Favorite Lines from the Audience:

• "Is that Lowell?"
• "Ice T!"
• "No, not the midget Elvis!"
• "My friends and I used to wish that we had a midget friend that we could just hang out with... "
• "Hey baby, you party?"
• "Worst SWAT Team Ever!"
• "No! Lowell can't kill Ice T! No way in hell that happens!"

Favorite Lines from the Movie:

• "So, was he really your old man?"
• "I didn’t leave him with a stranger, I left him with you!"
• "Go make sure that everybody’s ok"
• "Great. I get bitch. Alright!"
• "You're not afraid of me. You're afraid of you!" (followed by intense laughter from the crowd)
• "Murph, was he really your old man?" (Howie Long may be up for the worst dying declaration ever recorded on film)

Reviews

Red Sonja

I have this rule. I really think of it as a rule to live by. A rule that would probably benefit all of mankind were it ever instated worldwide. I call it the Kevin Costner Rule. It is a short and simple rule. If Kevin Costner is in a film, I will not pay to see it. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES! I have lived quite blissfully with this rule for a decade, or at least since Dances With Wolves came out (and it was only bearable because Costner rarely had to speak). These TNMC rat bastards convinced me to break this rule for this movie. I though hey, its Elvis and I love the King. Its Kurt Russell and he is ususally right on the money (Soldier not withstanding). So I went. And regretted it from the moment Costner came on to the scene. And to make matters worse he came onto the scene with David Arquette!

Arquette is neck and neck with David Spade for the award for worst actor to ever continually show up in major motion pictures. I prefer to think of it as the curse of the Davids (Arquette, Spade, and Hasselhoff - my apologies to the German people in the audience). I mean David Arquette makes Keanu Reeves look like Tom Hanks, and Reeves only has one emotion (that emotion being personified by "dude, duh."). In short David Arquette is the real life Forest Gump, only dumber. How the hell did he live so long (in real life and this movie).

Despite how bad Arquette was, Jon Lovitz was even worse. I know its hard to believe, but its true. Lovitz always was a one trick pony, and that one trick wore out its welcome in 1992. There is plenty of blame to go around in this disaster. I love Ice T, but how the hell did he wind up mixed up in this? I really hope they paid him a lot.

The plethora of bad acting here was only topped by the thouroughly crappy direction of the film. All of the quick flashes from shot to shot made my head spin. It was so bad half way through I got confused and thought it was 1985 and I was trapped in a 2 1/2 hour episode of Miami Vice. Yes, this piece of crap is 2 1/2 + hours long.

I gave the movie 1 1/2 stars because there a few positive things. First we did cackle at several "gripping" and/or "dramatic" scenes. As much as I hate Costner's acting, he deserves credit for keeping a straight face during that absurd scene where he is pulled over by a local yokel sheriff (who is driving a 1975 police cruser I swear was used in Gator. One of Burt Reynolds most underrated films.) and things immediately degenerate into the showdown at the OK Corral. I don't see how he didn't break out in laughter there. We sure did. Additionally Kurt Russell did his best to keep things afloat, but that was impossible with the crap he has to deal with here. We also got to see half of Courtney Cox's naked ass, which is a high point for nudity in this day and age. I wonder where we are when it is acceptable to show 30 or more people blown away in a casino gunfight, but god fobid a naked breast show up on screen. However that is long rant better suited for other places. In conclusion, it speaks volumes when Howie Long is the best thing about a picture, and David Arquette (despite his best efforts) is not the worst.

Shankster

The movies have been so bad as of late I had to check out my last few reviews to figure out how many stars to give this piece of crap. It was better then Valentine and might have been better then Dude, Where's My Car?, but from an enjoyment stand point they all sucked. I don't know what else to say, I feel like I've covered this ground before. There are no real redeeming moments in the movie. If I'm reaching I can point to Ice T's character as a small bright spot in a ridiculously long and boring movie. I think the word ridiculous is a good description for this movie. It's a ridiculous and appalling notion that I spent $7 and wasted 2 1/2 hours of my life to watch this monstrosity. I hope the next movie we see has a few more redeeming qualities.

Dogburt

From its comical beginning to its disastrous end, "3KMTG" was what you might expect when you try to use an actual atomic bomb in your special effects. Sure, it may look kinda pretty from a distance with all those colors and everything, but eventually you begin to feel the heat and when the force of the bomb hits you it melts the skin off your bones. The end result is that you feel a few pounds lighter and your head is gone.

Where to start, I ask? Where indeed to start? Well, you could possibly begin with the most inane introduction to a non-animation movie that I have EVER seen... I mean, two digitally created scorpions fighting it out in the desert? I’ve seen better FMV sequences on my Playstation. Well, the two scorpions fight and stuff, and then one of them kills the other- it’s symbolic, you see. The movie will track the adventures of two opposing forces and one will prevail in the end, see? Anyway...

The adventure ensues when a couple of guys who apparently have a history together but we’re never offered an explanation for it team up to rob a casino during Elvis impersonation week. So you’ve got Kevin "Waterworld" Costner, Kurt "Silent Soldier" Russell, David Arquette-Cox, Christian "I once was compared to a young Jack Nicholson" Slater, and Bokeem "I’m the African-American Elvis" Woodbine, all teaming up for a huge heist and the end result is that they steal the money while killing lots of people, yet the Vegas show still goes on. Throw in trailer-trash clepto-mommy Courtney Cox (Hi Davey!) and her trailer-trash clepto son, and you’ve got a truly rollicking cast. And oh yeah, Howie "Firestorm" Long makes an appearance as the friendliest, cleanest-cut looking bad guy I’ve ever seen. It’s funny that the plot outline on IMDB says that this movie is about a casino heist, because all of that stuff happens in the first thirty minutes. The rest of the movie goes downhill, if you can imagine falling any farther.

