Down By Law (1986)

2/5

Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law was an utter disappointment. The plot follows three prisoners (Benigni, Waits, Lurie) as they are sent to jail and as they escape. The movie plods along at a laborious pace; reviewers infatuated with Mr. Jarmusch may call it something more flattering like patient or rambling. Whatever you call it, it practically put me to sleep. The acting is atrocious and amateurish, although I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me it was meant to be "realist," "cinéma vérité," or some other elitist excuse for being bad. The actual filmmaking is just as low-quality as the acting. Quite frankly, this whole movie looks and feels like a film school project. And not just any film school project, but the one made by that weird kid who thinks he's got great ideas but everyone else just sees bad execution. The sound capture was pitiful; there was clearly one audio capture device and it was stuck on the front of the camera. And why is it black and white? (Probably ego, to answer my own rhetorical question.) While there was some comedy, I attribute it less to the film as a whole and more to what I can only assume is Mr. Benigni ad-libbing lines. Unless you're a big Jarmusch fan, I would avoid this movie.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090967/

Big Touble in Little China (1986)

2/5

John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China is a popcorn flick with non-stop action and cheesy acting. The plot follows truck driver Jack Burton (Russell) and Chinese gambler Wang (Dun). Burton falls in love with lawyer Gracie Law (Cattrall) and Wang is set to marry Miao Yin (Pai). When Miao Yin gets kidnapped by a gang and brought to Lo Pan (Hong), an ancient spirit who wants to marry her in order to become flesh and blood again, the other three set off to rescue her.

The story is unnecessarily convoluted and bites off more than it can chew. With every explanation of some supernatural event comes more questions and loose ends. In fact, it's not even worth listening to their explanations, because it doesn't affect the movie in any way, shape, or form. The problem is that it spends over 30 minutes trying and trying and trying to explain everything, which ends up being 30 minutes of wasted time. Even if they weren't wasted on dialogue, however, those 30 minutes would be wasted on the same ludicrous action, horrendous special effects, and hollow acting that fill up the other 60 minutes. The way Kurt Russell speaks reminds me of Private Joker's fake John Wayne parody in Full Metal Jacket. Pretty much nothing about this movie is good. But at least it's fast-paced crap. It isn't mind-numbingly boring or too terribly offensive to my senses. Still, avoid it if you can.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090728/

The Fly (1986)

4/5

The Fly is a horror drama with special effects reminiscent of John Carpenter's The Thing. Jeff Goldblum believably plays a scientist who has recently perfected a teleportation device. When a fly gets trapped in the machine with him as he teleports himself, the two combine on a "molecular-genetic" level. Over the course of the movie, he undergoes a metamorphosis. This change is so fluid and gradual that it effortlessly draws you in. Unfortunately, the characters don't develop as well as the story does. They seem like symbols and metaphors that the plot can alter at will in order to get an important thematic message across.

This movie succeeds in most technical areas. The editing (on a shot-by-shot level) was much, much tighter than in his later Eastern Promises, which helped this movie seem real instead of staged. The special effects were well-envisioned and well-executed, starting subtly and mushrooming at the climactic finale. There were some nice camera movements, although none of the compositions really stood out as being anything more than adequate. I really did not like the lighting, and thought most of the movie was much darker than it should have been. All things considered, this movie is a solid four, but is only recommended for true film fans and not casual viewers.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0091064/