Movie Details
| Title: | Smokin' Aces | |
| Director: | Joe Carnahan | |
| Year: | 2007 | |
| Genre: | Action | |
| Times Seen: | 3 | |
| Last Seen: | 04.09.23 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (3)
- The A-Team
- The Grey
- Stretch
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 04.09.23 | Internet | This movie popped up a few times lately. I'd forgotten Jason Bateman was in it, I'd forgotten Chris Pine was in it, Tarantino mentioned it as basically a whole movie about the end of True Romance, and Joe Carnahan was on Joe Dante's podcast. These together made me interested in seeing it again. Funny enough, I only remember seeing this at a Butt-Numb-A-Thon years ago and halfway sleeping through it, but checking my notes I actually watched it a year later because I didn't trust my BNAT experience. It seems like I liked it in those two screenings. Less so tonight. It does have quite a cast that has only grown with time. Taraji P. Henson, Ben Affleck, Peter Berg, Tommy Flanagan, Joel Edgerton, some before they really broke out. And the structure of the film is quite fun where all these groups of bad hombres converge, but it seems like last time I liked the action and this time I didn't. They don't REALLY converge much. A couple random things happen and there's like two or three minutes of mayhem but this time around I saw it more as a missed opportunity than this clever climax. And my previous criticisms still stand. The ending with its weird forced twist is a thousand percent telegraphed with clunky exposition that stands out amid the sea of exposition that is the first act of this movie. I kept waiting for more intersections between these groups of people and got some knockoff Usual Suspects bullshit instead. And Andy Garcia's accent goes on a road trip throughout his speech while Ryan Reynolds acts as much as he can. In the end, it's really just a missed opportunity. Great cast, fun concept, disappointing. |
| 02.14.07 | Internet | I decided to watch this again because I don't quite trust my BNAT memory with the last two films. Surprisingly enough however, I didn't see anything that I don't remember so although I was heavy-lidded through about half of it last December, I guess it all soaked in. Therefore, I feel largely the same about it. I like all the characters but it's like an hour long set-up for 5 minutes of spectacular violence then a reeeeeally long coda where you learn a bunch of useless information that you don't care about. And since I had a clock nearby this time, I could double check to make sure. The introductory speach that sets up the framework of the movie and introduces all the characters is 20 minutes long. Seriously. Then there's an hour of further set-up. An hour. then it's really good then the last 15 minutes are slow and pretty much meaningless. But whatever. I like set-up... I like all the characters. The only thing is I feel like since there's so many cool hitman characters, I never spend any time with any of them. they're all barely in the movie. This is a movie where a comic book prequel series or line of action figures would actually really help (like Star Wars). I feel like the real story has all happened before the movie starts and we just see the end of everything. That's ok, I guess... Still a fun movie for the most part, although it feels a bit meth-induced. |
| 12.10.06 | Alamo Downtown | This Screening is part of event: Butt-Numb-A-Thon 8 There was supposed to be a Joe Carnahan video intro but it wasn't here yet so they just played the movie: another very pleasant surprise because I knew it was gonna be really energetic and keep me up. um.. well here's how the movie's structured. there's like a half hour of really intricate exposition followed by a half hour of really awesome violence followed by a half hour of really needless explanation. I tried my best in the first part, woke right up for the second part, and slowly faded for the third part. The violence is pretty damn cool... Tarantino/Guy Ritchie type stuff... but the ending got really unecessary and the beginning... I'll probably like the beginning more when I'm fully awake for it. Jason Bateman is great in the two scenes he's in though. Not a bad movie, pretty fun. I remember liking it ok, excusing a few little details. |
