best film review I have read, ever

A.O. Scott with the New York Times is one of those serious film critics. He looks the part, plays it well, and converses on film and media at a very high level.

Imagine my surprise to see the verve and energy in his review of the current Nicolas Cage car and girl epic, 'Drive Angry.'

Like many regular moviegoers, I have been berated by repeated showings of the trailer for this release. But even the amped up 2 minute trailer didn't do it for me, and I wasn't planning on catching this one.

But Scott's review is inspiring, and I suspect I'll make the time to check out the 3D version. After all, as he notes in his second sentence, and his closing paragraph, how often do you get this combination on screen.

Here's the review. See if it's not impressive.

On a Mission, but Not From God
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: February 25, 2011


There are those who insist that no great work of cinematic art will ever be presented in 3-D. The most persuasive among them — Roger Ebert, for example — offer learned arguments grounded in science and aesthetics. None of that really has anything to do with “Drive Angry,” which at least in its 3-D version makes a loud, incoherent but oddly compelling case for the enhancing effects of stereoscopic projection on certain treasured objects of the cinematic gaze, like classic Detroit muscle cars, women’s breasts and Nicolas Cage.

Last things first. Mr. Cage’s acting style — if that is still the right term — seems these days to require not an extra dimension, but rather an entire parallel universe. In this movie, he plays a grandfather from hell (I mean that literally, though to say more might count as a spoiler) with lank blond hair, a haunted demeanor and the poetical name of John Milton, a sop to the English literature grad students who are sure to flock to this movie.

The details of his character are both preposterous and beside the point, as “Drive Angry,” directed by Patrick Lussier (“My Bloody Valentine 3D,” “Dracula 2000”), from a script he wrote with Todd Farmer, lets Mr. Cage continue his exploration of the mysteries of the universe. His companion is Amber Heard, playing a hard-luck waitress who can both throw and take a mean punch and whose very short denim shorts compete for attention with the 1969 Dodge Charger she drives.

You can guess how she drives it, though there is plenty of anger to go around, and a lot of action, some of it pretty inspired. And also a gooey heap of plot, which is revealed efficiently and without too much concern for plausibility of any kind. Milton is on a mission to rescue a baby from a Satanic cult led by a neorockabilly messiah (Billy Burke) with long fingernails and what may be a prosthetic soul patch. Giving chase is a dapper fellow who identifies himself as “the Accountant” (William Fichtner) and who is invulnerable to everything except the magical antique gun that Milton keeps with his gear.

Apart from some half-cartoonish digital effects and the whole 3-D thing, “Drive Angry” could almost be mistaken for a raunchy, cheesy exploitation programmer of the same vintage as some of its cars. Or rather, a whole retrospective of disreputable ’70s B pictures, what with the cars, the supernatural mumbo-jumbo, the churning, anonymous heavy-metal guitars of Michael Wandmacher’s score and the nudity.

All of these elements combine in one extraordinary sequence, during which Milton manages to gun down about a dozen Lucifer-loving, farm-implement-wielding thugs, while smoking a cigar and taking slugs from a bottle of whiskey. And, through the whole bloody barrage, having sex. “That never happened to me before,” his partner says later, recalling the episode more graphically and succinctly than I can here. “Has it ever happened to you?”

http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/movies/26drive.html?ref=aoscott