Review

  • *Sigh*, looking through my VHS collection and biting the bullet to re-watch this piece of sh*t was the easy part. Within the first 3 minutes you already know what your in for, a peeping tom dies and goes to hell to get humped by a actor dressed like a big bird, meanwhile 'I'm your boogie man' is playing in the background. We're introduced to Nicky who 'jams' with some large random weapon, his dad's assistant is basically used as the introduction to the plot, his dad (the devil), played by Harvey Keitel for some odd reason, is making the decision on who should be his successor for then next 10,000 years. It never explains why someones 'in office' for 10,000 years but there's not much need to care anyways. He also remarks on how Nicky was pretty until his brother hit him in the face with a shovel, foreshadowing his brothers as the antagonists. Basically, his dad declares himself ruler for another 10,000 years and Nicky's 2 brothers go to earth freezing the gate to hell, thus causing the devil to die for some reason(?), Keitel's finger falls off and Nicky starts his journey to return his brothers to hell.

    Probably about 10 minutes in now, the first thing that sticks out, is Sander. Sandler, while acceptable in just about all his other movies to this date (excluding that one where he's on a boat.), he's f*cking terrible in this. No words can explain how bad his performance is, its shallow, its half-a*sed, its not funny, its just ridiculously awful. To quote another disappointing movie, the ringer, 'I've seen better acting in porno'. As a whole, the supporting cast is also terrible. Nicky's sidekick i guess you'd say is a talking pit-bull glances at a doorstep that says 'i love acting' on it, he pis*es on it and says 'you love acting, well i love pis*ing', and to make matters even more mind numbingly awful the pis* is cgi'd obviously. Oh thats the next thing, the effects and production. This paragraphs dedicated to acting so let me get back on track. Usual members from the happy Madison gang are here, i've spotted like 4 people that are also in grandmas boy, and other crap flicks like the animal and Mr deeds and crap. Performances are half a*sed too, at most times secondary actor just read a line or two devoid of emotion or any form of acting. One standout role though is Quinton Tarantinos cameo as a blind preacher who appears about 3 times, other then that, nothing.

    The production is awful. Hell looks, for lack of a better and less offensive term, retarded. There is around 3 sets I've noticed. Nickys room, the entrance to hell, and the (INSANELY BOTCHED) throne. Nicky's room is literally covered in stickers of heavy metal bands, problem is, i counted like over 9000 Ozzy stickers and one big metallica one, obviously the set designers know nothing about metal, nor the crew/cast. The throne is just like a mass hall, except the size of a small house basement, there's nothing that resembles artistic detail at all, it'd pass for a normal room to me. the gates also stupid, there's some rock like walls and a cheap frozen fire effect for the gate it self, no effort seemed to be used. the sad thing is, the gate is easily the most used. The rest of the sets on earth are one apartment room, a basketball stadium thing(I'm not a sports fan.), a park shoot, and the rest is all sidewalks. Oh yeah hell breaks loose by the end, and the sets turn into cgi awfulness, its so awful that by that point i went on my laptop and started chatting. The CGI is as awful as you'd expect from 1999/2000, but...its used throughout the whole movie. in fact all the special effects in the movie were cgi i noticed, of abysmal quality.

    Last thing i'm going to rant about is the script, 'What we're they thinking!?' - avgn. Its a comedy, to be a 'good' comedy, it has to be funny. Unfortantly it isn't, its like a stream of half baked jokes like Nicky spinning his head around to entertain his friends (Oh he's doing the exorcist thing, thats pure comedy.), and Satan sticking a pineapple up Hitler's a*s. At a glance, you'r still likely to ask to your self, 'whats the point.'. The plot it self is rubbish. If two brothers out of hell for some reason make the devil have 'a week' to live, wouldn't another one shorten his life span even more thus making his coming to earth a bad idea. The brothers deceiving the humans is also like 'wut?'. They possess a minister and tell everyone 'let the Sin, be-Gin', to which a completely packed church gets out of their seat and everyone starts cheering. Yeah, thats very likely to happen. These parts are somewhat spaced out, because until like the last 20 minutes, Nicky does nothing but walk around, and do nothing. None of the jokes are funny, the plot is literally insane, its lost in its own continuity also.

    i'm not going to spell check this review cause i feel that the movie sucked so bad that it's not worth the time of what i've already written. It sucks, it sucks even on a Adam Sander level. Its not funny, its not entertaining, its just downright lame. Bad script, bad acting, bad story, bad production, bad just about everything. To the mind of a child, its acceptable, but for a audience over 12 (The movies rated pg13 by the way.), its damn near worth destroying. I wouldn't watch this movie again if i were paid too, even for a million, i'd rather have my dignity.