The Patriot

Thursday, May 17, 2001

I'm hoping there are at least a few of you out there who are familiar with the exceedingly bad film, Prince of Space, most likely from its airing on Mystery Science Theater 3000. The film is apparently structured as some sort of Dantean torture, in which the same poorly rendered scenes are repeated ad infinitum. The aliens arrive and threaten the earth. The Prince of Space confronts them and informs them that their weapons are useless against him. The aliens ignore him, only to find that their weapons are, in fact, useless against him. They flee into space, then return to start the whole damn thing over again.

Clearly, the makers of The Patriot were going for the same feel. The British do someting bad to the colonists, usually Mel Gibson's character (Sorry, can't remember his character's name -- I have better things to do with my brain). The colonists, angry with the death of their relatives, get back at the British. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Look, I know that war is a cyclical sort of thing. It's supposed to be repetitive, but this isn't exactly a realistic war film. Any war film where people attack each other with flags loses a lot of credibility in my book. Yeah, I'm sure someone's used a flag in anger at one point or another in the heat of combat, but I would imagine never so effectively as depicted here.

I could certainly go into more depth about how bad this is. I suppose if you're inclined to see this, you've probably seen it already so I can't help much.

For those of you who haven't seen it, I should probably explain the most bizarre factor, the absurdly long running time. This is a dumb popcorn movie, and yet it runs three hours. Seems bizarre, until you realize the ENTIRE LAST HOUR is in slo-mo! I haven't seen slo-mo like this since Triplecross.

Rating: F (Long AND Bad -- A Lethal Combination)

Reviewed by Padgett Arango
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