Director: Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez
Year Released: 2005
Rating: 1.0
Just when I thought that Francis Lawrence's Constantine was excessive, I encounter this release the following day, with prolific hack Robert Rodriguez firing up Adobe After Effects and adopting - with apologies to Mies van der Rohe and Gertrude Stein - a 'more is more is more' approach to filmmaking. Like with Road to Perdition, the non-characters are just itching to die and/or be mutilated in new and clever ways, from being eaten by Elijah Wood, to Elijah Wood being eaten by a ravenous dog, to Carla Gugino having her hand cut off and eaten by Elijah Wood, to Mickey Rourke spitting up his own blood while on the electric chair (not the first time, I imagine), to Benecio Del Toro getting his gun jammed in his brain, to Nick Stahl being castrated by hand, to bullets, to impaling arrows, to Asian teenagers throwing stars shaped like swastikas. That Miller and Rodriguez actively try to have all these stories come together is a genuine stretch, like Star Jones trying on Alexis Bledel's jeans just for shits-and-giggles - the nonstop bloodlust and violence do not lead up to a sense of 'morality,' like some people seem to think, it just leads to more bloodlust. The voiceover is headache-inducing as well, as its characters - all afflicted with mental logorrhea - feel inclined to describe their every sensation. The technique is clever, and it's visually imaginative (though gimmicky), though that matters little with such an exercise in nihilism. Imagine what Takashi Miike could have done with it....