Anyway, here are some of what we commonly call "plot-holes..."

1. Costner’s Murphy is supposed to be a badass who tries to kill everyone, yet early on when Afro-Elvis gets offed, he for some reason has to 'take a moment’ to collect himself after French kissing Woodbine. Ok, so he was giving CPR, but still... ew.
2. How the heck did all these guys meet up? How did Long get hooked up in the mix? He seems like a pretty decent guy.
3. What the heck is wrong with Cox’s Cybil? She abandons her son for money and then convinces the bad guy to give it up to get the kid back. Wait a sec... who’s the idiot here?
4. After Cybil gets kicked to the curb by Murphy and has her son kidnapped, how in the world does she get to Michael’s boat so fast? And another thing... Murphy takes the kid hostage, but never bothers to find out if mommy knows where the money is?
5. When you use a laser siting on your automatic weapon, that’s supposed to help your aim improve, right?
6. How far can one-time legitimate movie stars truly fall???

I never thought the sound of bullet fire could put me to sleep, but as this debacle crept past the two hour mark I found myself wanting everyone to die so that I could go home. The end scene is perhaps one of the most preposterous I’ve ever witnessed, as Murphy suddenly becomes invincible, has a soft, touching, bonding moment with the kid who tried to steal his money, gets lit up like a Christmas tree with sniper sitings yet manages to avoid being hit for a solid minute of rapid gunfire, and we are treated to Ice-T coming to the rescue by pirouetting in some freakish Matrix-like maneuver from the ceiling and meets his sudden demise having only uttered two lines, one of which involved requesting a jelly sandwich. And finally we have Howie Long, wearing a lovely powder-blue turtleneck sweater, who gives his life to save Murph, and can only utter what is without a doubt the worst dying phrase I’ve ever heard. If I ever see Howie on the streets in C’ville I’m going to ask him how he can possibly show his face in the Fox studios after this career move. I’ll bet Bradshaw and Collinsworth would have the time of their lives.

And at last, the bad scorpion is dead. Well, the worst scorpion anyway. The other bad scorpion gets away scott free with $3 million in cash, a hot girl on his arm, and an idiot kid to teach life’s lessons to.

Painful? Oh yes. Folks, I couldn’t make up this crap if I tried. But wait, there’s more. In a final slap in the face, they do some wacko Something About Mary sing-along during the closing credits where everybody is suddenly alive again and Russell gets to act like the King. Oh lordy.

The lone redeeming value? A decent soundtrack and some tunes by Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

So it’s the worst movie ever, right? Well, Valentine and Double Take also came out this year... but I do think I need to go watch Crouching Tiger again just to cleanse myself from this mess.

Batman

I'm getting a little fed up with trailers and tv ads that promise a movie totally unlike the one actually being advertised. Coyote Ugly pulled this stunt last year, promising acres of T&A only to deliver sappy schmaltz instead. 3,000 Miles to Graceland does the same thing. The adds promise an offbeat comedy when the movie is actually heist/action flick. That kind of bait and switch doesn't tend to endear the movie to me. It wouldn't have mattered though, this movie earned a bad rating on its own merits.

This has to be one of the most violent movies in recent memory. Thousand, possibly millions of rounds of ammunition are fired, almost none of which hits anyone. The movie starts with a gang of thieves dressed as Elvis impersonators attempting to rob a casino. Their plan seems a bit sketchy. Minor details are smoothed over by gunning down security guards and customers by the dozens.

This takes about thirty minutes to conclude and the remaining couple hours are spent as head thieves Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell battle for control of the loot. The rest of the gang is quickly dispatched, Bokeem Woodbine's character is first in keeping with a long standing dumb Hollywood tradition. Caught in the middle of this battle is a trailer trash waitress played by Courtney Cox and her light fingered son.

The plot has more holes than Clinton's pardon excuses. Logic and physics are quickly jettisoned in favor of flashy camera pyrotechnics that hope to dazzle you into not noticing the idiocy in front of you. This movie is so poorly thought out that it never stops to consider the general ickiness of an eleven year old boy creeping into his mom's bedroom to swipe the wallet of the guy who is nailing her. It also fails to properly account for her abandoning the kid with said gentleman later in the movie so she can make some cash.

The movie completely falls apart at the end as we are treated to one of the most ludicrous gun battles ever presented on screen. Kevin Costner seems to be swiping a scene from Terminator 2 as he guns down what has to be the world's worst SWAT team all by himself without sustaining any damage. Even with laser sites, this SWAT team couldn't hit the broad side of Costner's ego.

In concept I think this had the potential to be a good movie but it appears all the thought went into the director's flashy editing and camera tricks. That left no thought for the plot which was clearly on life support at the start of this production.

Related Items:

• "The Missing" Trailer
• 13 Ghosts (2001)
• 13 Ghosts (2001)
• 13 Going On 30
• 2000 Virginia Film Festival - Day 2

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