The last e-mail had an error and I just got this as a correction.
Cut out the ads for you guys =)
From : Mr Cranky Mailing List <t_EW6r@mailer.mrcranky.com>
To : ***************************
Subject : RATING CORRECTION: Mr. Cranky Savages "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life"
Date : Tue, 29 Jul 2003 19:09:39 UT
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Dear Mr. Cranky list readers,
We are chagrined, nay, MORTIFIED, to report that the Mr. Cranky
mailing for "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" mistakenly
rated the movie as "1 bomb." The movie was, in fact, rated a "NUKE."
It takes a rare pile of crap to garner the seldom-used NUKE rating,
and "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" really put in the
extra effort in this regard.
If you used Mr. Cranky's relatively mild "1 bomb" rating as a
rationale for seeing the movie, and suffered long-term mental or
physical trauma as a result, please do not sue Mr. Cranky. He is a
fictional character. Instead, sue Lara Croft.
In the interest of historical accuracy, the complete "Lara Croft Tomb
Raider: The Cradle of Life" review is included below, with the correct
"NUKE" rating. After that, we threw in the "Seabiscuit" review (which
actually WAS rated "1 bomb" -- see how the whole system works?) for
good measure.
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Mr. Cranky Savages "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life"
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Mr. Cranky's other reviews this week include:
New movies
Johnny English....................................3 bombs
Seabiscuit........................................1 bomb
New rentals/DVDs
Ararat............................................2 bombs
Final Destination 2...............................3 bombs
The Life of David Gale............................Dynamite
Nicholas Nickleby.................................2 bombs
The Quiet American................................2 bombs
Spun..............................................4 bombs
Find them all at http://www.mrcranky.com!
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Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
Mr. Cranky's rating: NUKE
An open letter to Sherry Lansing, CEO, Paramount Pictures:
Dear Ms. Lansing,
I just witnessed the recent cinematic effort of your studio titled
"Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" and would like to convey
my reaction to this film with the following missive: I have never come
closer to tearing my own penis off and throwing it at the screen while
watching a movie. I'm really being serious here. You may already know
me as somebody apt to threaten damage to his own genitals, but all
those other times were strictly in jest. I was just kidding all those
times before because I knew that most juveniles find genital
mutilation incredibly funny and that I would benefit immensely from
all the Google searches utilizing the word "penis."
This time, the impulse was very real. To paraphrase Lara Croft, "It
was a feeling more powerful than you can ever imagine." However, you
shouldn't be overly concerned that you caused me any serious pain
because, by that time, I'm pretty sure all the blood had drained out
of my brain and pooled in my feet.
Ms. Lansing, I sat through at least the last hour of this abomination
in a frightening mental fog. I had no idea what was going on at all,
nor did I care. Lara was grabbing and jumping onto things we'd never
seen before, things that were just materializing in front of her. One
second, she was riding up an elevator in a hotel, the next second she
was on the roof and heading up another elevator at a construction
site. It was all just a bit confusing.
Do you realize that the morons who made this film perpetrated the same
asinine plot device on us, your unsuspecting audience, as the first
film? I believe that the question facing Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie)
in the first film was essentially this: I have one piece of a two-
piece puzzle that I don't want an evil guy to put together, for fear
that he will unleash an unspeakable horror upon the world. What do I
do?
Maybe I'm simply thinking here and that is precisely the sort of
activity you would like me to avoid, but my answer to that question is
simple: Destroy my piece of the puzzle. I mean, that way the evil guy
can't put the puzzle together and destroy the world, right? Well, I
figured that little conundrum was so idiotic that nobody in their
right mind would ever use it again, but not only was it reused, it was
reused in the sequel to the film that used the idiotic plot device the
first time. It's almost like your filmmakers are proud of their
stupidity.
This time Lara is walking around with some kind of orb she needs in
order to find Pandora's Box, which apparently contains some kind of
plague. Naturally, Jonathan Reiss (Ciaran Hinds) also needs the orb.
So what does Lara do instead of simply destroying the orb? She goes
flitting off to Africa so she can find Pandora's Box, where she almost
lets Reiss get it and destroy the world, before finally killing him
and throwing Pandora's Box back in the black acid from where it came.
Does this make sense to you? It seems to me that given Lara's
inability to follow simple logic, you'd be better off giving Lara
something simple to do in "Lara Croft 3," like baking a pie. Try this:
"Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Baking a Pie." It just rolls off the tongue.
I'm just curious as to how exactly you do business at your studio. Do
you flip coins to see who writes the screenplays and directs the
movies? Do you pull people off the street at random? Is the
screenwriter's name, Dean Georgaris, an actual person or is that lab
monkey #427? Really, if this guy is a real human being, I'd suggest
you experiment with different mammals. They couldn't do any worse. The
amazing thing about this screenplay, and I am absolutely not joking
here, is that you could pull anybody off the street and they could
easily write a screenplay this bad. Next time, just pick a homeless
person to write the screenplay, feed him lunch, and you'll save
yourself a ton of money and nobody will be the wiser.
And speaking of bad, you do realize that director Jan de Bont is
already responsible for one of the worst sequels of all time, "Speed
2," right? Guess what? Now he's responsible for two of the worst
sequels of all time. Jan couldn't direct himself out of an empty
parking lot. I mean, why don't you see if this guy can successfully
bring you a cup of coffee without spilling it all over the carpet
before you give him another movie to direct? Seriously, see if he can
do a good job cleaning your office toilet or something.
Since it's pretty obvious to me that at least a few people in your
company couldn't differentiate between competence and horse shit, I
feel it's necessary to point out a couple of things.
