Kweeny Reviews: Tusk

WARNING: WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

I am a fan of Kevin Smith, but even I have to admit he has some hit and misses. Even in his misses, there are parts that shine, but if the good points of the film are far overshadowed by the outright horrible, then I gotta say something.

And I am gonna be brutal here, because I do love Kevin Smith. I know he can do better.

Now, don't get me wrong. I didn't HATE Tusk. But it felt like I was watching an ALMOST awesome movie. It didn't completely win me over, but it had a lot of good parts to it. But when I watch a movie that is set in Canada, but it's made by an AMERICAN, I am going to be harsher on it than other movies. Because you are setting your tale in MY stomping ground. I'll call you on your shit if you get your Canadian-isms wrong, hoser!

The movie starts off pretty funny, and darkly humorous. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the self-referential shots that Kevin Smith was clearly taking at himself with the whole Podcast thing, and the main character just being a huge dick of an American to Canadians. That was spot on. Canadians DO hate it when Americans act like twats when they visit, and Americans DO have a habit of treating us like simpletons because they don't understand our ways. And we WILL take shots right back at you if you can't behave yourself while visiting.

But some of the jokes about Canada were clearly from the point of view of an American trying to sell us on what he thinks the Canadian way of life is. Those jokes fall flat and are LAME. Yeah haha, mention Tim Hortons. THAT HASN'T BEEN DONE BEFORE. Oh and don't forget the crazy Hockey jokes! OH BOY I AM JUST STUNNED AT THE COMEDY GENIUS KEVIN SMITH! And let's have a really bad Quebecer investigator who is a complete bad sterotype of French-Canadians, and also add an ignorant  Winnipeg cop who tells Wallace's friends who go looking for him that, "Canada doesn't have crime."

Really Kevin Smith? 

Canada loves a good joke. Don't get me wrong. We love comedy, just listen to some of our radio stations the moment you cross the border. And look at how many comedians we have that have crossed over! We love a good laugh, and we don't mind being made fun of.

We just want the jokes to be actually funny.

Yes, for me, the bad Canadian references took me out of the movie more than the weird ass story and creature. I have seen Human Centapide, I know what they were trying to do with Tusk. Oh look at our crazy ass creature idea! It's like Night of the Triffids but with more grotesque effects! The crazy old guy (Howard Howe) who makes our main character into Mr.Tusk has a really interesting backstory, and is well acted by Michael Parks. He comes off as completely nuts but somewhat sympathetic. His weird obsession with the Walrus makes sense when you hear how horrible his life has been, and that the only thing that ever gave him comfort was a walrus. His character is off his fucking rocker, no question! But I didn't have any sympathy for the main character Wallace. Wallace is so shallow that when he goes through the harrowing transformation, the emotional impact of it all is one sided. I didn't care about Wallace. I cared about Howard Howe. 

I really wanted to love this movie. I really did. 

There are some really awesome scenes, the effects are alright, and some strong performances from some of the cast. But the movie is almost good. I don't hate it, and when the jokes actually are good they made me laugh my ass off, but the tone was all over the place and it was very obvious Kevin Smith should stick to writing what he knows about: New Jersey.

The ending would have been so much more meaningful if the rest of the film didn't feel so disjointed.