a let down of a follow up. bring back rabbits from the future, it made more sense.

i’ve reviewed a number of terrible films since the creation of my blog, even a meager amount of films that achieved mediocrity status. i hated, hated, walk hard:the dewey cox story and one missed call; i would rather watch them back to back while allowing loud obnoxious children to drive remote control monster trucks with tacks attached to the tires over my naked body than ever sit through or [after this blog] discuss southland tales ever again.

dewey cox had excessive amounts of potential, southland tales squanders their teeny mass with a magnitude of star power. i mean, fuck, look at the line up: dwayne “the rock” johnson [walking tall, the rundown], justin timberlake [alpha dog], mandy moore [american dreamz, a walk to remember], sarah michelle gellar [of buffy fame], sean william scott [american pie series], jon lovitz [s.n.l. star], kevin smith [infamous scribe of dogma, clerks, etc.], john larroquette [boston legal, mcbride], just to name a few. now before you scoff at the list i just presented (mandy moore? justin timberlake? HA), watch some of their more intimate serious roles. they are really quite talented actresses/actors respectively.

onward. to cap off the seemingly endless possibilities of cult classic-dom, richard kelly pulled double duty as writer and director. richard kelly is the man who brought every little indie hipster the midnight movie classic donnie darko. yeah, that guy. looking at the line-up, i loved the movie. i watched the trailer with soaring expectations; it looked epic.

the movie is a jumbled, chaotic mess of intangible plot threads and dead pan acting. i really like the rock as a performer [save for scorpion king] but he got caught up in a terrible mess this time around. let’s first pry into the plot: it’s in a psuedo-post apocalyptic united states where republican dominance has led to an orwellian society, where big brother not only watches but kills. political ambiance is relevant, as is an obligatory oil emergency message and terrible sub plots.

kelly has one oversize problem; he packs too many complicities into the film. none of the machinations can fully flesh out, thus causing each one to become contrived and cut off far before climax. other annoyances include lack of logic, unexplained or poorly explained twists, and a random supernatural time travel paradox. i understand mister kelly, he enjoys penning time travel, but he pushing it with darko. in southland tales, he goes from nearly illogical to incredibly unreasonable, i’d say even to the point of complete and utter nonsense.

nearly every talented actor takes a nose dive, the rock and gellar taking the brunt of the blast [with scott a close second]. one missing piece to this multifaceted puzzle is soul; every role is deprived of soul, they’re just occupations. it was if kelly told them to mime their roles and dubbed voice in later; it’s slow, tired, boring and overall lacking substance.

one surprise was justin timberlake. he was literally the only redeeming quality of the entire span of the mess. he plays his role with spirit and vibrant flair with a whimsical and catchy musical number near the end of the movie. i loved donnie darko, it will always hold a special place in my heart. southland tales? it deserves a place in the incinerator.

bottom line: what a piece of shit. i fell asleep, like, four times. it never made sense. i had to look up the plot line four or five times just so i could follow along. cars have sex in it. yeah, vehicular intercourse. it’s fucking stupid.

the movie is comparable to: throwing your brain into a blender, turning your eyes into kaleidoscopes and walking around in a tye-dye maze, wanting to die, epic movie