Movies: "Let's do some gratuitous violence."
First, let me refresh your memories. Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day came out over a month ago.
... But my local theater didn't get it until this month. No, I have no idea why, either. I found this out tonight and kidnapped my sibling - she hadn't been home five minutes from seeing ANOTHER movie at the same theater - and we left to catch the last showing of the night. It's already down to limited showings so it will be gone by next week, so if we didn't get to it tonight, we likely would have had to have waited until the DVD and that just simply wasn't an option. We were seeing it. And I'm so glad we got in. We had the theater virtually to ourselves, picked the best seats in the house unchallenged, and I was able to get my Slurpee fix of the day before the movie started. (Yeah, it's an addiction now. I'm working on getting rid of it now that I've got it.)
So let me recap from that review I wrote two years ago about the first movie. For that review, I took four pages of notes after marathoning that movie at least 8 times in a single 24 hour period. Since then I've watched it, maybe a half dozen times. Which considering how often I'm away from the computer... that's pretty good. Let's just say, this is what they had to live up to, for me.
At it's surface, Boondock Saints is an action movie, with all the gore and classy camerawork that the average movie-goer could enjoy without needing to excuse themselves to lose their lunch. It's probably on the mild side of visual violence, really, with the exception of a particular scene involving a cat. But other visual cues hint at much more meaningful stories than just an action flick. The message behind the brothers' actions is a major draw that hooks the viewer and gets under the skin to make a person think. It's a crap-shoot as to who will pay attention and get hooked, or who will check their brain at the door and zone out on a movie; as the McManus brothers themselves said, "We're like 7-11, not always doing business, but always open."
And another quote to sum up the first movie's message:
"Destroy that which is evil," says Connor, and Murphy finishes with, "So that which is good may flourish."
That pretty much sums up where I was coming from with BdS2, and, aside from the mention of the cat, it all still stands for the second movie as well. I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. It met and exceeded any expectations I may have brought with me from the first movie. The characters were all familiar and entertaining, no annoying moments of OOC preaching or drama. It took the rules set down from the first movie, honored them, expounded on them and clarified them. It was funny. It was violent also, no doubts there. No sex again, but we did get nudity and very pretty tattoo shots. More ethnic and gay-jokes than you could shake a stick at. Alcohol use and swearing abound. It's the Boondock Saints. It's Connor and Murphy. It's Billy Connolly, so of course there's swearing.
Plotwise, the brothers are called to action when murders are being committed with their rituals attached as calling cards. They can't have someone going around ruining their good reputation and chaos ensues as they, and the Boston PD, attempt to figure out whodunit. There is so much more to it but I'm trying not to be spoilery.
On the internets there's been noises about unhappy fans the last few months. As far as I see it, taking any sort of umbrage with Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day because it somehow didn't measure up to the first movie, is plain and simple batshit crazy* talk. I'd say that the sequel lined up perfectly with my end synopsis of the first movie, and that's something hardly any sequels of cult franchises can claim.
All the favorite characters are back for this romp; I think the only one we don't hear from was the twins' mother, but that's not surprising. We have new characters who fit into the molds rather well, making their own stamps on things. Special Agent Eunice Blume of the FBI filling in for Smecker, and the feisty Romeo who steps in as the Brothers' third in place of Rocco. In all honesty, when I saw the trailer, I fully expected those particular characters to grate on me like nails to a chalkboard. I was most pleasantly surprised. They have a depth to them that sneaks up on you, and in the case of Romeo, he turned out to be one of those characters that you feel like you kicked a puppy if you start to doubt that he is awesome. I think it was Murphy who introduced Romeo to Doc as "This is our Mexican." and he fits in to their clique quite well. And Blume... she has that same creepy "Oh God, someone please shoot it," vibe that Smecker had, but like with him, it goes away by the end.
Once again the cinematography and scene set ups and angles and everything at all visual was spot-on impressive. The soundtrack is wonderful. The banter in this is brilliant.
They did random scenes where the Brothers were settling back in to their old haunts, just kicked back and being boys - that I guess never really grew up. Alcohol has that effect on a lot of people. I really do think I laughed in almost every scene of this movie. They worked in funnies everywhere. The acting in the beginning felt a little bit over-done because they're having to set a slightly different tone than the first movie in that respect - the first was a "serious" movie with funny worked in, while this one was intentionally funny. They didn't change the characters any to make for the funny, it was that the circumstances were less personal so there was a lighter tone. They pretty much removed the fourth-wall for the brothers while leaving it up for everyone else, by virtue of the fact that everyone in Boston knows about the Saints and they have their own little fan clubs for being murderers. I think the mortality rate in 2 is the same as in 1, or nearly so, but 2 still has the ability to laugh. Everything is there in the context. Even without the context, the dialogue is funny. An illustration courtesy IMDB (in case the trailer didn't show it clearly enough)
Connor MacManus: [tasting a mysterious white powder] It's heroin.
