REVIEW: NINE LIVES
Full disclosure before you read the review of the Kevin Spacey cat movie, which right there should tell you what I'm going to think about it: I went in to see this movie with a friend as a joke. There were six people total in the theater, including my friend and I, along with a mother and a daughter (preteen-ish) and an older married couple who got quite comfortable during the screening. Does awful comedy bring a marriage together? So, as will be explained later on in this review, I know full well that Spacey's riveting turn as Mr. Fuzzypants will not bring the actor his third Academy Award. But in a time where either Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump is going to lead our country for the next four years, sometimes it's okay just to sit back and realize you're about to enter a disaster, because laughing at that disaster takes some of its power away.
Nine Lives is a soulless, money-grabbing concept of a film that has no idea of who it's trying to entertain. But I'll be darned if it didn't entertain me for it's much too long 87 minutes. Part of the appeal of the comedy is the fact that it's real. It is an actual film that I paid ten and a half real American dollars to sit in a theater with other real human beings as we watch real Kevin Spacey as a cat pee on a rug, and then in a purse. It was surreal. A surreal level of awfulness. This is the man playing (now that Walter White has left the picture) one of the most ruthless villains in television history...and his agent convinced him to take this on? Spacey can't be physically in the movie more than 20 minutes, each minute likely equalling one million dollars he was paid. Christopher Walken on the other hand, I understand perfectly. He has reportedly said that he will be in just about anything. Personally, the only way that Nine Lives could've been a success was that Walken, a la Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor, play every role in the film. That means the cat, Kevin Spacey's wife, Kevin Spacey's ex-wife and Kevin Spacey's daughter. All Walken. And he doesn't change his voice to any pitch either. He plays the line dead straight.
This kind of Neanderthal babbling is what kept me sane thinking about this movie. You can point out things like Spacey's daughter (Malina Weissman) dancing with the CGI cat is probably creepier than the lotion in the bucket scene in Silence of the Lambs. Or the fact that this movie has no idea who it's for, when half of it is business meetings kids won't understand and the other half is CGI slapstick we've all seen before and parents will want to scream "FIRE" just to evacuate the theater. Or maybe how irredeemable Spacey's Tom Brand is throughout the feature, even when he's supposed to get his cliched comeuppance.
But movies like this will always be made, and I made the very intentional decision to come see this movie because I knew it would be bad. No one will see this movie. No one will remember it. It's not going to hurt Spacey or Garner, and especially not Walken, a nearly mythical figure in cinematic ambiguity and strangeness. Obviously don't watch this movie, because it didn't care so you shouldn't either. But since I did, I don't regret it. I'm not going to put it on my worst-of list at the end of the year, because unlike Bad Words it didn't offend me morally or feel like it had wasted my time. If you do decide to pop in this film for your five-year-old after getting it in the Wal-Mart bin ten years from now, sit down with the right mind frame, and it might be a four star experience.
Rating: 0.5/4 stars
Nine Lives is a soulless, money-grabbing concept of a film that has no idea of who it's trying to entertain. But I'll be darned if it didn't entertain me for it's much too long 87 minutes. Part of the appeal of the comedy is the fact that it's real. It is an actual film that I paid ten and a half real American dollars to sit in a theater with other real human beings as we watch real Kevin Spacey as a cat pee on a rug, and then in a purse. It was surreal. A surreal level of awfulness. This is the man playing (now that Walter White has left the picture) one of the most ruthless villains in television history...and his agent convinced him to take this on? Spacey can't be physically in the movie more than 20 minutes, each minute likely equalling one million dollars he was paid. Christopher Walken on the other hand, I understand perfectly. He has reportedly said that he will be in just about anything. Personally, the only way that Nine Lives could've been a success was that Walken, a la Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor, play every role in the film. That means the cat, Kevin Spacey's wife, Kevin Spacey's ex-wife and Kevin Spacey's daughter. All Walken. And he doesn't change his voice to any pitch either. He plays the line dead straight.
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| Garner is largely responsible for the half star |
This kind of Neanderthal babbling is what kept me sane thinking about this movie. You can point out things like Spacey's daughter (Malina Weissman) dancing with the CGI cat is probably creepier than the lotion in the bucket scene in Silence of the Lambs. Or the fact that this movie has no idea who it's for, when half of it is business meetings kids won't understand and the other half is CGI slapstick we've all seen before and parents will want to scream "FIRE" just to evacuate the theater. Or maybe how irredeemable Spacey's Tom Brand is throughout the feature, even when he's supposed to get his cliched comeuppance.
But movies like this will always be made, and I made the very intentional decision to come see this movie because I knew it would be bad. No one will see this movie. No one will remember it. It's not going to hurt Spacey or Garner, and especially not Walken, a nearly mythical figure in cinematic ambiguity and strangeness. Obviously don't watch this movie, because it didn't care so you shouldn't either. But since I did, I don't regret it. I'm not going to put it on my worst-of list at the end of the year, because unlike Bad Words it didn't offend me morally or feel like it had wasted my time. If you do decide to pop in this film for your five-year-old after getting it in the Wal-Mart bin ten years from now, sit down with the right mind frame, and it might be a four star experience.
Rating: 0.5/4 stars
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