James’ Blog

James' Take: Do yourself a favor and miss this one

I talked before about a trailer not doing justice to the movie. Well, this is the opposite case. The Wild Hogs trailer made me giddy. I was never counting on a new Easy Rider, but it felt like I was gonna be treated to another City Slickers. Some slapstick, a plot, great characters, and a compelling idea. And it could have been that, but the director blew it big time.

I have nothing against so called "silly" movies. On the contrary. I was a big fan of Wayne's World, and I love Dumb & Dumber. I even enjoy the humor in Dude, Where's My Car.

But this wreck of a movie was all over the place. And I'm not talking about mixing genres. It felt more like each actor was doing a different movie, a different version of Wild Hogs, but at the same time, and on the same scene. You never knew if any given reaction would be farcical, over the top, or just plain logical. Sometimes I was just waiting for Ray Liotta, or his character, to break into laughter and show himself to be a nice guy who was just "testing" the others. Other times, there were so many badly used clichés and I could see it coming a mile away.

Worst of all was the ending. I'm not gonna give away anything here, but I was gagging. I wanted to puke.

To be fair, there was some good with the bad: Some very funny moments. Some good, unexpected slapstick… and Marisa Tomei was there, and beautiful as ever, or even more than ever. But you can't un-suck a bad movie with only good jokes, a hot chick, and a cameo.

I never mentioned the acting. I was mostly good, maybe even brilliant at times, given the confines of the characters and the story… but for this particular film, talking about the acting seems irrelevant.

But I urge you to find out what Director Walt Becker was smoking at the time, and steer clear of it.