast and the Furious.
Drive Angry is a mega-hybrid of genre films ranging from Terminator 2: Judgment Day to The Crow, Constantine, From Dusk Till Dawn, Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny and even a little �Brutal Legend�.
He's followed by a flock of interchangeable weirdo followers who get slaughtered in orderly fashion and who, in one sequence, seem to chant what sounds suspiciously like the Animal House liturgy, Toga! Toga! Toga!
And while there are a few genuinely creepy sequences and images sprinkled throughout the proceedings (ie Tyler listens to a recording of her own abduction), The Fourth Kind clearly would've benefited from a more conventional approach and a greater emphasis on the characters themselves (Patton's police officer is especially underused) - with the almost ridiculously anti-climactic finale ensuring that the whole thing ends on as abrupt a note as one could possibly envision (ie those viewers expecting a Fire in the Sky -esque third act are going to be sorely disappointed).
And, to be fair, he is helped by decent production values, courtesy of the good cinematographer Brian Pearson (who had formerly shot the Will Smith vehicle, “I Am Legend”).
Fans of this sort of thing are going to delight in all the hacking, slashing, stabbing, eviscerating and head-splitting, and while some of the better gags are lifted straight out of other, similar motion pictures (most notably Friday the 13th Part 3 and Wrong Turn ) in 3-D they pack a hideous punch entirely different than that of their predecessors.