BigGuy

I enjoyed the first Die Hart movie. It wasn't amazing but it was enjoyable and had some original bits. This was not as good. This was kind of like those sequels where they changed all the main actors to save the budget and hope people just watch it for the name. Although in this case the two leads are back.

Die Hart 2 went too far into the campy and awkward end of the spectrum. It also tried too hard to be a parody so that the main thing it ridiculed is itself.

Also what is it with the swearing? It was almost as if they wanted the R rating just from the swearing.

Anyway, if you love Kevin Hart being over the top Kevin Hart, you might like it. I think most people should give it a pass.

I thought this movie had a good chance of being awful, but that it could have been fun. There were definitely fun bits, but the whole thing just fell apart at the end.

This is a classic case of the writer trying to be a bit too clever with the plot twists and cascading betrayals/turncoats. It wasn't too bad until the last act where all plot lines tried to get tied together. Instead they got knotted tangled, and cut apart. Too many loose ends and a very unsatisfying ending.

There were some good things that happened. Ron Perlman's character was a pleasant surprise, but the potential was wasted/subverted in the last act. Nicolas Cage actually was mostly fun to watch, especially the comic timing of some of the bits.

I was going to give this a 6, but the ending was just bad. Characters were going against character for inexplicable reasons, and abuse of suspension of disbelief left a sour taste.

This was an interesting concept, but it fell short in execution. One annoying thing that movies that try too hard to be clever often do is have a lot of dialog that intentionally avoid revealing certain bits of information. All of the characters know what is going on, but the viewer is left without that benefit. It can work, occasionally, but for The Tangle, they drag it out and abuse the viewer as a result.

Overall this felt more like a stage play than a movie. Partially driven by the single set (well, 90% of the movie is a single set, and the scenes that are elsewhere, don't actually contribute a lot to the story). The other thing that made it feel like a stage play was the overdone costuming and makeup. There is nothing wrong with style, but it felt driven by pretentiousness rather than innate style. Finally the acting was exaggerated, with the dialog's rhythm feeling stilted and contrived, and not natural.

It is an interesting underlying idea, but I think the execution was about being stylistic and clever rather than actually exploring the idea.