Thursday, January 15, 2009

My Bloody Valentine 3-D


If you're on the fence about whether you need to see My Bloody Valentine 3-D, then you must not be the target audience to begin with. It's not the kind of movie you need to see how it fares during awards season before committing to the price of a ticket - either it sounds like a good time to you or it doesn't. But for those old-school slasher fans out there who are wondering if this really delivers the goods, I can attest to you that it does and then some. I don't have time for a longer review at the moment and really, this movie may not need it. The 3-D is incredible here. The depth of the image, the feeling of immersion in the environments - it's first-rate. Then there's the gimmicky 3-D moments that you want this movie to have and they all come off great, showing some real ingenuity and showmanship. And as a slasher movie, My Bloody Valentine 3-D has an impeccable handle on itself. Scripter Todd Farmer and director Patrick Lussier are a couple of canny dudes when it comes to the slasher genre. They embrace it all the way with no hint of irony and slasher aficionados will recognize the sensibilities of fellow fans.

I do wish the climax had one more beat to it but I'm guessing on second viewing that minor disappointment will dissipate, and there's a major cheat at play in regards to the reveal of the film's mystery but I ain't going to bust the filmmakers for it - in fact, I kind of enjoyed being had. Like most everything else in this film, it put a goofy grin on my face (when I wasn't bursting into spontaneous laughter or surprised shrieks). My Bloody Valentine 3-D scores a four pick-axe rating from me. If this is an indication of how the slasher movie revival of this year is going to play out (and the 3-D revival!), consider me excited. Travel as far as you need to see this in 3-D - because such sights as a midget annihilated by a pick-axe deserve nothing less.

2 comments:

Bob Ignizio said...

I got to see this Thursday night, and you are absolutely correct. The movie is a total blast, and anyone who has a gripe about it probably set their expectations way too high. The thing I was most impressed with was, although the 3D was great, I think the movie would have played just fine in 2D. If all remakes were this good, no one would complain about 'em.

Jeff Allard said...

I'm glad to hear you liked it, too. And while I'm glad that most people are taking the movie in the spirit that it's intended to be taken, I have to shake my head at the indignation of some viewers who Just Don't Get It. I've read a comment or two online with idiots in a huff about how the 3-D is "just a gimmick", as though this movie has cheapened the works of Shakespeare by asking us to thrill to the sight of eyeballs flying off the screen. I'm also amused at how some people want to take the new movie to task for lacking the characterization of the original. I love the original - I think I may have written about it on this blogspot more than I have any other film. But honestly, do people not realize that the original was regarded as - at best - a servicable slasher film in its day? There's a habit among genre fans where pedestrian movies become venerated by those who saw them first as kids to the point where they lose all perspective on a film's actual merits. I know if you went back in time and told any genre fan that twenty five or so years later that anyone would be up in arms about a movie not living up to the dramatic legacy of My Bloody Valentine, they'd laugh in your face. So while you would think that no one would complain about the new film - after all, it delivers amazing gore, T&A, and Tom Atkins, and it does it all in 3-D - there's some out there who feel like they're guarding the future of film and applying their keen critical insight when they point out that if not for the gore, the 3-D and the audience participation that this wouldn't have been anything special. To these people I can only say just because you're old enough now to appreciate a movie like Let The Right One In doesn't mean you have to be insecure about enjoying a movie that's just meant to be fun.