Somehow I'm only watching this film at age 29 although John Carpenter helped raise me. Halloween was a big tastemaker in my formative years and The Thing was an obsession during puberty. They Live is a coming-of-age movie for me and I have a lukewarm romance with The Fog. Memoirs of an Invisible Man was a childhood favorite. But somehow Big Trouble never entered my radar. Never saw it on TV or for rental, so thank you, Netflix.
So it was less than I expected but perhaps I expected too much. Overall, I enjoyed it and respect it more than I did before watching it. Out of the gate, Carpenter is an old-school exploitation master with a great minimalist style, a wide range of directorial influences and a very mean, cold, moody sense of humor. I don't think any of his films are masterpieces, but they all took genre filmmaking to the next level. The things that don't work in BTILC are the same things that never work in Carpenter movies: sluggish energy, befuddled sense of narrative, cardboard characters and a kind of last-century moralism. I don't know if its because he was working on a big Hollywood exec type of crowd-pleaser or if he had a cocaine habit forming, but BT is his most schizophrenic and messy film. Its equal parts surprising, fashion-forward and childlike in its play as it is excessive, rushed, hollow, lacking in chemistry and borderline stupid. I think that schism works for most people, especially 80s kids who just focus on the dated style, looniness and special effects. Its comparable to 1986's Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 in its lurid visuals, empty script and cocaine-fueled slapstick - another film by a 1970s horror icon trying to go Spielberg. That film was a Cannon movie and Big Trouble feels like the movie Cannon forgot to make.
It wears its influences on its sleeve: Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Back To The Future, Gremlins, John Wayne movies and James Bond. The film is in many ways a remake (or ripoff) of the 007 film "Live And Let Die". Our white swashbuckler gets caught up in an urban world of organized crime and old world magic, must rescue a damsel from a magician who wants to marry her and. It even steals LALD's double ending where a villain dies by inflation and then the credits roll as our hero drives off with a surviving magic villain laughing on the back of his vehicle. Its a perfect hodgepodge for Carpenter in theory but I suspect deadlines sabotaged the whole affair. The script is god awful. The jokes are flat and the narrative is horrid. Its all carried by Kurt Russell and some awesome production design and special fx.
Even the best Carpenter films are flimsy and devoted to style and mood more than anything. While Halloween and Thing have great themes and good casts, the themes are broad and work as backdrops to the visuals and the acting and characterization is always muted in favor of one liners and 2d archetypes. BTILC dials that up to zero and allows Carpenter to make the 50s comic book he always wanted to make, free from story and any poetic meaning. None of his films are bogged down by their predictable and elementary plots. But whenever I watch his movies, I just wonder what he could've done with a mature screenwriter or a more classy producer. Carpenter kept working in Hollywood for quite a long period and the movies are all serviceable and interesting, but still schlock and anti-intellectual. Big Trouble feels like the closest he ever got to a big budget blockbuster. Someone was obviously trying him out as the next Spielberg or Zemeckis and while he's arguably more idiosyncratic and equally as talented, he just wasn't on the same level in terms of professionalism and manipulating the system. Maybe he never wanted be. Its possible that he was happy being the king of B-movies.
In summary, Big Trouble is a mixed but mostly positive popcorn movie experience and an important moment for an important filmmaker. Even if you come out of it unimpressed or maybe offended, this is a movie that has influenced a lot of stuff. From the Mortal Kombat games to Eddie Murphy's The Golden Child to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Its amazing how all of Carpenter's earlier films have defined different generations of genre fans.
No comments:
Post a Comment