1 gibble out of 5
Director: Joel Schumacher
Hey, there’s the ol’ Schumacher I know, making subpar movies! Well holy oats, he’s brought along Nicky Cage, doin’ his crazy dance! And here’s… well… Nicole Kidman? Really? Look, I’m not a fan or anything, I’m just surprised to see her here. But anyhow, plow forth we shall with this review.
‘Trespass’ is a pretty predictable lil’ tidbit about a rich family that has their home invaded by some angry people with guns. Did you see the recent foreign flick “Kidnapped?” I wasn’t the only one who suspected that this was a rushed remake of that film, and they certainly carry some similarities in terms of perceived menace toward the family and tight focus on the kidnapping itself and not many exterior elements, but “Kidnapped” (not a good film, mind you) at least attempted some boundary-wrangling; Trespass fails at most things after twenty minutes or so, when we get our first glimpse of the ineffectual bickering and eye-rolling attempts at tension via power-turnabouts that occur every few scenes thereafter.
There’s some plot about diamonds, but it hardly matters, especially when told via a pointless flashback method that serves no purpose other than to extend run-time. I’ll give the script or Schumacher points for not making the family unlikeable – the marriage seems movie realistic, and is actually forgiving to its leads, not dawdling too much on trying to turn family members against one another – but the unsurprising ‘twists’ and stagnant tension rob the film of any chance of making a good mark.
But, hey, since I don’t like Schumacher I’ll lay the blame on him: several films back Joel got ahold of a camera or lens or d.p. that he really liked and it looks good – the shots are wide and clean and the colors are all well-defined and yet not over-exposed looking. But he never does anything with it. In ‘Trespass’ Schumey stumbles across a move where a character is hit or falls down and the view switches to POV, rushing toward the floor and showing us the jarring nature of the impact. It’s a neat jolt the first time he does it, but it happens about 9,000 times after that and it just highlights the stupid, repetitive nature of everything on the screen.
Nicky’s not bad, curbing most of his crazy. Kidman is pretty vacant in the film. The kid is good.
Bleh.
"Perhaps the Frog Brothers will save us."
vaguely-offensive 