Murphy MacManus: [after a dramatic pause] How the fuck would you know that?
Connor MacManus: Fuck you! I know things!
I don't know about anyone else's family dynamics, but that's about how the conversation would go between my sister and I. If our parents weren't in the room, the f-bomb included. And you don't know how much time I put in to selecting a quote that wasn't spoilery. They have a few at that quotes page, but they definitely don't have the ones that were killing my sister and I in the theater. I want to go back sometime with a notebook and memorize the script.
Something I noticed with this movie is that there were a lot of nods to the first movie, things that felt like inside jokes, and then there were those moments that felt like out-right, "fanservice-done-right." The slashers should have had a field day with it if nothing else. They were trying to include everything that had been laid out in the first movie without stepping on any of it, and the effort showed. They ended it on a BIG, HEFTY, MAJOR CLIFF (which I HATE THEM FOR) and did a few other subtle clarifications for things that had only been left vague in the first one. So, to me, the fandom-aware writer, it's like the whole movie was made just because they were all tired of seeing the same old fanfiction pumped out through the fandom, so they made another movie just to liven things up in that department. "Here, we're adding some new rules. NOW go write us more shit." It's almost as though they issued a challenge. Damned if I know if anyone poked into accepting that challenge yet, but it's fun thinking of it that way. With the cliff they drop it off of, I almost want to go sort through fic for it just to see what people come up with.
Also, Boondock Saints 3? Yes please...
(*) Note: I'm not one of the hardcore fans. I have bought my share of random Boondock Saints loot, but I'm not active in the fandom; I don't read the fanfiction, follow the boards, join the comms or hardly watch for a website, and I didn't know about contests to visit the set until after the winner had been announced and had visited the set. I went at this flick like a movie-goer who really loved the first movie. I sat down in the chair with expectations of being entertained with a quality twist on the old Robin Hood tales. And the pretty lead roles was an added bonus, and the Irish accents - real or not - made for the perfect hat-trick. That was it.
That's my disclaimer. Don't sic any hardcore BDS fans at me because I'm fully aware of the fandom's mixed reactions to this movie. And for the record, I think the disgruntled portion of the fandom is slightly insane, to levels of which rival SPN's batshit - I love them both dearly, but a spade's a spade, and batshit is batshit.
Click to view... But my local theater didn't get it until this month. No, I have no idea why, either. I found this out tonight and kidnapped my sibling - she hadn't been home five minutes from seeing ANOTHER movie at the same theater - and we left to catch the last showing of the night. It's already down to limited showings so it will be gone by next week, so if we didn't get to it tonight, we likely would have had to have waited until the DVD and that just simply wasn't an option. We were seeing it. And I'm so glad we got in. We had the theater virtually to ourselves, picked the best seats in the house unchallenged, and I was able to get my Slurpee fix of the day before the movie started. (Yeah, it's an addiction now. I'm working on getting rid of it now that I've got it.)
So let me recap from that review I wrote two years ago about the first movie. For that review, I took four pages of notes after marathoning that movie at least 8 times in a single 24 hour period. Since then I've watched it, maybe a half dozen times. Which considering how often I'm away from the computer... that's pretty good. Let's just say, this is what they had to live up to, for me.
At it's surface, Boondock Saints is an action movie, with all the gore and classy camerawork that the average movie-goer could enjoy without needing to excuse themselves to lose their lunch. It's probably on the mild side of visual violence, really, with the exception of a particular scene involving a cat. But other visual cues hint at much more meaningful stories than just an action flick. The message behind the brothers' actions is a major draw that hooks the viewer and gets under the skin to make a person think. It's a crap-shoot as to who will pay attention and get hooked, or who will check their brain at the door and zone out on a movie; as the McManus brothers themselves said, "We're like 7-11, not always doing business, but always open."
And another quote to sum up the first movie's message:
"Destroy that which is evil," says Connor, and Murphy finishes with, "So that which is good may flourish."
That pretty much sums up where I was coming from with BdS2, and, aside from the mention of the cat, it all still stands for the second movie as well. I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. It met and exceeded any expectations I may have brought with me from the first movie. The characters were all familiar and entertaining, no annoying moments of OOC preaching or drama. It took the rules set down from the first movie, honored them, expounded on them and clarified them. It was funny. It was violent also, no doubts there. No sex again, but we did get nudity and very pretty tattoo shots. More ethnic and gay-jokes than you could shake a stick at. Alcohol use and swearing abound. It's the Boondock Saints. It's Connor and Murphy. It's Billy Connolly, so of course there's swearing.
