Are you kidding me?
BOTTOM LINE: Everyone I went to see the movie with said, I thought the American was the worst movie ever, but this one takes the cake.
Today I went to see this movie with my movie-watching pals. And guess what, us and the rest of the audience were all laughing and making fun of how bad the movie was. The scene right before the last one was so unbearably bad, everyone was laughing so hard that you could not hear anything else besides laughter, and the last scene really killed it.
Lets start with the good. The visuals were very flashy, nice lightning and good camera angles, everything the new movies have. The sound was good, and the music sounded pretty, and was appropriate for the scenes. The comedy scenes were indeed funny, and the action moments were finely-paced, and captured my attention. Costume design was fine too.
Now for the bad. This movie feels like another one of those flicks where a director cannot decide whether its a comedy or an action movie, so it ended up as something in between (Its far from Machete though). I can't go as far as to say that comedy or drama scenes decide to suddenly barge into the plot as they did in Tidal Wave or The Host. But, I must state that in order for a movie to be fully a comedy, every scene must contain jokes. Here, in action scenes there was nothing funny - the action scenes, just like in any ACTION movie, focused on intense fighting, CGI, and gushing blood. What I'm trying to say is, this movie lacks consistent flow.
The movie has a back story, then you slowly watch it fall apart, and in the end, you realize the "plot gives up before you do". The dialogue is laughable, and the majority of lines are so cheesy, if you look closely at any actor's lips, they are shaking - the actor is trying not to laugh! And speaking about emotions, the protagonist barely has any emotions to show at all. Also, whatever he says is mixed with heavy accent, just like early movies with Schwarzenegger. Its fun to see Arnold kick behind in his movies, but what does Dong-gun Jang show? That's right, poker face.
Some people say that its a comedy, and you're supposed to laugh whenever something looks or sounds cheesy, because that's what the director intended. But guess what - its only funny in the right context! With an inconsistent flow of slapstick "Shaolin Soccer" goofs mixed with "Crouching Tiger-Hidden Dragon" action scenes, the only thing the viewer ends up getting is garbled information. I always compare movies to other types of art, because really, movie-making is a type of art. Are people supposed to laugh at Picasso's paintings because they may seem strange? What about when a musician messes up on stage during a solo concert?
BOTTOM LINE: Everyone said, I thought the American was the worst movie ever, but this one takes the cake.