Darkman

I’ve just had a revelation. I believe that picking up a full-automatic assault rifle makes you dumb. At least, that’s how it seems in the movies. (This would account for many otherwise inexplicable things in real life, too, such as the National Rifle Association and Sarah Palin.) When you have such a weapon in your hands, you have an irresistible impulse to fire off at least 6,000 rounds as soon as you smash through a door or enter a room. Then you stand there and see what you’ve missed—it being another invariable law that no one but a good guy has ever hit anything with a machine gun.. So if you ever see a machine gun, don’t pick it up! You’re better off throwing rocks. And if anyone ever aims one at you, don’t panic. Just stand there. He can’t hit you. Just thought you’d like to know …

We were in a sort of brainless mood last night (maybe I picked up a machine gun in my dreams) so we watched this. It is about average on the brainless scale, not as stupid as some, stupider than others. The chief delights are seeing these two Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated actors, Liam Neeson and Frances McDormand, fairly early in their careers, and the cheerfully gaudy saturated colors and off-kilter camera angles of this comic-book movie. (It wasn’t based on a comic because Sam Raimi couldn’t afford the rights, so they wrote their own comic-book “origin” story.) It is lush and overblown in the same way of those Hammer and Roger Corman epics of the ‘50s and ‘60s, particularly in the cheesy flashback montages (yes! montages!). If you’ve recently picked up an assault rifle, you’re sure to enjoy this.