Very early in the movie, Lara takes a long underwater journey to a
tomb where she first discovers the orb. She then has to escape the
tomb minus the little underwater propeller boat that got her there. On
her way down she passes cliffs and it basically takes forever. On the
way out, she appears to emerge in a different ocean. However, Lara is
smart, so she slices open her arm to attract the sharks and when one
of them comes hurtling toward her, she punches it in the face, stops
it cold, and then grabs onto its fin. The shark, obviously stunned,
guides Lara safely to the surface of the ocean where she operates a
safety beacon to signal her friends to come rescue her.
I actually watched a lobotomized four-year-old squeal off in his
electric wheel chair to sign for his refund after this scene. So,
let's just skip the part about getting the bends and holding one's
breath and asking stupid questions like why exactly the shark decides
to surface. Here's my question: How does anorexic Lara Croft stop a
1/2 ton shark moving 20 miles an hour right toward her with one punch?
Have you even heard of momentum? Amazingly, this wasn't the thing that
really burned my nads. At the end of the movie, she has her inevitable
showdown with Reiss, who's apparently won a Nobel Prize at some point
during his lifetime. You're trying to tell me that Lara Croft can't
easily and efficiently kick the ass of a Nobel Prize winner but she
can stop a 1/2 ton shark with one punch? Have you seen any Nobel Prize
winners lately? Martial arts and kick-boxing isn't really their thing.
But wait, Ms. Lansing, there's more. Lara enters a houseboat in
Shanghai and borrows the television of the family living there so that
she can send a video message to her assistants. She does all this
fancy stuff to hook up the system while the family watches her. Here's
my question: Where did this Shanghai houseboat family get the money
for the Panasonic Plasma television? Are the houseboats in Shanghai
just equipped with those things or what? Look, I've heard of product
placement, but your people there at Paramount need to get some
perspective. To make matters worse, Lara discovers she needs to go to
Africa right after that and, sure enough, in the next scene, she's in
Africa. We then cut back to Shanghai where Lara's partner, Terry
Sheridan (Gerard Butler), enters the houseboat and learns of Lara's
whereabouts. Naturally, Terry follows her to Africa.
Okay, the thing is, Lara spends the day hooking up with Kosa (Djimon
Hounsou) so that she can travel to Kilimanjaro where the tribal elders
protect the tomb. I think she's with Kosa for safety reasons because
the African people don't generally like white women running around in
their tombs. Naturally, that night, Terry drops in at just the right
time to help Lara out. Look, I hate to be picky, but Terry has been
dropped from Lara's elite flyer's club, so he's pretty much stuck
taking public transportation. I don't know if you're aware, but
Shanghai and Africa are really far apart. How does he get there so
fast? I've heard of getting lucky with a few connecting flights, but
this is pretty ridiculous.
And can you believe it, Ms. Lansing, that I haven't even written one
word about Angelina Jolie? Since she's now our Goodwill Ambassador to
the United Nations, I thought I'd leave her out of this. Besides,
she's been going through the very painful process of having the "Billy
Bob" on her Billy Bob tattoo removed via laser surgery, so not only
does she have my sympathy, but the empathy of women throughout the
South, I'm sure.
So, Ms. Lansing, I'd like to close this letter with some bit of
advice, some clever anecdote that might provide perspective to your
situation. However, after seeing "Lara Craft Tomb Raider: The Cradle
of Life," I simply don't have much life left in me. I don't know what
to say to you that might prevent the suffering of the millions of
people who go see this thing. Frankly, if I were you, I'd hire some
extra security over the next few weeks to keep some of those
disgruntled moviegoers off the Paramount lot. Be safe.
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Seabiscuit
Mr. Cranky's rating: 1 bomb
I've seen pretty much everything there is to see at a movie screening,
but a theaterful of drunken jockeys was a new one. If you're a jockey,
you've apparently been waiting for a movie like "Seabiscuit" for a
long, long time. I had to sit in the back row to avoid provoking a
fight. Tiny hats and shoes pelted the screen. Someone snuck in a
horse. All this, and a movie too.
The jockeys sobered up quickly once the movie started and they found
themselves lurching between a sodden melodrama and a Ken Burns
documentary from hell. The theme of "Seabiscuit" is second chances,
and director Gary Ross seems to be constantly asking for a second
chance to figure out what kind of movie he's making.
In the aftermath of the Great Depression, owner Charles Howard (Jeff
Bridges) teams with horse-whisperer Tom Smith (Chris Cooper) and
jockey Red Pollard (Tobey Maguire) to turn Seabiscuit (Apples the
Horse) from a dark horse into a winner. Charles's new wife (Elizabeth
Banks) tags along, but she says next to nothing and, like Seabiscuit,
seems to have been cast entirely on the basis of having good teeth.
Seabiscuit gets the most character development by far. He's an angry
young horse. He plays by his own rules. He stares down the competition
and races to win, over and over again. If you like horse races, you
won't after this movie, which is like watching the world's slowest
NASCAR race, without the veneer of respectability or pleasing odor. If
you go see "Seabiscuit," be careful not to step in the manure.
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Mr. Cranky's movie rating scale:
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1 bomb......Almost tolerable
2 bombs.....Consistently annoying
3 bombs.....Will require therapy after viewing
4 bombs.....As good as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick
Dynamite....So godawful that it ruptured the very fabric of
space and time with the sheer overpowering force of
its mediocrity
NUKE........Proof that Jesus died in vain
that was awesome!
