PIST-OFF

The plot of this movie is so convoluted and stupid it defies description. They took a buddy picture/road movie and threw in as many try hard non-sequitur jokes as possible.... and none of it sticks. Maybe if you can suspend any level of belief and truly embrace the absurdity of this it might be enjoyable, but for me it was a snooze fest. It doesn't help that jim belushi even at the best of times has an acting range equivalent or less than most hollywood animal actors and as much charisma as a cardboard cut out of his more famous brother. I just couldn't do this. At several times during it's brief run time the movie seemed like it was challenging me to try to make it through..

Perhaps with an animate group of people with enough liquor in them to make anything amusing, this movie could qualify as "enertaining" but as a movie itself..... it is first and foremost a vanity project for the director/ "star" in that he does his best to make himself look and act cool. Think kurt russell if kurt russell had never met another human being. It is no mean feat as the director has about as much on screen personality as a piece of furniture. This is obviously a skin flick rip-off of indiana jones and the temple of doom, but minus even a hint of charisma or any semblance of trying to balance the tone. As noted elsewhere it can go from 4th grade level of humor to gore in a about two minutes. Would not recommend.

So as things stand this is a pretty decent movie that poses a tough moral question and ponders it against a (sort of) exploration of the nature of profound male loneliness (a topic all too fitting in the early 21st century). The performances are fine, special effects are good, pacing, etc. But i couldn't shake the feeling that it's ethical questions are plenty ripe for exploration instead of what really amounts to not much more than a meet-cute in space.

For instance, what happens if you simply gender swap around the lead characters? A woman haunted by loneliness essentially murders a man to serve her own desires.

Or if you want to get spicier, what happens if she wakes up a really handsome man, but it turns out he is homosexual? Or what if the man is not (like chris pratt) conventionally attractive? Imagine a physically repulsive man waking up a beautiful woman. Does his crime become greater? And again gender swap that for an ugly woman waking up a george clooney type who then proceeds to show no interest in her...... hell, even changing the relatives sizes of the leads throws different psychological developments into the plot.... say 6'7" brian posehn opens up the pod of 4'11" kristin chenoweth. How does that effect the dynamic.

Likewise there's some very dark horror themes that could be mined with such premises. A man wakes up a woman, she doesn't like him, so he kills her and wakes up another..... repeat. Or a person wakes up, spends a year or two alone, goes mad, and begins waking people up simply to hunt and kill them.

The point is, the foundational premise of this movie could be explored in far better ways than a meet-cute between two attractive actors. As is however, it does a lot with very little.