This review originally appeared on the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation’s “Roll Film” movie review site (http://www.biketraffic.org/content.php?id=219_0_6_0). Each film was also reviewed by my CBF colleague, Greg Borzo, who focused more on the bike content.
QUICKSILVER
1 Wheel
I didn't have high expectations for Quicksilver, but it looked like it might be a bit of goofy fun. I actually have an appreciation for cheesy, bad movies. My guilty pleasures include the killer whale revenge flick, Orca, George Hamilton's disco vampire in Love at First Bite, and Kevin Bacon's own dumb, but good natured dance-a-thon, Footloose.
Quicksilver is not a guilty pleasure. It's not goofy fun. It's just plain bad.I have rarely seen a film fail at so many levels. Every year around Oscar time, another award, called The Razzies, is given for the worst achievements in film. I would like to nominate Quicksilver in the flowing categories:
Worst Screenplay: There are a lot of sub-plots in this film and they are all clichés recycled from other films. We have the Wall Street hot shot, played by Kevin Bacon, who must redeem himself after losing his family's savings. He retreats into the simple life of the bicycle messenger. Then in another sub-plot, we have a love triangle with his stuck up girlfriend and an annoying, but cute, fellow messenger.
The Quicksilver Messenger Service is conveniently staffed by an assortment of every racial, religious, and ethnic stereotype imaginable. There's the Hispanic with a heart-of-gold who Bacon must help get a loan so he can open a hot dog stand, and, naturally, all this occurs at the same time the guy and his wife are expecting their first child. Then there's the stuttering drug dealer named Gypsy who uses a jive-talking African American bicycle messenger named Voodoo (played by Lawrence Fishburne no less) for his "deliveries."
Yeah, I left out Bacon's Jewish Wall Street buddy and the fat guy named Tiny, but my point is that this script, despite the presence of about twenty sub-plots, doesn't contain one original or even interesting idea. It's like some computer randomly generated movie clichés and came up with this.
Worst Acting: Kevin Bacon has proven himself a fine actor, especially in Clint Eastwood's Mystic River. At this early stage in his career, however, his method seemed to consist of employing the same wooden expression on his face, regardless of what emotions his character is supposed to be feeling. Oh, and he spends the opening wearing the fakest looking mustache since Groucho Marx.
Jamie Gertz doesn't fair any better as the poor street urchin messenger who takes a liking to Bacon's character. Her Brooklyn accent, which comes and goes, is straight out of Welcome Back, Kotter. Then we have Rudy Ramos as the least threatening drug dealer prior to Jay and Silent Bob. There is no dramatic reason for him to be stuttering, but he does, distractingly, throughout the film.
Worst Direction: Quicksilver was made during the heyday of MTV and features a lot of bicycle chase scenes set to eighties synth-pop music. By 1986 these types of scenes were fairly common, but Quicksilver is so incompetently directed that the music and the action sequences don't even match up. A number of scenes are so sloppily edited and unclear that it seems like somewhere there's a three-hour director's cut of Quicksilver just waiting to be unleashed. It's enough to give eighties nostalgia a bad name.
QUICKSILVER
1 Wheel
I didn't have high expectations for Quicksilver, but it looked like it might be a bit of goofy fun. I actually have an appreciation for cheesy, bad movies. My guilty pleasures include the killer whale revenge flick, Orca, George Hamilton's disco vampire in Love at First Bite, and Kevin Bacon's own dumb, but good natured dance-a-thon, Footloose.
Quicksilver is not a guilty pleasure. It's not goofy fun. It's just plain bad.I have rarely seen a film fail at so many levels. Every year around Oscar time, another award, called The Razzies, is given for the worst achievements in film. I would like to nominate Quicksilver in the flowing categories:
Worst Screenplay: There are a lot of sub-plots in this film and they are all clichés recycled from other films. We have the Wall Street hot shot, played by Kevin Bacon, who must redeem himself after losing his family's savings. He retreats into the simple life of the bicycle messenger. Then in another sub-plot, we have a love triangle with his stuck up girlfriend and an annoying, but cute, fellow messenger.
The Quicksilver Messenger Service is conveniently staffed by an assortment of every racial, religious, and ethnic stereotype imaginable. There's the Hispanic with a heart-of-gold who Bacon must help get a loan so he can open a hot dog stand, and, naturally, all this occurs at the same time the guy and his wife are expecting their first child. Then there's the stuttering drug dealer named Gypsy who uses a jive-talking African American bicycle messenger named Voodoo (played by Lawrence Fishburne no less) for his "deliveries."
Yeah, I left out Bacon's Jewish Wall Street buddy and the fat guy named Tiny, but my point is that this script, despite the presence of about twenty sub-plots, doesn't contain one original or even interesting idea. It's like some computer randomly generated movie clichés and came up with this.
Worst Acting: Kevin Bacon has proven himself a fine actor, especially in Clint Eastwood's Mystic River. At this early stage in his career, however, his method seemed to consist of employing the same wooden expression on his face, regardless of what emotions his character is supposed to be feeling. Oh, and he spends the opening wearing the fakest looking mustache since Groucho Marx.
Jamie Gertz doesn't fair any better as the poor street urchin messenger who takes a liking to Bacon's character. Her Brooklyn accent, which comes and goes, is straight out of Welcome Back, Kotter. Then we have Rudy Ramos as the least threatening drug dealer prior to Jay and Silent Bob. There is no dramatic reason for him to be stuttering, but he does, distractingly, throughout the film.
Worst Direction: Quicksilver was made during the heyday of MTV and features a lot of bicycle chase scenes set to eighties synth-pop music. By 1986 these types of scenes were fairly common, but Quicksilver is so incompetently directed that the music and the action sequences don't even match up. A number of scenes are so sloppily edited and unclear that it seems like somewhere there's a three-hour director's cut of Quicksilver just waiting to be unleashed. It's enough to give eighties nostalgia a bad name.
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