The Scene
This was a two movie weekend: believe it or not I saw both The Day After Tomorrow and Soul Plane. The decision to see Soul Plane was sort of an afterthought, after seeing one ridiculous big budget movie, I figured it couldn't get any worse to see Snoop dipping a purple plane through the friendly skies. So here we are with the first double feature review, beginning with..
Friday Night
Finding a theatre that wasn't sold out for The Day After Tomorrow took many clicks and keystrokes (cause ordering movie tickets online is the best.) Then there was the thought.. is going to see this movie so serious that getting tickets for the 1:00 A.M show is the thing to do. With coming attractions, commercials, and a running time of 2 hours and 9 minutes we're talking about leaving the theatre at nearly 4 in the morning. Luckily I was able to find a theatre with tickets for a 10:30 showing *insert speeding car, rocketing through the streets of NYC*
When the movie kicks in I see Dennis Quaid, didn't even know he was in the movie. Needless to say, people came to see this movie to get an insiders look at how the world is supposed come to come to an end.. or at least get really f-d up. It's the global warming theory where man's self-destruction comes through plain not giving a damn about future consequences of the environment for the immediate benefits of the present. It's hard to imagine that one, two, or even three hundred factories spilling black smoke and millions of car exhaust fumes could be the cause of eating up the earth's atmosphere. Who thinks of stuff like that? Not me.
However, after seeing the World Trade Center transformed into a two-story pile of dust, I think people are ready to believe that anything is possible. Yup, that's why the only seats available in the theatre were the first two rows. My eyes are still bugging out from the 3D experience.
What They SayMy Opinion
This movie was absolutely horrible. The director's intention was to show that this could actually happen, but not once do you think, "Oh Jesus, my Lord and Saviour. I've been good, so damn good. Yes, I've stole, fornicated, and have drank my fair share of wine, but I'm really a nice guy. You're the all knowing, you know me. Come on. Please forgive me for my sins.. I'm about to die and I don't want the pearly gates on lock when I get up there. Okay, thanks. *muah*"
The movie is suspect two minutes deep, when that huge chunk of ice break offs, already the eyebrows were raising.. cause it looked like the guy drilling made a boo boo. Then you realize that it's the global warming softening up the ice.. it's the size of a small country, but maybe that could happen. And the idea of that piece of ice and others melting into the ocean and cooling it off, therefore changing the weather patterns is believable. It's the way those weather changes result in tornados ripping through Los Angeles, conveniently tearing up the HOLLYWOOD sign. The two, three, buddy tornandos, just way over the top. This wasn't a comedy, but I sense that people in the theatre were starting to see it that way. The best was when a reporter is standing in the street while a tornado is right over his shoulder. "This ain't Twister bitch. Move out the way!" Luckily he got what was coming to him, two thousand pounds of Honda Accord steel to the body.
The same crazy thing happens in NY, this time with a tidal wave that washes through the streets. People are running around and it's like they don't see a 25 story wave coming at them. Example: in that picture those two guys standing by the cab are posing up like it's a summer thunderstorm. Look behind you, Stevie. That's dumb.
The craziness continues when the water freezes over and Popo decides he's gonna take the people outside. How far does he expect to walk in that cold and that deep snow and more importantly, where the hell are they going? Then.. and this when the audience just broke up laughing and pointing at the screen.. Dennis Quaid hears about the disaster in NYC, but he gets a call from his son and he decides that he's going to get him. Now he knows the entire upper half of the United States is about to get a taste of what the Woolly Mammoths felt during the Ice Age. Yet that doesn't matter.. Dennis Quaid tells his wife he's going to NY to save his son because .. he has to. All serious, and she says, "I know." It's like a soap opera scene.
Save your son? That's a nice thought, but the fact that the snow is up to the Statue of Liberty's armpit and he's going to cut through all this ice, snow, and survive minus 150 degree temperatures, get into the library, mount his son on on his back and head back to ummm.. Mexico, was too much. People were laughing and I think they finally felt relieved that this wasn't a serious movie after all. I'm thinking well, go ahead Superman.The director must have been going for a little nod and wink, because the whole scene with American's running across the Mexican border and being called illegal immigrants was too funny. Despite the implausibility of it all, the movie has a happy ending.. because it's a movie. But for a topic that deserves some consideration in the political discussion, it did nothing to mark it urgent. And if global warming is that serious, then we'll all end up trapped in a library burning books and waiting for Big Poppa to save us.
One stick of butter.. not even melted.
Getting Right To It.. Sunday Night
There are some movies that just look bad, right from the previews.. I mean really stink it up from two, three months away. Soul Plane's coming attractions have been running that long. From the quick clips of a purple airplane on rims, Mo'Nique doing her usual schtick and rapper/actors Snoop and Method Man smiling for the camera it looked like what Spike Lee would call straight up coon time. Well, I'm here to say this movie was funny as a muthafucka. Look, I'm even cursing like John Witherspoon aka pops from Friday (who play a blind man in the movie). Maybe it's because I expected the worse: no storyline, bad acting, and corny jokes. From the opening scene those misconceptions were revealed by the laughter coming from my belly. When your talking about beef stroganoff and bathroom humor I'm inclined to LOL.
The storyline flows through that scene: this storganoff victim sues an airline for getting his butt stuck in the toilet bowl. With the money from the lawsuit - $100 million - he starts his own airline. You see this guy (pictured on your left talking to Tom Arnold, looking like Kanye West) walking through the airport like George Jefferson, feeling proud. He's the owner of his own airline, nobody knows who he is though.. It doesn't matter because the plane, the only plane they have, is the lap of luxury. Yeah it's purple, on spinning rims, but it is also tricked out with a luxurious first class section that looks more like a club lounge, business class, a "low class" section where the everyday people sit, a bathroom where DL Hughley is at your service as the bathroom attendant.. and on the upper VIP deck a full-fledged club where people can party till it's time to land.
On top of Snoop being perfectly cast as an inexperienced pilot, Mo'Nique and her patna as security guards cracking jokes at the security gate, Tom Arnold and his family as the only white people on the plane, and the storyline which is basically.. they take off, things happen, and they land, it makes for a good movie if your in the mood to laugh.
The Day After Tomorrow made $70 mil this weekend versus the $5 mil Soul Plane pulled in. Despite the huge difference, Soul Plane was a way more enjoyable movie. All the talk about the movie being filled with stereotypes and putting forth a bad image.. there is no way this movie is any different than any of the Airplane flicks. You gotta learn to laugh, separate the fun from the struggle. It's not always about "black power."
That comes from someone who takes the time to big up Martin Luther King Jr. and is currently reading Ralph Ellison's "Going To The Territory." Motivation, enlightenment, knowledge of yourself and culture is not the responsibility of every black film made. It's entertainment and an artform first.. that's why I love that Antoine Fuqua has directed the upcoming King Arthur. Let's see how many people that slam Soul Plane take the time to see a black director extend himself beyond "sterotypical" themes.
Two and a half sticks of hot melted butter.. with a shake of salt