Pages

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

The FP


  This movie is a little ball of weirdness. I'd love to have been there when they were thinking it up. It must have been something like... "Hey! Great idea... let's make a movie where two gangs settle their differences with the deadly sport of... DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION!" Yeah. They ran with that too apparently. Nonetheless, I'm glad that they did.  It's on the plane of quirkiness with Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Detention, Black Dynamite and John Dies at the End. All Movies I wholehearted love watching. As I type this, The FP is growing on me. I have no doubt I'm going to end up watching it again.

  Of course, they can't actually use the title 'Dance Dance Revolution', so instead it's called 'Beat Beat Revolution'. Whether it was by design or necessity, it led to one of the greatest lines to ever grace a movie. Ever. "I challenge you to a BEAT OFF!" Try saying that, out loud, sounding and looking serious without laughing... at all. It's freaking impossible. Yet all the actors in this shlocky b-movie carry every intentionally ridiculous line with total and unflinching seriousness. This movie isn't cut for comedic timing. That's precisely the point though. It's parodying alot of 80's movies. From The Karate Kid to any Rocky sequel of your choosing, along with The Warriors and even Mad Max. None of those movies are comedies. So to make fun of those movies it has to mimic precisely what's endearing about them. Including their melodramatic seriousness.

  The amount of subtle nods to other movies of the era and genre are aplenty. The main character alone looks like a Snake Plissken clone. This is just the icing on the cake for the FP, because it can stand entirely on it's own merits. It isn't so overt with it's nods that it becomes a spoof. It's a loving parody of a whole genre and the era it thrived in, as well as saying something about the current state of things and what's to come. It's not saying much... but it's saying something.   With main characters named things like "L Dubba E" and "Jtro" it's impossible to not see the humor in this movie. Anyone who doesn't is probably too uptight for this brand of silliness and it's advised they stay far away. For everyone else? If you can dig this kind of silly flick where in the 'future' the deadliest of differences between two 'vicious' gangs are settled over a Dance Dance Revolution showdown... then dig in! You'll like it. I bet.

No comments:

Post a Comment