baze

Unrelentingly, irredeemably dark with no story, no arc, and lots of unnecessary frames left onscreen. Too long by 1/3 Phoenix delivers a fine performance, better because the material he had to work with was so weak and thin. I wanted to walk out from the halfway point onward but kept hoping for a redeeming 3rd reel. Nope. Just more and increasingly gratuitous violence, more darkness and attempts to clumsily weave in origin stories we have all seen. Saw this for $1.72 on a Season Pass and wanted my money back.

The first movie I have walked out of in as long as I can remember is still on the screen at Austin's Arbor Theater but I am sipping a beer and wondering if I will ever pay to see a Terence Malick film again. As utterly bored as I have been in a theater since Tree of Life (which SHONE in comparison), I gave up waiting for something to happen to wrap this turkey up or make me care. News Flash: it had not appeared on screen at 2 hours in.

I want those 2 hours back.

Malick's latest "Song To Song"? Beautifully-lensed images of characters I know little about and care even less about looking mostly beautiful and doing stuff I don't care about or understand. Any Calvin Klein "Obsession" advert from the 80s had more substance, a more compelling story line and infinitely more ability to hold my interest. This was like a cinematic Austin Architectural Digest showcase of homes, but less interesting. Oh. It was about "struggling musicians"? Malick's definition of "struggling" is as far from reality as Gigli is from good.

The Patti Smith cameo and song snippets in a soundtrack (seemingly created by 20 or 30 misguided people who did not know each other and apparently had not seen the film) were my sole high points. They were enough to make me go all the way to 2 stars, but minus one because I looked at my watch about 8 times waiting for it to end. It may STILL be running and I am halfway through a beer down the road.

Can we chip in to buy Malick a screenwriter, and an editor? Emperor Malick is buck naked folks. Maybe a Kickstarter campaign? SKIP IT.

If Hollywood keeps making bad copies of movies, at least they could see fit to copy a decent movie. Instead these bozos decided to copy the 1991 barely-B-Movie "Toy Soldiers" in this overacted cliche-filled steal wherever we can excuse for a film. It has the school kids held hostage, gadget-freak semi geek with a heart of gold, bad boys doing good and even the cute teens of Toy Soldiers, without the benefit of the dimples of Sean Astin or even the acting prowess of Wil Wheaton or R. Lee Ermey. Skip this one.