It’s rare that I watch a film and can’t find something good about it. I mean there have been some truly horrendous films that have offered great cinematography, a good piece of acting, great direction or even a plot twist that made the movie worth watching for. But OPERATION ENDGAME felt like a total waste of time for me, even while I wanted to like it.
The movie takes place in a hidden facility and involves a clandestine organization of spies/assassins who apparently control most of what goes on in the world. Established in the early sixties, this organization is composed of two teams. Team Alpha is a more active group that likes to spur things on and make things happen. Team Omega is their counter group, one that keeps things in check should Team Alpha overstep their bounds. This point/counter point organization has pretty much kept things on an even keel.
Beginning his first day is the Fool (Joe Anderson), so named because each agent is named after a tarot card. He is brought into the Facility by long time agent Chariot (Rob Corddry) and agent High Priestess (Maggie Q). Down a deep elevator and into a waiting room where two agents watch their every move, they arrive and Chariot shows him around and introduces him.
For team Alpha he meets Magician (Adam Scott), Heirophant (Emilie de Ravin), Tower (Brandon T. Jackson) and their leader Empress (Ellen Barkin). On the opposing Omega team, of which he has met the top two members, he meets Judgment (Ving Rhames) and eventually Emperor (Bob Odenkirk). Supervising both teams and running things in general is Devil (Jeffery Tambor). While in his office, Fool meets the last Alpha member Temperance (Odette Yustman), an ex-lover, which surprises both of them.
Fool’s first day turns rather exciting as the two teams wait for Devil to show for a meeting. When alarms sound they discover that someone has murdered Devil but before passing away he initiated Operation Endgame. This means that the entire system and building is on lockdown and within two hours the entire building and its contents, including agents, will be obliterated via napalm. This is all the time they have to find an escape hatch. They pair up, a member from each side, and begin their search.
But that would be a simple film. Instead we discover that the Alpha team was the one behind the murder and are in the midst of taking out each of the Omega members while conducting their search. Just to make things interesting there is an independent member named Hermit (Zach Galifianakis), the best of them all, wandering the halls as a wild card.
Now, all of this sounds like it would be an interesting movie. And in truth, perhaps there was a good movie at the base of it all. But rather than portray these character seriously we instead get a group that seems a bit unhinged for the most part and foul mouthed to the extreme. While not a prude I find it the sign of a weak writer who relies on every fourth word being an expletive, almost always beginning with F. As if we weren’t smart enough to witness what was going on and decide how horrible it was, we get running commentary from the two watch dogs viewing the carnage on security monitors offering attempts at humorous comments throughout. They fail.
The acting might be decent but the script is so bad that who can pay attention? No clues as to what is going on are presented until the third act but by then you’ve lost interest and have no connection to any of the characters. And comic actors who never get the chance to deliver comic lines are a waste.
No comments:
Post a Comment