Eagle Vs. Shark

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Summary:
Jarrod is a quiet loser with no friends. Lily is also a quiet loser with no friends who immediately wants to attach herself to Jarrod. She is treated like crap by him through the whole movie, but their "quirky" nature is supposed to make us believe in their bonding and budding relationship. Somehow.

Review:
I am dangerously in love with Flight of the Conchords, a two man folk parody team composed of Bret and Jemaine. Go on YouTube and laugh your ass off along with me. So, I was looking forward to finally getting my grubby paws on a copy of Eagle Vs. Shark to see Jemaine in big screen action. Too bad there wasn't any action to be had by anyone in this movie. Especially from the two leads. From frame one, Lily is standing with her head slightly cocked sideways as she stares into a mirror in total "Indie Movie" mode. It's one thing to make an Indie picture, and another all together when your movie is doing its best to follow the indie movie cliches from every conceivable angle.
The soundtrack is "hip" and screams "I know good music", like so many other fucking indie movies that come out. Shit gets annoying as fuck REAL quick. If they're going to play subdued, "under-the-radar" music, why can't it be music with no lyrics? That might help keep me from thinking that it's just a big indie music video. It got worse when near the last half I started hearing MIDI drumbeats that felt like they were taken straight from Life Aquatic.
Then there's a misplaced scene of horribly hand-rendered animation that comes from nowhere after Jarrod bites into a rotten apple. Then as the story ambles along, there are a few more ugly animated sequences. It just doesn't fit for this movie, and once again feels like it's going for the "pay attention to my unique style" card. I hated hated HATED that!

When it comes to the romance story, I don't understand it at all. She immediately becomes attracted to him and won't leave him even though in every scene he treats her like shit. Jarrod is obviously the "bad apple" - ooooh, clever metaphor! NOT! - who refuses to be a nice person any chance he gets. If anyone picks this movie up and isn't into it within the first ten minutes, then I recommend fast-forwarding to the one hour ten minute mark up until one hour and 17 minutes. One character is actually kind of "real", and Jarrod's reply to this character's speech about their turbulent past is classic. I add a plus to the final grade for the only 7 minutes of the movie I actually liked.

Every character save one (mentioned above) is a cheap Napoleon Dynamite knockoff. They never smile, and hardly even emote. They wear dated clothing and all look frumpy as fuck. Also, everything they own is dated. Including Jarrod's best friend who is the best computer hacker he's ever seen... and this friend uses what looks like a 286/16MHz with Windows 3.1, and it takes 30 seconds to load a 50 byte text file. Isn't that just fucking hilarious? Oh! Oh! Did I mention the brother and sister-in-law who sell their own clothing and makeup product line that has failed (think "tupperware")? How about Jarrod's silly use of martial arts, especially the nunchaku? Add to that the complete Napoleon Dynamite demeanor with all of these people, and it's apparent that this movie would not have existed if it wasn't for Dynamite's popularity.

This was a chore and a half to get through. I can't say it's worth anyone's time. I love Bret and Jemaine, but Jemaine without Bret - in a totally horrendous attention-getting piece of shit Napoleon knockoff indie movie - isn't what I had hoped. Just laugh your ass off with the Flight of the Conchords, and pretend this movie doesn't exist.

Gee, I hope some day either Bret or Jemaine will get a lead role in a movie! That would be SO COOL!

GRADE: F+

Reviewed: 1/17/08