Wtf is up with Arnie taking on all these Action-Comedy roles? He was so much the better tough guy when he was JUST that.... instead of trying to be a comedian at the same time. His Predator and Terminator days were so much better then his recent stuff: Last Action Hero, that bullshit christmas movie about buying some crappy action figure, and of course his latest action/comedy adventure: The 6th Day.
By and large the 6th day was a passable way to spend a few hours with a few big explosions and some techy looking sci-fi gadgetry and gizmo's but the whole thing could have been so much better, with a little less black comedy, and a little bit more of the idealogical probing that good science fiction ought to do. A little bit less dialogue and a little bit less family for Arnie would have been good too. Whats with all this family man shit Arnie's been doing? Why does he keep taking the roles about being someones daddy, someones twin brother, someones hubby and y do these next of kin characters have to be so damn prominent in the story? I dont want Arnie the husband or Arnie the father, I want Arnie the cyborg or Arnie the jungle commando. If hes not ripping apart robots or aliens im just not intrested.
5 Angsty Stars for The 6th Day.
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Benichio Del Toro is a fucking legend. A good actor with excellent screen presence. Mrs Zeta-Jones isn't as bad an actress as she looks. In fact shes pritty good. Her 100 year old (real life) hubby was alright too. But he doesnt have boobies like Catherine does, so he didn't do much for me. His drug addict daughter was pritty cool too, and her boyfriend was excellent. His little spiel about race politics in the drug war, was perfectly delivered: it had a real sense of idealistic preppy white boy.
It was all very well shot and cut. Director Steve Soderberg used that fancy little technique thats getting more and more common in films where the whole thing runs like some sort of a highlights reel: any frames that aren't telling enough about the plot get cut out and the film ends up looking very micro-managed. On one hand it gets very annoying, but on the other hand it keeps the story moving briskly and keeps tension high.
The scenes shot in mexico were very good. I cant quite put my finger on why. I think maybe it's because they were the scenes with Benichio in them.