Samuel L. Jackson gained a reputation as the coolest man on the planet after the release of "Pulp Fiction." Jules Winnfield quoted Ezekiel and made it sound like he was the prophet himself, before proceeding to promptly rearrange your face.
Ever since then, however, Samuel L. Jackson has mostly starred in a litany of mediocre B-movie thrillers, such as "Deep Blue Sea" and "XXX," and has been satisfied to merely capitalize on his reputation as the king of cool. His latest endeavor, "Formula 51," represents the absolute nadir of his career.
This film is a disgusting, juvenile and badly executed piece of tripe unworthy of the celluloid it is printed on. The ludicrous plot is ridiculously complex and totally uninteresting. Jackson plays Elmo McElroy, a pharmacologist who has developed a new super drug that he plans on selling to an English drug dealer, now that he has blown up most of his former employers in Los Angeles.
His ex-boss, the Lizard (Meat Loaf), survives and sends an assassin, Dakota (Emily Mortimer), after him. It doesn't help that Dakota just happens to be the ex-girlfriend of Felix DeSouza (Robert Carlyle), Elmo's escort in Liverpool.
And from the very beginning, the audience is exposed to juvenile humor and sheer idiocy. The movie starts with a flashback to the '70s, when Elmo loses his pharmacology degree after being arrested for smoking weed. This entire segment plays like some bad parody of "Cheech and Chong," especially since Elmo is dressed like the Ladies' Man from "Saturday Night Live."
Once the film flashes forward, the misery continues because there are then endless jokes about black private parts and skirts, since Elmo wears a kilt for the remainder of the picture. The audience also has to endure the Lizard constantly referring to himself in the third person, and that tendency has never been more annoying since Karl Malone.
There also is endless scatological "humor" with a nauseating degree of picturesque accompaniment, especially when Elmo tricks some skinheads into taking a drug that makes them lose their bowel control.
Nor does the script ever relieve the audience from its torture with at least one witty remark or clever turn of phrase. Instead, there is a constant string of expletives substituting for an actual script. Sadly, the screenwriter does not realize that expletives are uninteresting unless the spaces between them are filled with actual dialogue.
Saddled with this atrocity of a script, the actors do about as dreadfully as can be expected. Jackson sleepwalks his way through this role -- straight to another paycheck. Elmo is such a pale imitation of Jules that he is almost the antithesis of cool by comparison.
And even though Jackson receives top billing, the film focuses mostly on the love story between Felix and Dakota. Carlyle and Mortimer thus receive much more screen time than either deserves.
Neither actor demonstrates any perceptible degree of talent, and the audience is left to groan as they do their best to disgrace England -- which is funny, considering that this is actually an English-made film.
Nearly all the English characters in this movie are unlikable, cursing churls who hate Yanks and possess woefully low intelligence levels. There has not been such a negative portrayal of English people on film since the insanely jingoistic American-made film "The Patriot."
And, having been to England and knowing that most English people are unlike that, this critic must protest. Besides the English people, the city of Liverpool itself deserves some sympathy for having had to play host to this film. At least Liverpool will always have The Beatles.
Nothing salvages this film from being an absolute disaster. The director, Ronny Yu, has seemingly learned everything he knows about filmmaking from MTV. He even introduces his characters by blazing their name and occupation across the screen in an informative little box. What an appropriate gesture for a film that seems like little more than a Z-grade music video.
Yet, in the end, it is still sad at some level to see Jackson reach the culmination of selling out. It is not as if no one knew that he had not sold out, that was all too apparent when he hosted Michael Jackson's comeback special a few months ago. Yet this film is so blatantly a vehicle for quick cash that one cannot help but sit back and shake their head in disappointment while eating their Royale with cheese.
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