Shoot Em Up

Batutta

Batutta

Major Contributor
Re...tar...ded...And not in a good way. I love me some John Woo style action, but this flick goes so far past the realm of plausibility as to be a ridiculous cartoon. I think it's easy to overlook in John Woo's better films but I think beyond their trademark gunplay, its the moral conflicts his characters often deal with that elevates them beyond being mindless action films. Without them you get something like Shoot Em Up, which is as hollow as the spent shell casings that litter the floor. Michael Davis didn't deserve the great cast he got, because they made his bullshit work better than it had any right to. His casting taste doesn't extend to his musical sense though, as the soundtrack was terrible music library sounding heavy metal crap.
 
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Yeah, I wasn't expecting much.

I'll probably skip it altogether.

Still biting my nails over Eastern Promises (COMING OUT IN LESS THAN 1 WEEK!!!!)
 
i agree as far as the plot, and the dialogue, and the performances, but I think the point of the movie was to be a cartoon action flick. i mean, its titled "shoot em up" for goodness sake. if you came in looking for plausibility or depth, i'd be very surprised.
 
Hans Moleman said:
i agree as far as the plot, and the dialogue, and the performances, but I think the point of the movie was to be a cartoon action flick. i mean, its titled "shoot em up" for goodness sake. if you came in looking for plausibility or depth, i'd be very surprised.
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I knew exactly what it was when i walked in the theater, but it just didn't work for me. There's pushing the envelope of plausibility, and then there's tearing it up all together, which is what this film does. And I at least hoped I'd care about the characters a bit, but I didn't. I won't give the film a pass just because it achieved what it set out to do.
 
I knew going into the film that it was going to be way over the top. That was the point of the movie. It was a comedy/action flick. It was over the top on purpose. That's why I liked the movie.
 
Considering it is supposed to be a satirical look at action flicks, what were you expecting? Don't make me Duh Huh you...
 
Look, I understand what it was trying to be and expected something like it, I just don't think it did it very well. The jokes mostly fell flat. The action is devoid of suspense because it's so over the top, unlike John Woo's best films, which are over the top and suspenseful. And the whole thing just has a cheesy sheen to it. It's not a satire, as satire mocks its subject, it's merely exaggerating certain action movie tropes to a ridiculous extreme. The whole film is just an empty exercise in genre posturing, 90 minutes of a director jerking off with the camera.
 
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This is not a spoof ala Scary Movie. Scary Movie, Airplane, Naked Gun are all very broad satires and are making fun of their genres. This movie is not making fun of the action genre, it's having fun WITH the action genre, in a winking, post-modern ironic way, but that's all it has to offer. The story is the thinnest excuse to have a lot of gunplay and not the least bit interesting (ooh, it's about gun control, how ironic), and the characters are cardboard cutouts. Tarantino also engages in this sort of post-modern genre posturing, but his films usually have A) Good dialogue that is not only witty but insightful of the characters B) Clever storylines that develop in unexpected ways C) Characters you enjoy watching because he's taken the time to develop them into somewhat dimensional human beings. Shoot Em Up has none of this. Not even a smidgen. Only good actors wasting their time.
 
MOVIE STUNTS said:
As far as I know John Woo didn't direct this, so why is it being compared to his work? :kali:
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Hmm, I wonder why? Maybe this interview WITH THE DIRECTOR HIMSELF citing John Woo as his major infuence would be the reason.

http://www.kpbs.org/blogs/movies/2007/09/07/shoot-em-upinterviews-with-michael-davis-and-clive-owen/

For Shoot ‘Em Up, Davis turned specifically to John Woo’s Hard-Boiled.

“The thing that I took away from it,” says Davis, “is I liked the sort of balletic, acrobatic jumping around action. The character flying, he’s not super human, but I think everyone loves seeing somebody in the cinema in the air sort of like a human bullet. I also felt like American action movies didn’t have as high a body count. The Asian movies were okay to say look this is a fantasy, this is a wish fulfillment, so let’s make it more so. I also see in an American movie that they go bang-bang-bang-muzzle flash, and then somebody goes bang-bang-bang-muzzle flash but there’s no action-reaction. I always feel there’s something more satisfying in bang-somebody falls. It just feels better when somebody gets hits and that’s what they do in the Asian movies. So I said I’m going to give myself license to be more like the Asian moves and John Woo.”
 
That's why they make chocolate and vanilla. I really got burnt out on wire flicks, and Woo heaps them on as badly as anybody. And same goes for the normal vein of action violence ala A Team- a million rounds going off in all directions, grenades and rockets exploding, people flying... and when it's all over, the bad guys get escorted off. All that and nobody dies? Bite me. That gun goes off, and somebody better at least say Ouch! That is if their head wasn't blowed off.
 
Some like chocolate, some like vanilla.

I enjoyed it. I knew it was over the top cartoony action, and came out happy. Loved the love making while shooting, the delivering a baby while shooting... heck everything while shooting.

I felt it could have been more though. Maybe a bit more character development, finding out who smith really is. Instead they just kind of mention it. But aside from this it's fun.
 
I knew it was going to be 90 whateverish minutes of Clive Owen :kali: everyone in sight, and be ridiculous, and void of any plot whatsoever. I laughed and watched intently.

Oh and I loved the hard rock soundtrack :evil:

Just my $.02.
 
my film prof brought up a point that made me reappreciate it for a second. He had mentioned that someone had said the film was intended to be a type of live action bugs bunny cartoon. looking back, there are a few glaring similarities. (carrot eating, giamatti saying 'wascally wabbit, etc.)
 
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