Kris Ambler

A cynical corporate exercise in milking every drop of green out of a franchise. The screenplay is derivative, borrowing so much from past films that you’re often confused which film you’re watching. There are too many songs, which only serve to interrupt key plot elements. The comedy, courtesy of tired, returning characters, seem crowbarred in like the wrong pieces of a jigsaw forced into a place they just don’t fit. Overall it looks great, but it’s just lacking in too many ways to be anything other than distraction fodder for a rainy day.

I’m going to start with the title, it was wrong for this movie, it should have been ‘car crash’. The premise, that Gylenhall has experienced some MMA trauma so bad that he now wanders the earth like some downbeat David Carradine, grinning at life’s dangers before implausibly beating them up. Such is his status he gets invited to a struggling backwater, where everyone has an ironic sense of humour, to sort out the ‘humorously’ named Road House. You know, cos it’s a house on a road, gettit? Me neither. His first major altercation with 5 ‘baddies’, none of whom carry guns in a country where most people have at least 3, ends in a slap fight and him compassionately taking them to hospital. Where he meets one-trick pony Danielle Melchior as an implausible doctor. All the way through this Gylenhall displays all the charm of a paper bag, grinning and gurning his monosyllabic way through interactions like he’s had too many punches to the head. After this point it just gets sillier. A crocodile eats a baddy, a boll**k naked Connor McGregor turns up playing a leery, dislikable Irish thug - nothing new there - and the whole thing descends into pantomime. There’s no dame to save this mess though, all of the characters are badly drawn, badly acted and poorly directed. Watch it if you like MMA, drive cars really fast and have never seen a film with foreign subtitles. Otherwise save yourself the time I wish I had and watch the original, Patrick Swayze at least had a smile that didn’t make you feel queasy.

I don’t really know what to say about this film, much is made of it breaking ground with the depiction of a Mexican superhero, but it feels clumsy. What’s meant to be comedic just comes across as stereotypical and saccharine sweet. Some of the jokes are borderline racist, and character development is pretty thin on the ground. Susan Sarandon’s turn as the big bad doesn’t really land either, it feels too contrived to be believable. The dialogue isn’t going to win any literary awards either, it reminded me of an episode of Power Rangers. The pluses include great visual effects and a fairly likeable lead, even though the reluctant hero schtick gets a bit tedious. Overall it’s a reasonable popcorn movie for 10 year old boys, there’s not much else to say. Disappointing