Review: Be Kind Rewind

Wow. Rarely does my movie meter fail me on what I believe will be quality films. I mean I listed this as one of my most anticipated films to come out this year. But I was way off. This movie was horrible. A terrible, terrible movie with almost no redeeming values.

Ok, so the premise is Jack Black gets magnetized and erases all the VHS tapes at his friend Mos Def's local rental store. So they decide to remake the films their customers want to see, leading to a boon in business and them becoming local celebrities. First of all the whole concept of Jack Black getting magentized by getting electricuted when he tries to shut down the local power plant becaue apparently it's sending microwaves into our brains making us do stuff (I realize this conspiracy theory sounds like I'm leaving something out, but that is almost verbatim as he describes) is a tad contrived (not to mention illogical), but I was willing to overlook that if the film was up to snuff. Again, it's not. The flick doddles on leaving you very uninterested for the first twenty minutes giving you time to question whether or not Mos Def and Jack Black are supposed to be portraying mentally challenged characters or not (or if they aren't supposed to be, but just come off like it that's what I came up with). But I endured hoping that when we actually started "sweding" movies (term created by the characters for what they are doing) the film would actually pick up. Indeed my assumptions were correct. Their remake of Ghostbusters was by far the funniest thing in the movie from what they get totally wrong to how they try and recreate it with no money and two people. Some of the other flicks rehashed also bring a chuckle from Rush Hour 2 to 2001: A Space Odyssey. But the other ten films shown being "sweded" only average seven seconds of film time and thus we can't truly enjoy them save a single shot references. And this only truly funny thing or premise in the movie starts thirty minutes in and stops less than twenty or so after that. The rest is filled with unexpanded love interests, and the need to modernize the store, and injuctions from the copyright people or whatever. But the mahority is taken up by the history of Fats, a jazz musician who was born in the video store, but not really because that's a lie told to Mos Def, but that's ok becuase the whole town decides to accept the lie when they make a documentary about him.

I'm not exactly sure what message Michel Gondrey was trying to present to us, but it seems like we were supposed to walk away with something, possibly that the streamlined is not the best and we should regress to simpler times, or that deluding ourselves with a lie is the best solution, or that two retards trying to make movies is somewhat funny. Whatever it is the flick is not worth your time and money. Even when it comes out on DVD and a friend of yours buys it and wants to watch it with you, don't do it. It's a trap. Leave quickly before they attempt another attack on your life.

Rating: 2/10