snazel

You really need to ask yourself if you love the Pistols and the general era of the late 70's. If you do, the film will fall flat for you.

The details are all wrong, the key incidents of the band and Sid's involvement with them are way off. The personalities of key people are wrong, some characters just made up, rather sloppily too.

So we can forgive it for being a wholly inaccurate of Sid Vicious' life. Fine, but so then what we are left with is a basic love story. It fails at this too, mostly because Nancy is written out pure spite and misogyny. She is therefore not only unlikable but wholly uninteresting.

You never believe the love story, because quite frankly Nancy isn't really written as a human being, just a series of tropes about junkies and that awful idea that women are shrews that stifle men's creativity.

The truth is Nancy was much more physically beautiful than this film wishes to admit. She was also quite charming, in fact, if you know junkie culture, you know that charm, deadly psychotic charm is a key way to survive and support your habit. None of that is shown here, so that ability for junkies to convince others they are clean, or kind or honest is obliterated.

Nancy was smarter than this film gives credit for (yes even though she was a junkie), with more charisma too and if they had written her that way it would make for a better film.

The real Sid fell in love with a real human being, a flawed one to be sure, but the kind of junkie a lot of us could fall for. In this film she's just a very nasty series of dull, obvious tropes.

Just about everyone intimately involved with the Sex Pistols has disowned this film.

I think there are moments of visual poetry in this film, I think Gary Oldman's performance is excellent, but the script is a Hollywood hackneyed attempt to reduce the Sex Pistols to every stereotype and narrow prejudice those who were never punks have always harbored about the punk movement.

It's sad because there is some real craft to this film, it had tremendous potential, but ultimately you can just never believe Sid would fall for this less-than-human harpy. Sad because there's a real reason Nancy swept Sid off his feet.

The truth, in this case, is not only stranger than fiction, it was also far more compelling.

There are times when Jim Carrey is absolutely dreadful and this is one of those times.

He is an actor that is bad when he approaches film like it is theater, and winds up exaggerating each movement, gesture and expression as a result.

If the movie had refined the script, found a better director (Schumaker is one of Hollywood's worst of all time), and put dampers on Carrey's insistence to eat the scenery if left unchecked, this film might have been something.

As it stands now, this movie is probably the 23rd worst movie of all-time, coming in just slightly worse than Batman & Robin.

It is very easy to describe what is wrong with this film. There's a legitimate case to be made that the film is culturally abusive and myopic, and the humor in the film is often stale, forced and dysfunctional. It is much harder however to describe what is right with this film, and why overall I enjoyed watching it.

To begin with, as much as Jack Black's channeling of Ricardo Montalban seems offensive, and cheap, there is some love given to Mexico in the film. Specifically the camera demonstrates the beauty of Oaxaca splendidly – and the director of photography uses every opportunity to show the audience the rich, and impressive landscape of Oaxaca, as well as its impressive and unique architecture.

The music that blends with the film, is also eclectic, and interesting, I found myself wondering what interesting song I would hear next as the film progressed. The Elfman composed ambiance is good, Jack Black's compositions are designed to be over the top, but the real gold lies in the genuine music that is sprinkled throughout the movie.

The story however has some serious warts. The pale allusion to the trials of Moses (and his slow, arching struggle against Ramses), never really flies. I get the metaphor of the "godless idols" being slowly defeated by a man with religious and morale conviction to free his children from starvation, but it was never really hammered home. As such, the general struggle of Nacho never truly captivates you, and of course the ending can be seen a mile away. There are also a lot of superfluous elements to the film, little diversions that go nowhere and stifle the ability to build real interest in the main characters.

I have to say though, that the wrestling in the film is downright entertaining. I am not a pro-wrestling fan by any stretch of the imagination, but some of the athleticism and impressive choreography in the "fight" scenes, resemble a ballet more than a fight, albeit a crude ballet of elephants and freakish dwarfs, but a ballet none the less.

The direction is quirky, unique and somewhat interesting to watch, the film is light, never takes itself seriously, and has one or two moments where the actors wink directly at you along the way. Watching the camera work was very interesting, and I thought overall the film was crafted well, but could have used some serious overhaul in the script and story. The comedy falls flat in this movie and far too often to really be forgiven.

I spent some time in the state of Oaxaca in the early 90's. I had forgotten how beautiful a place it was. This film reminded me of that beauty, with some spectacular shots of its bright blue sky, its lush green mountains, and architecture that blends so well with the overall landscape. For that reminder, I was grateful. So the landscape coupled with the wrestling scenes (that are fun to watch if you enjoy well-rehearsed and well-timed slapstick) was enough for me to enjoy the film, but probably not enough for me to recommend it without prejudice to others.