REVIEW: My Bloody Valentine 3D...

I love 3D films. The last one that I had a chance to see was Beowulf from 2007. It was a fun film, not brilliant, but a ton of fun. Now there is My Bloody Valentine, the newest release from the studio Saw made famous, Lionsgate, and boy is it one hell of a good time.

My Bloody Valentine is a film about Tom Hanniger, who returns to his hometown on the tenth anniversary of the Valentine's night massacre that claimed the lives of 22 people. Instead of a homecoming, however, Tom finds himself the key suspect of a recent wave of copy-cat murders, and it seems like his old flame may be the only one who thinks that he is innocent.

Let me get this out of the way. 3D can make 99.9% of bad films watchable. There is just something fun about going out to a movie with a group of friends, throwing on those goofy glasses, and just getting lost in the spectacle, or laughing at the hilarity that may ensue. Beowulf had a great visual style to it, and MBV was just a really fun film.

The gore of this film may be the true star of this flick. It's so over the top, that instead of being creepy like say Halloween, that used no gore (the original), it put it over into the "turn your head away" area, and add in some 3D blood spatter and pick axes flying your way, it was just a lot of fun. There are a good amount of kills, and while you do see how the people in the opening die, the gore that you see in the corpses just lets you know that this will be a balls-splattered-on-the-wall gorno film, and while I hate, hate, hate torture porn, this was done with such a tongue in cheek feel, that it kinda worked. It's not like Saw where you feel that the filmmaker is trying to send a message with the kills, this film just wears it's campiness on it's sleeve.

However, the thing that really surprised me was the attempt at being a visually solid film. While it's not, at all, there are a couple of shots in this film, particularly a couple of establishment shots that were surprising. Also, with the 3D, there is an added sense of depth, that allows for a lot more movement and things in the frame, and it's taken to full effect, only a few times, during MBV.

Oh, and a girl running from a murder naked for 5 minutes and a midget dying (rather inventively), are worth the price of admission alone.

That said, there are a TON of problems with this film.

First, this film looks like a really bad student film if the students came from a college of all quadriplegic blind kids. It's just really hacky and not only is it not visually fun to look at, but, as with all 3D films, the gimmick kind of wore thin a little bit. Also, the score seemed to be a little heavy handed.

HOWEVER, the biggest problem with this thing happens to be the most important part, the acting. It had the level of melodrama that could rival telenovelas. The script was insanely schlocky, and the acting, as valiant an effort as they may have given, is horrible. Sure, it's a horror film, but it's not a bad thing to have good acting in horror films. Not ALL horror films have to be horrible acted (thank you Descent).

If you need a movie to go see with some friends, and you've seen all of the Oscar films, there may not be a better film to go check out. It's not good, not at all, but it is fun, and in a season, or month, where we have emotionally depressing films like Revolutionary Road, The Wrestler, Benji Button, and Rachel Getting Married, there must be something said for a straight up fun film, which this one is.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3D - 5/10

Come back later for more news and notes, along with a review of The Wrestler and Revolutionary Road (hopefully sometime within the next couple of days).

Go see something good!