Review: xXx 2: State of The Union
Ice Cube, Samuel L Jackson, that guy from that other movie...Rating: 2 / 10
The phrase "Steaming pile of shit" is thrown around pretty lightly these days. Just recently I heard my grandmother use it to describe an entry in the church cake baking contest at which she was a celebrity judge.
And so, it's quite a disappointment for me to admit that this universally applicable phrase, once so descriptive, is the one I have chosen for use here today in this here movie review.
Don't take it lightly. Don't hear it, and imagine that I'm talking about a broken fingernail, or the state of your loungeroom carpet after the cat cleaned out a bowl of curry that somebody left lying around. No no.
Imagine the brown.
It's not a single lump .. It's a collection of coiling ropes, each with its own individual lumps. Each rope, snaking its way around the previous one, as well as collecting on top.. Winding, winding, spiralling.. Sometimes a rope stops short and falls towards the centre, only to be crossed by the following as it works its way once more to the Mr. Whippy-like perfection that can be expected from only the most skilled anus. Topped with hundreds and thousands, nuts, and maybe a little caramel syrup.
And steaming. Lots of steam.
Computer generated steam! You heard me! It wasn't enough to just go out and find the perfect pile of shit, warm it up for a few minutes in the microwave and try to get the lighting right quickly enough for a few good shots .. nono. They filmed it cold. Dead cold. Room temperature cold. Then, they added the steam later in post production!
The pile of shit in question here today is composed of so many individual lumps and crevaces and holes with homeless people living in them that to try to pick out any one in particular would be to diminish the effect of the whole. You can't say "It would've been better if this bit had been a little more sloppy, so as to allow it to bend more fluidly as it passed over this other piece", because that gives you the impression that the other piece wasn't so bad.
You have to take it as a whole. You have to see it from a distance to understand the intended effect before you can get up close and really smell the component parts.
Though the masks that the ops guys wore were pretty cool.
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