In Drive Angry, Nicolas Cage plays a dead man with vengeance on the mind. In the first scene, he escapes from Hell in a muscle car. His badass character is, of course, named Milton, John Milton. See, after his death, his estranged daughter fell into a bad scene: a Satanic cult. She was murdered by the cult's leader, played by Billy Burke. His name is, yes, Jonah King. To confirm he's despicable, he uses the dead daughter's femur (!) as a cane and as a weapon. The cult has stolen Milton's infant granddaughter, who they plan to sacrifice on the night of the next full moon. Milton is in a race against time to save his last living relative. He's joined by a sexy, hard-living, and tough-as-nails waitress, Piper (Amber Heard). In hot pursuit is a mysterious supernatural being called "the Accountant" (William Fichtner), who aims to return Milton to perdition.

What horror vet Patrick Lussier (the 2009 My Bloody Valentine remake), serving as director and co-writer, has fashioned here is an unabashed and well-crafted trash extravaganza, overflowing with over-the-top muscle-car stunts, impalings, gunshot wounds, nude women, and fire-and-brimstone imagery. It never captures the down-and-dirty, midnight-movie grindhouse vibe as well as Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror or Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof (which had far more memorable car-chase action), but the fact the less reputable Lussier comes fairly close at times to matching those kings of the disreputable is impressive. The best sequence in Drive Angry might just be a well-staged (& mid-coitus) motel shootout.

The 3-D illusion, in which the film was shot (no post-production conversion nonsense here), is well-utilized for the most part. Lussier embraces the cornier side of 3-D, with objects, including bullets and bits of viscera, "coming at" the audience. It's fun and suits the tone of the film. What Lussier fails to overcome, however, is the unappealing dimming of the image.

Nicolas Cage. Nic, Nic, Nic. The Oscar-winning, envelope-pushing, wild-eyed, dinosaur-bone-purchasing, tax-evading, Herzog-collaborating madman acting great doesn't return to Leaving Las Vegas/Adaptation. level of excellence here, nor does he go to Vampire's Kiss/Bad Lieutenant heights of inspired lunacy, but his performance is still pleasant in its quirks and suits the movie. As Milton, Cage never seems less than aware of the cornball nature of the project, yet he also gives the intense, sorrowful character his all. A committed performance, but with a wink. It's an interesting balance at which he is quite adept, more than any other American male movie star.

Amber Heard is rather impressive here (and not just because she's sexier than ever). Her performance is loose, feisty, and charming. Megan Fox could never give a performance this good. The film's secret weapon, though, might just be character actor William Fichtner, who plays his demonic enforcer as a detached bureaucrat, amused by the human drama, shrugging and cracking wise despite the violence and depravity surrounding him. Fichtner steals his scenes.

Drive Angry's audience knows what the film is and what they desire from it, and the highest compliment the film can be paid is that it delivers the low-brow goods in spades. A fine early-year diversion.

B

Drive Angry knows that it is no Oscar winner and knows its wrongs but it is very entertaining. This is good B-movie Nicolas Cage and it links itself to some of the numerous ridiculous that was also seen in last year's Machete. It's nice to see William Fichtner in a new project and he does fine here as does Amber Heard. Good fun. **1/2

Glad to hear Amber Heard is good in it. Sounds like people who had just seen the ads on TV might be in for a surprise content-wise. Doubt they'll be expecting it to have a plot involving Satanism.

If I could change one element of this movie:

Pretty Good Overall. All yeah Amber out-did the Megan Fox act.

Just wish Nick would have mumbled less as sometimes he was hard to hear.

One thing I didn't understand Why did the accountant stop amber from going with Cage at the end???

"I'm going to kill you, and then defile your body"

Drive Angry ended up being just too much of a muchness by the end, which is unfortunate because there is a cracking good hard-edged grindhouse movie buried inside. I think it would have been a far better film if they cut 20 minutes off the running time and amped the whole story up accordingly.

Amber Heard was great here, matching Nicholas Cage in their shared action scenes. The performances were nicely rounded out by two veteran character actors, William Fichtner and David Morse, though the one slightly weak link in the leads was bad guy Billy Burke - - they needed an actor capable of much more menace.

Plenty of the old ultraviolence, gratuitous nudity, and wacked out supernatural storyline.

I'd love to see the director's shortened cut, but as it stands, I'd rate Drive Angry a disappointing,,,


4 out of 5.

5/10 -> C-

It's a shame this movie displays a desperate need to be up there with the grindhouse movies Tarantino and Rodriguez delivered more recently. It quite frequently copies style and substance, but it never comes close to either of them...

On the other hand the story (while it feels like a rip off of stories Supernatural has been doing for quite some time now) kinda did it for me. I enjoyed it very much. It's a shame the movie doesn't have a more unique voice to itself, because I feel like this could've been a great movie (like Drag Me to Hell) if it went through some more capable hands.

I've seen it in 2D, but you don't even have to pay attention to see where the 3D should kick in - the movie continues the streak of gimmicky 3D use, so no loss there.

Why the spoiler tags in a review section?

I don't think he could have died with a "normal" death. The movie made it pretty clear that he's not a regular human. There were subtle moments that hinted at King having some kind of supernatural powers and thus the God Slayer comes into play.

Also Milton knows you can escape from the prison of death and he wanted to make sure a maniac like King never gets a chance to do so again and wanted him to pay for what he did to his daughter. God Slayer makes sure there's no heaven or hell for you, as was stated.

I actually kinda wish this movie did a little better on BO. I want to see a sequel. There's a lot of room for improvement here and it could work.

I was forced by logistics to see it in 3D, and I agree completely - - don't waste your money on 3D - - the only thing that was improved by the 3D was the credits font.

Because I always feel a bit queasy posting big spoilers for a brand new movie, without any kind of tag or warning.

I didn't mind him being shot with the supernatural gun, lol. I just thought the effect should've been...ickier and accomplished with practical gore effects, not CG fireworks.

I thought the 3-D effects in and of themselves were a lot of fun--the cheesy bullet-coming-at-you moments--but I still hate how dim the image is when you're wearing 3-D glasses.

Well it is the God Slayer so something like a black hole but with flashy effects sound about right.

I really do wonder why it's so hard to offset colors for 3D copies to compensate for a darker image.

You're wearing freakin' sunglasses in a darkened room! Projector bulbs can only be so bright.

And I appreciate it since I'd like to be able to read user reviews without getting important things spoiled for me .

That's kind of a bullshit as this section is the only one where you can talk and discuss about a movie. Spoiler tags make things pretty messy if the discussion gets big...

For the last time, spoilers are ALLOWED in here. If you don't want to get spoiled, don't read the reviews.

But it's not against the rules to hide spoilers for a brand new movie as a common courtesy, even if it isn't required.

No, it's not; my comment was directed towards Mike.

Like.

I know they are allowed, but I agree with Gun. It's nice to be able to read a review without having a movie spoiled. I do like to read what others think before seeing a movie without having anything major given away.