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Take lurid 1970s B movies about fast cars and loose women, add a dash of Nicolas Cage at his most deadpan, and sprinkle CGI and 3D technology on top, and you've got
Drive Angry 3D. Damned badass Milton (Cage) literally busts out of hell to rescue his infant granddaughter from a Satan-worshiping cult leader named Jonah King (Billy Burke from the
Twilight movies). On his way Milton picks up Piper (Amber Heard), a blond waitress with a bad attitude and a worse boyfriend. But hot on their trail is the Accountant (William Fichtner), a demonic emissary of ambiguous intentions but unstoppable power. From there it's a series of car chases, shootouts, and sex scenes, and sometimes sex scenes that are also shootouts (a bit that was done better, it must be said, in the underrated
Shoot 'Em Up). Don't ask for coherence or common sense; this is a movie where pretty much any character's main motivation can be summed up as sheer cussedness.
Drive Angry 3D maintains a general sleazy good humor, and Fichtner at least is enjoying himself--he's giving exactly the kind of unexpected, offbeat performance that Cage used to specialize in. (Cage himself is pretty lackluster here, sadly, and wearing one of his worst hairpieces to boot.) This is self-conscious trash; think of it as a companion piece, both in intention and quality, to Quentin Tarentino and Robert Rodriguez's
Grindhouse compilation.
--Bret Fetzer
