Dir. Richard Kelly
Writ. Richard Kelly
Act. Duane Johnson, Sarah Michelle Geller, Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake

As I sit here thinking about ways to describe the endless nothing that was this movie, I wonder will be people able to understand this review if I type as if there is a voice over for review. You see, as I watched Richard Kelly's movie, and listened to the endless voice over that summarized the wandering plot-less story, I began to realize that maybe my reviews are as unintelligible as this movie, an maybe I need to type in voice over so that maybe the reader can understand how truly pointless is this movie. I can only hope I can succeed.

Hollywood actor Boxer Santos, played by Duane "The Rock" Johnson (The Game Plan,) is an unknowingly vital cog in a conspiracy to bring down the right wing, militaristic government of the United States. It gets way to complicated to describe who the bad people are in the movie because it would seem that all of them, at one point or another, are the antagonists. However, the main bad guy, or gal, is Cyndi Pinziki, played by Nora Dunn (Runaway Jury,) who is the main organizer of the leftist Marxist party, who uses porn star Krista Now, played by Sarah Michelle Geller (The Return,) to get to Boxer Santos.

This is a bad movie. It is noticeable right away to me when I discovered that the voice-over had spent the first 8 minutes of the movie setting up the story. There is so much voice-over in the film that it makes me wonder if the producers of the film made writer/director Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) add the voice-over to the film in the same manner the producers made Ridley Scott add them to his film Blade Runner (different producers BTW.) It doesn't work for Tales because in this film the voice-over describes major plot points that you would not be able to get from the movie and would cause you to be lost, or should I say more lost than you already are by watching the film.

I don't like the story either because I am still trying to figure out who are the antagonists of the film. Is it the right wing conservatives that are using fear to control the population in the name of safety, or is it the Marxist who seem so inept that they cant control people inside their own organization. There is also another plot, which may be the real one, about how Boxer Santos can see into the future because his screenplay that he wrote talks about events that happen in the future. Mainly, the end of he world, and how the rip in the 4th dimension caused two different people to enter the rip and create at duplicate persons. The whole theory that two different beings with he same sole cannot exist in the same time because if the touch each other life would cease to exist. That all makes sense right? No, it doesn't and is the primary reason for this mess. The only redeeming quality is that I am just enough confused to see how the movie ends, so I watch it all. The only comment I will make about the ending is that that it doesn't make sense and not worth the wait.

The acting is incredible ok. I am, however, beginning to realize that Sarah Michelle Geller is not working on becoming a better actress and in some ways digressing. She had a fairly important part in the film and she acted like a lost 18 year old who was due to be the next victim in a teen slasher film. There is no depth in her acting and it is annoying watching her. I don't know why she has digressed (I think I do but don't want to bring up her talent-less loser of a husband) but it saddens me because I thought she had real potential to do some things in her career. It would appear that she is destined to be a scream queen and nothing more.

I was looking forward to this film way back in 2005 when I saw it was in production. When the release date was pushed back to the winter of 2007, I began to worry that it was not going to be a good film. Then the date got pushed all the way to December of 2007, almost two years after it was made, and it was released in only a dozen markets. At that point I had a real bad feeling about the movie. So I went in with no expectations of he film and was still disappointed. Director Richard Kelly has taken a huge step back from his first film, Donnie Darko, and needs to rethink his visions. Let this film stay on the shelf in the video star where it so dutifully belongs.

Brian - the Naked Gun