Alright, I’m really fucking excited for Ninja Assassin. For months I’ve been anticipating a mindless bloody explosion of guts and ninja stars. Then poor reviews started coming in, and because I’m impressionable, stupid, and spaghetti-spined, I began to panic. Then I was like, wait a second. Wait, let’s just take a look at these reviews.
I began to see that all the quotes delineating just why the movie is so poor…are exactly the reasons I want to see the fucking movie! Now, if you don’t like the various things I’m expecting: ultra violence, decapitations, ludicrous amounts of blood splattering everywhere, I can understand why you wouldn’t like it. But I mean, shouldn’t context count for anything?
When you evaluate a movie, do you take into account intent, context, and audience? I’m guessing no. And furthermore, I’m not sure if you should. A different debate, for a different day. But if you’re a fucking psychopath fanboy like me, check out these review snippets, culled from Rotten Tomatoes. Keep in mind these are all from negative reviews.
The gory decapitations and gushing blood – imagine filling a million balloons with cherry Kool-Aid and using them in a water-balloon fight – turn the action scenes into an indistinguishable sea of red.
Awesome.
Working with screenwriters Matthew Sand and J. Michael Straczynski (from an original story by Sand), McTeigue provides enough wire-fu fights and stylish gore to please the fan boys who expect ample bloodletting from an R-rated action movie.
Steven Ramos, Boxoffice Magazine
Exactly, dickhead.
As I left the theater, I found that my thumbs ached. I hadn’t realized that, during certain parts of the movie, I was pressing imaginary buttons as if trying to control some video game.
Bob Bloom, Journal and Courier
BOB, you’re so hilarious dude. The “I thought I was watching a video game” line isn’t stale as fuck and overused. You’re a pioneer of hilarity and incisive wit.
This one is simply a diverting, uncommonly violent action flick. No need for an extended critical postmortem.
Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail
Exactly. Again, I suppose if you don’t dig these things, I don’t blame you for not enjoying it. But what I have gleamed from these review snippets, because my generation doesn’t have the attention span to read entire reviews, is that these people seem genuinely shocked at what the movie contained. Were you expecting something other than super violence and madness on celluloid? Did you see the trailers? I ask this, because there are positive reviews that contain the same sort of content as the negative ones. Except, these people fucking get it:
This movie knows exactly what it is: Gonzo silliness about bodies turned into human salsa.
Kyle Smith, New York Post
I’m seeing this movie tomorrow night, on what is probably going to be a belly filled with turkey and potatoes. I hope the camera whirls so quickly and the violence is so extreme that I vomit a torrent of hot, mushy protein particles and gravy onto someone’s head in the row in front of me.
I’m fucking stoked.
Tags: A Fucking Shitload of Ninja Stars, Ninja Assassin Review
These are probably the same people who gave Santa’s Slay bad reviews, when it was exactly what I was expecting!
The review that literally just said “Violent” is all I fucking needed to see a movie about a Ninja who is, get this, a fucking Assassin. At some point a heavy handed plot involving political commentary turned inward at our society just gets in the way of decapitations and enjoyment. Not every movie has to be Citizen Kane and there’s room for pure stylized violence disguised as a narrative every once in a while.
i can,t wait to read your review of the movie. I hope it,s one of those it,s so bad it,s good movies. I,m going to see 2012 tomorrow. I,m expecting it to be just bad. 2012 is 2 hrs and 40 mins long.