Lucas Black – Tripping Through Gateways

So, God has lost faith in humanity and is going to go all “Noah’s Ark” on humanities ass…except there is no plan to save anyone. But one angel, Michael, feels in his heart that God is wrong and decides he must intervene. So, he comes to Earth to get some guns.

At a remote diner, Charlie is pregnant with humanity’s only hope. Soon the diner and it’s occupants are under siege by what they assume are people possessed by demons. Michael shows up and informs them these are actually people possessed by angels.

Michael explains he is there to help hold the other angels off until the baby is born (the film is set on Christmas Eve). The characters desperately fight to make it through it as more and more angels arrive. But Michael has a ton of guns to use and share with the folks in the diner.

Honestly, the film is pretty silly. It is trying to be a little of everything…there are sharp toothed angel possessed people, a creepy ice cream man, but lots of action movies stunts and shooting of the guns. Gabriel has a pretty wicked mace though.

The drama just comes off as kind of silly. Which is kind of sad.

You see, the film is full of interesting ideas. God has grown weary of humanity letting Him down with our darkness. This film has hints of the Sodom and Gomorrah story in the bible, except Michael is the one petitioning to save humanity and instead of one righteous soul, he seeks to save a baby.

The film wants you to see the big ideas…faith, can God’s heart be turned from anger (again, this has big shades of Noah)? Can an angel rebel against God and be forgiven? What is the nature of mercy. But the movie deals with these thing ineptly. Not unlike Director Scott Stewart’s follow up to this film, Priest (also starring Paul Bettany), the most important thing is not story, but stylishness.

The name is derived from a style of racing called Drifting. It involves the driver over-steering and losing traction of the tires. It is more elaborate than that, but I am not a car guy. And that is pretty much all there is for a viewer in this film. Some cool racing scenes with cool looking cars.

Tokyo Drift opts to leave the country and focus on people other than our previous regulars. We follow white rich kid Sean who hopes to break into the Tokyo street racing scene, but finds it is tough, cause racism.

The film is a convoluted plot that involves the Yakuza and family drama and mean rich kids…but it never gels together. The characters are not particularly interesting and therefore it becomes hard to not get bored when there is no racing.

Because that is one thing this film has…pretty cool looking race scenes. But the film tends to feel overwhelmingly inconsequential, especially as part of a franchise.

That last line is kind of unfair, the film has a dramatic turn for the entire franchise, but that also creates a lot of confusion for the timeline of the series (a few of the films technically take place before Tokyo Drift).

Tag: Lucas Black

Angels With Filthy Souls (Legion, 2010)

Speed Racers Pt 3 (the Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, 2006)