GONE IN 60 SECONDS (2000)

Steal 50 cars in 72 hours. That’s the gist of the entire story.

Nicolas Cage is the greatest car thief in the known universe. But he’s retired. So, in order to pull off a needlessly overly complicated job in an unnecessarily short amount of time, gangster Christopher Eccleston threatens to force Cage’s lil’ brother, Giovanni Ribisi, to watch a Will Smith movie…or was it kill him? Hum, I can’t remember. Either way it’s a horrible punishment and Cage understands the seriousness of the situation. So, he assembles a 2 kool 4 skool group of forgettable dorks (and Robert Duvall) to help him steal 50 high-end whips in 72 hours. At the same time, there are two police detectives (Delroy Lindo and Timothy Olyphant) following leads and eventually discovering the invention of the blacklight.

GONE IN 60 SECONDS is an interesting callback to the dark days before the Fast & Furious movies and it helps me appreciate the series even more than I already do. On paper, 60 Seconds has the ingredients for an awesome cheesy guilty pleasure fast car movie, but, sadly, it’s unable to turn those ingredients into an awesome movie. Instead, it’s just kinda…meh. There are no standout moments, the characters are all one-dimensional, the car chases are boring, almost zero regard by any of the characters concerning the immediate danger they’re in, the dialog is forgettable bland chatter, most of the acting is on cruise control and the entire look of the film is just off. Like why are all the daytime scenes so brown?

I've seen GONE IN 60 SECONDS a few times over the years and every single time I go into it hoping that it's gonna be awesome and that maybe last time I saw it I was wrong, but then I watch it and end up thinking "This is it?" It's disappointing because, beforehand, in my handsome brain I see this insanely awesome story full of colourful characters and badass action, but then the reality is a simplistic, by-the-numbers car chase movie...with boring car chases. Overall, it's a watchable film, but it misses that spark that would make it dope. Also, I could never get over the fact that our heroes are literally car thieves! So, like no matter what their reasonings are…they’re still causing innocent people massive hardships due to their property being stolen. And we're suppose to be rooting for these people? Fuck them. And don’t even get me started on the innocent people injured from all of the car wrecks.

Also, for no reason in particular, I wanna give a quick shoutout to whoever did the casting for THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS. You deserve a Gallo 12 and a Gallo 24.

Original - Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)

MONSTER MAN (2003)

Two annoying hyperdouchers, who cannot die soon enough, are on a road trip (on a backroad that seems to get very little traffic) when they're revved up on by a post-apocalyptic-looking monster truck. Later on, they’re joined by a hitchhiker. It’s exciting stuff.

I can only assume that MONSTER MAN was made as a JEEPERS CREEPERS clone. If so, then that’s cool, because JC wasn’t very good and it would therefore be an easy idea to improve upon. Or so you would think. I originally saw MONSTER MAN, back when it was a New Release on DVD, and (I think) I remember kinda liking it. (I most likely did because I own an ancient copy of it.) But time hasn’t been kind to MM and sitting through it again for this review was a fucking chore. Mainly because the two main characters are insufferable. Especially the dude named Harley. He wasn’t on the screen for even 15 seconds before I wanted to dropkick his goofy ass into the Creeper’s dead body pipe hole.

Slow pace, extremely annoying dialogue, zero nudity, very little blood or gore, most of the movie tinted in a weird orange and/or blue filter, overacting galore, weak direction, a very dude-heavy cast, disappointing ending, a lot of lines delivered as though they were jokes even though they weren’t funny…so maybe MONSTER MAN is actually a horror comedy? Fuck, I don’t know. I do know that I didn’t laugh at all and spent most of my time just wishing something would goddamn happen. It never did.

MONSTER MAN isn't a bad film as much as it's just a nothing film. Like, what’s even the artistic point of making a JEEPERS CREEPERS rip-off if all you’re gonna do is make an even shittier, weaker version?

Watch it if you want, just don't expect much.