We are three guys who go to the Pink Taco bar in West LA once a week for happy hour margaritas, then go see whatever film looks the most fun. Our names are Han, Dan and Nick (nick.locking@gmail.com).
[this review should be read to the tune of “I Know you Got Soul” by Eric B and Rakim]
It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you
Without a strong post to step to
Think of how many weak movies you slept through
Time’s up, I’m sorry I kept you
Thinking of this, you keep repeating you miss
The reviews from the margarita soloist
And you sit by the internet, hand on the mouse, soon
As you read it, Tweet up this column
Ethan Hawke is the star of this, don’t you know,
and it takes 30 minutes ‘til the story goes.
It’s a vampire world, the humans are herd, controlled,
my body relaxed (You snorin’), bored!
Ok, enough of that.
This is one of those movies that has a great concept with the fatal flaw that philosophers call “The Dog/Car Paradox”. A dog will chase a car all day, but what happens when he catches it?
Vampires have caught the car and realized that they needed it to live their lives. Humans have realized that they wish they were in a different movie. As is the current trend in movies, these are not vampires like you know. Thankfully they still burn in daylight but otherwise, being a vampire is like drinking a lot of tequila: You seem stronger than normal, you hate the sunlight and it amplifies all your worst character traits.
Thankfully Hawke was only a little bit of an asshole before his vampire frat buddy bit him one drunken Vegas weekend. So now he goes around doing secret nice things for humans. They, in turn, think that he is trying to help him. I guess he kinda feeds this because he is head researcher for a blood substitute so that vampires don’t have to depend on eating humans anymore. They remain vague about if they still plan to eat the rest of the humans or if they will be put into a wildlife preserve in San Diego that little vampire kids can drive through to see what it used to be like before the world was all Vampassholes.
Willem Dafoe shows up around now, dressed up like the Fonz. Not the one you usually think of, the first appearance of the Fonz when he used to wear gang colors back when white people had a sense of humor about street gangs.
He apparently cured his vampirism by getting in a fast car and driving into a wall which launched him through the daylight, where he caught fire just long enough to burn out the hangover. He suggests that Hawke try this but Hawke is a scientist so he makes a “Drunk Driving Chamber” to simulate the same thing.
When he steps out of it, Hawke is inexplicably dressed as Han Solo. Looking at Dafoe and Hawke the audience is forced to assume that curing vampirism makes you look like your favorite childhood hero. Suck on that, Stephenie Meyer!
At this point in the movie the directors and writers figured they have done their job and the rest of the movie is Dafoe and Hawke tricking vampires into trying to suck their blood. WHY? Because the side effect of being Born again Human is that your blood makes vampires explode… violently. There is a scene at the end that is so ridiculously gratuitous in violence that even the Margarita Three found no enjoyment in it. Also, it is a total rip-off of the lobby scene from The Matrix, if all the guards suddenly started shooting each other after winging Keanu. SERIOUSLY.
SCALESONIC!
The S is for Story - which we found was rather weak - 3
The C is for Comedy - you’re laughing at the freaks - 2
The A is for Awesome - which would have been really neat - 1
The L is for Ladies - that one was really WACK - 1
and the E is for Etc - as in the end of this track! - 1
-Dan
