WHAT'S UP, DOC? NOT MUCH IN 'SHOOT 'EM UP'.Byline: GLENN WHIPP WHIPP WhiteWater Head Impact Protection Project >FILM CRITIC Bugs Bunny ate plenty of carrots in those classic Warner Bros. cartoons Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was the animation division of Warner Bros. Pictures during the golden age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, Warner Bros. , but I don't remember him ever impaling Elmer Fudd Elmer J. Fudd is a fictional cartoon character and one of the most famous Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies characters. He has one of the more convoluted and disputed origins in the Warner Brothers cartoon pantheon (second only to Bugs Bunny himself). with one. And yet, in the blood-soaked "Shoot 'Em Up," which has Clive Owen playing wascally wabbit wabbit - /wab'it/ [almost certainly from Elmer Fudd's immortal line "You wascawwy wabbit!"] 1. A legendary early hack reported on a System/360 at RPI and elsewhere around 1978; this may have descended (if only by inspiration) from hack called RABBITS reported from 1969 on a to Paul Giamatti's frustrated Fudd, carrots prove to have a variety of previously unimagined uses, including, but not limited to, the violent dismemberment dismemberment /dis·mem·ber·ment/ (dis-mem´ber-ment) amputation of a limb or a portion of it. dismemberment amputation of a limb or a portion of it. of the human body. If "Shoot 'Em Up" had even a tenth of the soul and wit of a Bugs Bunny cartoon, it might be tolerable as a goof. But, like so many before him, career straight-to-DVD director Michael Davis Michael Davis or Mike Davis may refer to:
The oddest thing about "Shoot 'Em Up" is the strange decision midway through the movie to give the Owen character a back story and make him sympathetic. Up to then, Owen's "Smith" was simply the angriest man in the world, a killing machine who helps a woman give birth amid a hailstorm See .NET My Services. of gunfire and then winds up having to protect the baby, a la Chow Yun Fat in "Hard Boiled," in a series of increasingly perilous circumstances. Writer-director Davis puts across some of these elaborately choreographed set pieces pretty well, designing them for 15-year-old boys (or the not-so-dormant, 15-year-old boy inside grown men) who thrill at the crunch of Motorhead and the sight of Monica Bellucci in a push-up bra. Bellucci plays a lactating lac·tate 1 intr.v. lac·tat·ed, lac·tat·ing, lac·tates To secrete or produce milk. [Latin lact prostitute who satisfies both the nutritional needs of the newborn and the sexual desires of Smith. Davis manages to bring together birth, boobs and bullets in shoot-outs that aren't quite as clever in practice as they might have looked on paper. The movie is all about celebrating excess and outrageously bad behavior, which makes it curious when Davis arbitrarily decides to give Smith a break from spewing bad Bond puns and give him a tragic, Mad Max past. Maybe Bellucci's Madonna- whore can give Smith a hug, a carrot and a bottle, but in a movie this soulless soul·less adj. Lacking sensitivity or the capacity for deep feeling. soul  less·ly adv. , he shouldn't expect any compassion from the
audience. Detached violence of the variety peddled here is barely
capable of delivering excitement.
Glenn Whipp, (818) 713-3672 glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com SHOOT 'EM UP - Two stars >R: pervasive strong violence, sex, language. >Starring: Clive Owen, Monica Bellucci, Paul Giamatti. >Director: Michael Davis. >Running time: 1 hr. 33 min. >Playing: Area wide. >In a nutshell: Violent cartoon apes Bugs Bunny and "Hard Boiled" -- but can't hold a candle to either. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Clive Owen stars as an angry killing machine protecting a baby in the bullet-riddled "Shoot 'Em Up." |
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