THE CRITIC-AL LIST
Reviews by Alan Jones
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

Salt
The Expendables
The Last Airbender
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Inception
Predators
The Twilight Saga:Eclipse
Toy Story 3
Hot Tub Time Machine
Iron Man 2
Repo Men
The Collector
Clash of the Titans
Shelter
How To Train Your Dragon
Kick-Ass
Shutter Island
Alice In Wonderland
The Crazies
Case 39
The Wolfman
Legion
The Lovely Bones
Black Death
Daybreakers
Avatar
Ninja Assassin
The Descent: Part 2
Amer
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Box
2012
Disney's A Christmas Carol
The Horseman
Solomon Kane
Pandorum
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
District 9
An Education
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra
Orphan
A Perfect Getaway
The Imaginarium Of
Doctor Parnassus
Up
Harry Potter
And The Half-Blood Prince
The Taking of Pelham 123
Transformers
The Revenge Of The Fallen
Antichrist
Terminator Salvation
Last House On The Left
Inglorious Basterds
Angels & Demons
Adventureland
Star Trek
Crank: High Voltage
Coraline
Dragonball Evolution
Let The Right One In
Drag Me To Hell
Race to Witch Mountain
Knowing
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Not Quite Hollywood
Lesbian Vampire Killers
Martyrs
The Children
Surveillance
Watchmen
The Unborn
The International
Friday The 13th
Franklyn
Push
Punisher:War Zone
The Good The Bad And
The Weird
Hush
Underworld
The Rise OF The Lycans
My Bloody Valentine
Bolt
Slumdog Millionaire

Directed by Steve Pink. Starring John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Lizzy Caplan, Crispin Glover, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, Chevy Chase, Lyndsy Fonseca, Collette Wolfe. Comedy, USA, 99 min.

Great title, shame about the crass and sloppy ‘satire’ it’s lent its name to. Quite why headliner John Cusack thought this super lame time travel saga was worth producing is anybody’s guess. Or why he’d drag his associate Steve Pink into directing it after their sterling joint efforts with HIGH FIDELITY and GROSSE POINT BLANK.

Supposedly a high-energy homage to BACK TO THE FUTURE, but resembling more an even worse version of PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED, this loud and crude gross-out comedy scrapes the bottom of the done-to-death culture clash barrel. When one of their estranged school friends Lou (Rob Corddry) nearly succeeds at committing suicide, Adam (Cusack) and Nick (Craig Robinson from PINEAPPLE EXPRESS) decide to take him to a Kodiak Valley ski resort to help him recover. That’s where they misspent their youth and cemented their hopes and dreams for the rosy future. But Silver Peaks Lodge is now a rundown shadow of its former self and with nothing else to do but split a pack of brewskis, a late night Jacuzzi session turns weird when a can of Russian soda shorts the circuits and sends them back to Winterfest 1986. Cue the endlessly unfunny gags about leg warmers, Michael Jackson, massive mobile phones, ‘Miami Vice’ and slews of references to John Hughes’ Brat Pack flicks, RED DAWN, THE TERMINATOR and THE SHINING.  80s icons Crispin Glover, playing a one-armed bellboy, and Chevy Chase, a mysteriously disappearing repair man, join the witless antics as the threesome – joined by Adam’s resentful nephew Jacob (KICK-ASS star Clark Duke), an unwilling guest on the bromance road trip - are forced to repeat their past mistakes in order not to cause a Butterfly Effect (now there was a good movie!) and return to their unhappy futures. Unlike say THE WEDDING SINGER very little fun is actually gleaned from the pop ephemera of the Reagan era. Practically every opportunity to take an easy pot shot at a fad or fashion is missed. Instead dick, vomit, gay, drug and sexist jokes carry the heavy load for THE HANGOVER set demographic. Or there are the references to such future pastimes as texting and email that completely baffles the drunken party animals.

Corddry deserves some praise for making his character so repulsively stupid, but everyone else coasts on what they probably assumed would be a surefire premise where the guffaws would appear as if by some sort of conceptual collision magic. Laugh? I never started.

Alan Jones

© London FrightFest Ltd. 2000-2010
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