| Overall Grade: |
C+ |
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| Story: |
C+ |
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| Acting: |
C+ |
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| Direction: |
F |
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| Visuals: |
B+ |
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How Did A Movie Start So Wild End So Idle?
by Eric (movies profile)
Sep 7, 2007
10
of
11 people found this review helpful
I think I'm just mad at this point. Halfway through Idlewild, I swore up and down this was going to make my top ten list almost certainly. It is vibrant, joyful, and whimsical beyond all belief. But then, somewhere about 45 minutes into the movie, it just went....wrong. How? It doesn't make sense and it probably never will for me.
Idlewild is a musical set in the 1930s starring the members of popular hip-hop icons Outkast (whose work didn't impress me before). It's about two childhood friends Percival (Andre Benjamin) and Rooster (Antoine Patton). Percival was the straight kid, son of a mortician (Ben Vereen) who learned to play the piano. Rooster was the wild card, learning how to manage money, booze and women from a very young age. They grow up to be a mortician and a song-and-dance second-in-command man, respectively. Percy also plays the piano at Rooster's club known as Church. Inside church, the music is great, the dancing just as good, and Macy Gray is a singing the opening act. Rooster is the main attraction. But as this movie opens, a very beautiful singer (Paula Patton) shows up, Rooster's boss along with his father figure are killed by a lowlife thug (Terrence Howard). And things are about to shake up. Sounds awesome, right?
This is where things start going downhill. Slowly at first, then a deep drop into the last half-hour. Characters that are set up perfectly are not ever paid off. And which ones that are weren't used effectively. The amazing song and dance sequences of the opening act are nowhere near to be found during the rest of the film. And on top of that Percy and Rooster, which should be a double act if there ever was one, aren't but in a couple of scenes together, and never get to play off each other. How can you start off with singing cookoo clocks and end with a gunfight with as much inginuity of a made-for-TV movie? This makes no sense to me that where things are wild and fun at the beginning becomes so boring at the end. It doesn't even feel like the same movie.
Another movie felt the same way, in my opinion: The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which also starts off with a bang and ends with something even less than a whimper. I loved it's massive song and dance sequences at the beginning with amazing theatrics and athletic skill. I loved the visual imagry of the cookoo clocks and seeing notes come to life on the page. I love these characters and what they began to be. I missed them so much halfway into the movie when their clones replaced them. And that ending was TERRIBLE! I don't know what the effect was supposed to be, but it failed. It's too depressing to be done for the audiance. It's too stupid to be done for the sake of artistry.
Acting-wise, it's amazing to see great performances to go to waste because it isn't consistent to the story it tells. The only one that is the throughout is Terrence Howard, who only proves to be Marlon Brando's true heir again in this movie. He has little to say or do, but what he does do is electrifying. I only wished he would have had a dance or singing scene to add to the whimsy. And how can you get Ben Vereen into your movie and not have him do what he does best? And why build up a perfect one-two combo with Benjamin and Patton if they're not going to so much as once play off each other? It makes no sense at all.
For this, I'm pinning all blame on writer/director Bryan Barber and editor Anne Goursaud who probably completely forgot what kind of movie they were making halfway through the project. I have to wonder what reels remained, what scenes cut out that the last half seemed to have completely erased out of the movie. I probably shouldn't say any more or else I might be ready to draw fresh blood from those responsible.
All in all, I think I'm going to lie down, try to forget half what I just saw. Then I'm going to write my own ending, one where Percy and Rooster actually did something together and there was a major dance sequence at the end with enough firepower to light a small third-world nation. But at the same time, it can't be said that this movie isn't whimsical. If only more great movies had this much whimsy, we might be in an age of exciting cinema. |
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