My girlfriend has HBO+, so on "date night" yesterday evening we decided to watch The Dead Don't Die. We didn't know anything about the movie, but we assumed with such an excellent cast it had to be decent. Boy, were we wrong. Before I get lectures from Jim Jarmusch fans, I've seen some of his other movies and have enjoyed them.
The Dead Don't Die gives an entirely new meaning to the word "boring." Slow-paced is one thing, stupefyingly dull is another. The wooden acting from some of my favorites doesn't help, but very, very little happens in the movie, and when it does, the action is pretty boring and predictable, too. People sit around, stand around, and drive around with expressionless faces mouthing pointless expository dialog even though there's not much to expose. The scenery is pretty, which is about the only positive.
The environmentalist and anti-consumerism message is heavy-handed and pretty stupid. While I would normally agree with such a message, I didn't like being bludgeoned about the head with it, and it's handled in such a haphazard and nonsensical way it certainly isn't going to change any minds. The concept of the Earth tilting off its axis is interesting if utterly implausible, and there is absolutely no follow-through. A kid in a detention facility (I think; little is clear in this movie) mentions to a couple of fellow detainees that the Earth going off it's axis would destroy the world, which I imagine is correct, but the only effects the characters experience is that it gets dark later. Well, that and the zombies. And the moon looks peculiar.
We probably should have turned it off early in the movie when the song "The Dead Don't Die" comes on the radio while Bill Murray and Adam Driver are cruising around in their police car. The Murray character wonders aloud why it sounds familiar. The Driver character says it's because it's the movie's theme song. Cringe. Even worse, toward the end, Murray's character asks Driver's character why he's been saying "It's not going to end well" throughout. Driver's character says it's because he's read the script. Double cringe. There are ways to break the fourth wall in a clever manner, but in The Dead Don't Die it's merely embarrassing.
I love Tom Waits, and he does as well as he can with his part as the hermit, but to me his character seemed tacked on as an afterthought, as if Jarmusch decided he needed an observer to make pithy remarks about mankind's flaws.
I really, really wanted to like this movie, and my girlfriend and I watched it until the end expecting something interesting to happen. Unfortunately, nothing ever does. At one point about halfway through my girlfriend asked, "Do you have any idea where this movie is going? Is everyone going to die?" I yawned and said, "I really don't know."
The Dead Don't Die seems like a "screw you" to the audience from Jarmusch, kind of like when the great Lou Reed, freaked out by his sudden popularity, released "Metal Machine Music." If you're not old enough to remember that, Google it.
I'm embarrassed for all the excellent actors involved in this boring mess. Maybe it looked better on paper than on film. I strongly recommend everyone avoid The Dead Don't Die unless you're having a hard time getting to sleep.
The Dead Don't Die gives an entirely new meaning to the word "boring." Slow-paced is one thing, stupefyingly dull is another. The wooden acting from some of my favorites doesn't help, but very, very little happens in the movie, and when it does, the action is pretty boring and predictable, too. People sit around, stand around, and drive around with expressionless faces mouthing pointless expository dialog even though there's not much to expose. The scenery is pretty, which is about the only positive.
The environmentalist and anti-consumerism message is heavy-handed and pretty stupid. While I would normally agree with such a message, I didn't like being bludgeoned about the head with it, and it's handled in such a haphazard and nonsensical way it certainly isn't going to change any minds. The concept of the Earth tilting off its axis is interesting if utterly implausible, and there is absolutely no follow-through. A kid in a detention facility (I think; little is clear in this movie) mentions to a couple of fellow detainees that the Earth going off it's axis would destroy the world, which I imagine is correct, but the only effects the characters experience is that it gets dark later. Well, that and the zombies. And the moon looks peculiar.
We probably should have turned it off early in the movie when the song "The Dead Don't Die" comes on the radio while Bill Murray and Adam Driver are cruising around in their police car. The Murray character wonders aloud why it sounds familiar. The Driver character says it's because it's the movie's theme song. Cringe. Even worse, toward the end, Murray's character asks Driver's character why he's been saying "It's not going to end well" throughout. Driver's character says it's because he's read the script. Double cringe. There are ways to break the fourth wall in a clever manner, but in The Dead Don't Die it's merely embarrassing.
I love Tom Waits, and he does as well as he can with his part as the hermit, but to me his character seemed tacked on as an afterthought, as if Jarmusch decided he needed an observer to make pithy remarks about mankind's flaws.
I really, really wanted to like this movie, and my girlfriend and I watched it until the end expecting something interesting to happen. Unfortunately, nothing ever does. At one point about halfway through my girlfriend asked, "Do you have any idea where this movie is going? Is everyone going to die?" I yawned and said, "I really don't know."
The Dead Don't Die seems like a "screw you" to the audience from Jarmusch, kind of like when the great Lou Reed, freaked out by his sudden popularity, released "Metal Machine Music." If you're not old enough to remember that, Google it.
I'm embarrassed for all the excellent actors involved in this boring mess. Maybe it looked better on paper than on film. I strongly recommend everyone avoid The Dead Don't Die unless you're having a hard time getting to sleep.