Plotwise, the brothers are called to action when murders are being committed with their rituals attached as calling cards. They can't have someone going around ruining their good reputation and chaos ensues as they, and the Boston PD, attempt to figure out whodunit. There is so much more to it but I'm trying not to be spoilery.
On the internets there's been noises about unhappy fans the last few months. As far as I see it, taking any sort of umbrage with Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day because it somehow didn't measure up to the first movie, is plain and simple batshit crazy* talk. I'd say that the sequel lined up perfectly with my end synopsis of the first movie, and that's something hardly any sequels of cult franchises can claim.
All the favorite characters are back for this romp; I think the only one we don't hear from was the twins' mother, but that's not surprising. We have new characters who fit into the molds rather well, making their own stamps on things. Special Agent Eunice Blume of the FBI filling in for Smecker, and the feisty Romeo who steps in as the Brothers' third in place of Rocco. In all honesty, when I saw the trailer, I fully expected those particular characters to grate on me like nails to a chalkboard. I was most pleasantly surprised. They have a depth to them that sneaks up on you, and in the case of Romeo, he turned out to be one of those characters that you feel like you kicked a puppy if you start to doubt that he is awesome. I think it was Murphy who introduced Romeo to Doc as "This is our Mexican." and he fits in to their clique quite well. And Blume... she has that same creepy "Oh God, someone please shoot it," vibe that Smecker had, but like with him, it goes away by the end.
Once again the cinematography and scene set ups and angles and everything at all visual was spot-on impressive. The soundtrack is wonderful. The banter in this is brilliant.
They did random scenes where the Brothers were settling back in to their old haunts, just kicked back and being boys - that I guess never really grew up. Alcohol has that effect on a lot of people. I really do think I laughed in almost every scene of this movie. They worked in funnies everywhere. The acting in the beginning felt a little bit over-done because they're having to set a slightly different tone than the first movie in that respect - the first was a "serious" movie with funny worked in, while this one was intentionally funny. They didn't change the characters any to make for the funny, it was that the circumstances were less personal so there was a lighter tone. They pretty much removed the fourth-wall for the brothers while leaving it up for everyone else, by virtue of the fact that everyone in Boston knows about the Saints and they have their own little fan clubs for being murderers. I think the mortality rate in 2 is the same as in 1, or nearly so, but 2 still has the ability to laugh. Everything is there in the context. Even without the context, the dialogue is funny. An illustration courtesy IMDB (in case the trailer didn't show it clearly enough)
Connor MacManus: [tasting a mysterious white powder] It's heroin.
Murphy MacManus: [after a dramatic pause] How the fuck would you know that?
Connor MacManus: Fuck you! I know things!
I don't know about anyone else's family dynamics, but that's about how the conversation would go between my sister and I. If our parents weren't in the room, the f-bomb included. And you don't know how much time I put in to selecting a quote that wasn't spoilery. They have a few at that quotes page, but they definitely don't have the ones that were killing my sister and I in the theater. I want to go back sometime with a notebook and memorize the script.
Something I noticed with this movie is that there were a lot of nods to the first movie, things that felt like inside jokes, and then there were those moments that felt like out-right, "fanservice-done-right." The slashers should have had a field day with it if nothing else. They were trying to include everything that had been laid out in the first movie without stepping on any of it, and the effort showed. They ended it on a BIG, HEFTY, MAJOR CLIFF (which I HATE THEM FOR) and did a few other subtle clarifications for things that had only been left vague in the first one. So, to me, the fandom-aware writer, it's like the whole movie was made just because they were all tired of seeing the same old fanfiction pumped out through the fandom, so they made another movie just to liven things up in that department. "Here, we're adding some new rules. NOW go write us more shit." It's almost as though they issued a challenge. Damned if I know if anyone poked into accepting that challenge yet, but it's fun thinking of it that way. With the cliff they drop it off of, I almost want to go sort through fic for it just to see what people come up with.
Also, Boondock Saints 3? Yes please...
(*) Note: I'm not one of the hardcore fans. I have bought my share of random Boondock Saints loot, but I'm not active in the fandom; I don't read the fanfiction, follow the boards, join the comms or hardly watch for a website, and I didn't know about contests to visit the set until after the winner had been announced and had visited the set. I went at this flick like a movie-goer who really loved the first movie. I sat down in the chair with expectations of being entertained with a quality twist on the old Robin Hood tales. And the pretty lead roles was an added bonus, and the Irish accents - real or not - made for the perfect hat-trick. That was it.
That's my disclaimer. Don't sic any hardcore BDS fans at me because I'm fully aware of the fandom's mixed reactions to this movie. And for the record, I think the disgruntled portion of the fandom is slightly insane, to levels of which rival SPN's batshit - I love them both dearly, but a spade's a spade, and batshit is batshit.