...This Is Bizarre

I've been a fan of Dave Barry for a long time, and like this movie, so I thought I'd glance at the message board and... holy cow. We have a defensive amateur critic and an ex-Marine conspiracy theorist at each others' throats about tiny little details.

So here's my two cents. First, I think it's key that Movie Critic HASN'T READ THE BOOK. In fact most of the people here say they'd read the book and loved it long before the movie, as I had. If you're a fan of the book, if you understand the bizarre plot developments, the fast-moving film becomes infinitely easier to follow. Also, of course, the jokes which fall flat serve to remind us of their funny sequences in the book (perfect example; "No Bombs, Is Bar" - barely comprehensible in the movie but hilarious in the book, and cited by at least one person on this board), and since the book relies mostly on movie-style comic timing it's perfectly suited.

Also there's the cast issue. Tim Allen has done a lot of garbage, no question, and a lot of kids' movies. Rene Russo, though she's done some great work, is quite a conventional actress. Johnny Knoxville normally specializes in fart jokes. Omar Epps and Heavy D are rappers. Jason Lee is unrecognizable. With that bizarre cast, critics and people have a hard time knowing what to expect. Also, people expect movies set in Miami to be filled with bright, neon colors, yet Big Trouble takes place almost entirely at night. Simply, nobody thought this would be the strange, dark, slightly subversive movie it was, and as we all know moviegoers whose expectations are not met will miss otherwise masterpieces. (A friend of mine went to see Sofia Coppola's masterpiece Lost In Translation expecting a sarcastic Bill Murray comedy, and hated it - even though it's undeniably one of the best films of the year, and I loved it.)

Thirdly, I believe Sonnenfeld's use of the camera didn't set his sights too high. The zooms are very close, faces always filling the screen - it was shot for TV. In fact, on a big screen, Big Trouble was overbearing and annoying, leaving a bad taste in even my mouth, but when I watched it on DVD on a smaller screen it gained so much. No wonder so many of the fans here discovered it or prefer it on TV.

And the music - I've always though good music is absolutely key to the success of a movie (*cough* John Williams *cough* - Superman, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jaws, E.T, etc. etc. etc.). Though I love John Newton Howard's score, I suspect most people didn't, or at least couldn't take this vaguely techno-samba brew on top of an already overweird movie. (Incidentally, nobody has a sound file of the music over the closing credits, do they? I love that bit.)

The September 11 thing has already been addressed, but I don't think it's as big a deal as some folks suggest. Of course, I live in Canada, so it's hard to tell. (And while we're on the subject, I fail to understand why the ex-Marine insists on trumpeting his political views. How on earth is that even remotely relevant?)

So in short - a movie which does well what it does, but due to a number of unusal factors its audience is VERY limited. What does that spell? You guessed it: CULT FILM. I suspect in 10 or 20 years there'll be a bunch of people who voraciously love this movie, another bunch who hate it, and it'll make the arguments here look like small potatoes.

Of course, I thought "Ishtar" was great, so what do I know?

--MarkusRTK