Movie Review - Rubber

Rubber (2011)

Starring Stephen Spinella, Jack Plotnik, Wings Hauser, and Roxane Mesquida

Directed by Quentin Dupieux

***An early review.  The film opens in select cities April 1.***

At the beginning of the odd film Rubber, a police officer walks up to the camera and directly addresses the audience telling us that things happen in movies all the time for no reason whatsoever.  Why is Spielberg's ET brown?  Why don't people ever wash their hands or use bathrooms?  No reason except that it's "a movie."  We should keep that in mind apparently when watching the flick about to unfurl before us.  Unfortunately, unlike a movie like Scream which is totally self-aware of its horror predecessors, Rubber isn't really an homage to any movie in particular and the film suffers quite a bit because of that.

Imagine if you will a movie in which the main character is an inanimate tire with psychokinetic powers that it utilizes to kill and that is the plot of Rubber.  For 80 minutes, we follow a rubber car tire as, for some reason or another, it invades some southwestern town, blowing up various living creatures.

And that's it.  As a short film, Rubber may have worked.  Stretched out over a feature length, it simply falters.  While there were moments that aroused chuckles (including a clever finish), more often than not eye rolls were the bodily action of choice.  This is a flick that may achieve cult status in years to come and it's probably a movie that works better viewing with a group of people in a darkened theater setting, but it just didn't succeed for me.

The RyMickey Rating:  D