I’ve been on a pretty good roll with my choices lately. But that ends here. Rage is not only the title of the film, it’s the predominant emotion I felt after realizing how much time I’d wasted watching it. I’ll admit that I’m not really sure about the point of the film, or a lot of the plot. Not that it was that hard to follow, mind you. I just a) didn’t care, and b) don’t think it really matters much anyway. It’s about as formulaic as you can get. Just follow these easy steps:

1. Kick down door
2. Shoot a bunch of people
3. Repeat somewhere else

They do break that up a little, though. For example, sometimes they stab or punch instead of shooting.

They had some decent talent here (or actors who USED to be talented), but nobody stood out. Rachel Nichols, who I actually like quite a bit (I’ve even chatted with her on Twitter) was just wasted here. Danny Glover, too. Nicholas Cage…well, I can’t even talk about him. The direction his career has taken just makes me weep sometimes.

The direction and editing were horrible, and—in my opinion—were a large part of why the story seemed so meaningless. But the writing has to answer for that as well. The ending was trying to be original and “twisty,” but instead it just seemed really dramatically unsatisfying.

IMDB, incredibly, gives it a 5.0, but I’m not sure how. I’d say more like a 3.5, and the .5 is really just because I DO like Rachel Nichols. Just an all-around mess. Don’t bother. (running time: as fast as you can get away. And also 1:32)