In honor of the one year anniversary of Kevin Smith's film Red State debuting at Sundance, I bring you my Red State Review:

Spoiler Alert; this movie a god awful piece of shit. Did I ruin it for you? Sorry, but I’m seriously tempted to conclude my review with just that. Because of the respect I have for Kevin Smith I’ll actually break down why the movie was such a train wreck. It’s honestly taken a herculean effort to find parts of this movie that I actually enjoyed. There’s nothing I enjoyed about that movie, I did my best to try to think of something but I’m sorry I’m only human and I can’t simply manifest matter from my mind. Throughout the film I was on the edge of my seat, restless, just waiting for the credits to roll. I didn’t care about any of the characters, the plot or the subplots all of which went nowhere. It’s sad to think that at one time Mall Rats was considered the black eye on Kevin Smith’s film career despite it being a damn good movie. Then came Jersey Girl; which in comparison to Red State is borderline a masterpiece; a least there’s Liv Tyler to look at. The tragedy of Red State is that Kevin Smith is capable of doing so much better. A talented cast coupled with an intriguing premise you’d think Silent Bob would have hit this one out of the park. Instead, Red State crashed and burned. It makes me wonder if Smith is drinking the same Kool-Aid as George Lucas, thinking that he’s more clever than he actually is and no one has the balls to tell him otherwise. Whatever the reason for Red State being the epic fail that it is, it’s a travesty no doubt.

So why is this movie such shit? It’s painfully slow for one. The cult leader/priest had a monologue that seemed to drag on forever. The pacing of this film makes Stanley Kubrick’s films look like they’re moving at lightning speed. It’s almost as if Kevin Smith wrote the movie having forgotten that somebody was actually going to sit down and watch it. In fact, had Kevin Smith’s name not been attached to this movie I would not have wasted my time watching the entire thing. Yes, it’s that bad. Too many characters act like they’ve been lobotomized and act like drooling idiots. Time after time I found myself scratching my head wondering what the fuck was going on. How the hell does someone wielding an M16 get chased by a couple of people who are unarmed? It’s completely fucking nonsensical. It’s moments like this that completely suck you out of the movie and ruin the experience. I wish that was the most moronic part of the movie, but it’s not. Not by a long shot.
The scene which has earned my scorn beyond all others takes place towards the end of the film. At this point the ATF have shown that they’re not fucking around and they intend to kill everyone, even an unarmed girl attempting to surrender. So when the last surviving hostage and one of the girls from the religious cult escape the compound, confront the dad from Roseanne and attempt to explain that they’re not terrorists and thus don’t need to be killed on the spot; they’re ignored and subsequently killed on the spot. Moments later an ominous horn is heard, and everybody starts freaking out thinking it’s the rapture. The religious fanatics put their weapons down, exit their compound and begin taunting the ATF who…do nothing. Absolutely nothing. As if they all just had a collective stroke and forgot that they had just been trying to kill those people. Nobody does a damn thing. Instead, they just stand there dumbfounded. But honestly I can empathize, because I felt the same way. I was positively stupefied watching this shit as it completely contradicted everything that had been happening. *sigh* Look, I understand that everyone thought it was the rapture or whatever but I can’t buy into the idea that EVERYONE would just stop and stand around with a thumb up their ass. Fuck this movie. Seriously. I haven’t been more disappointed in a movie since Matrix Reloaded. Yeah…I went there.

– Prometheus