Movie Review- Bubba Ho-tep

I watched this movie in the hopes of seeing Bruce Campbell do a cheesy Elvis impersonation and fight mummies for an hour-and-a-half. Gee, was I let down. Expectations aside, this is still a crummy movie.

First things first, this is not a goofy, over-the-top horror/comedy. Bubba Ho-tep is more of a boring dramedy that happens to have a mummy in it. The first forty minutes of the film are surprisingly serious, but the attempts at being serious and meaningful are lost amongst poorly written dialog. There's a lot of blatant exposition that relies heavily on the audience's preexisting knowledge of Elvis's life, and it comes across as really clunky and awkward.

The humor here is a big problem, too. It relies heavily on swearing and toilet humor to stir up laughs, and it fails miserably. There's a lot of unnecessarily gross scenes involving bedpans, ointments, etc, that I guess are supposed to be funny, but they certainly aren't. A lot of the plot points are really ridiculous, too, and given the semi-serious tone of the first half of the film, it's very hard to suspend your disbelief at that point. And to make matters worse, a lot of the ludicrousness ties in with stupid and crude humor, making for a very unpleasant combo. (e.g. The mummy removes people's souls from their butts, and so forth). There's a somewhat funny element in Elvis's friend Jack, an elderly African-American man who thinks he's JFK. But the joke starts to wear thin extremely fast, as do most of the running gags.

There's very few positive things about this movie, but they're worth noting; the movie's main cast are all elderly characters, which is rarely seen in films. The other being that the ending is pessimistic, another thing that's rarely found in movies in general. But even then, the positive elements have their flaws. Old people being the heroes could have been an interesting plot point, but it's ruined with relentless and unfunny jokes at the expense the elderly. Even the pessimistic ending felt somewhat sicky-sweet in its delivery.

There's a lot of  annoying and unexplained things in this movies universe, too. It's never explained why the mummy is dressed like a cowboy during the whole movie, nor why hieroglyphs appear every time he speaks. (The symbols are portrayed as three-dimensional objects, not subtitles). Elvis is also somehow able to see into the mummy's mind merely by looking at him, and it's never explained how that worked. I could  go on, but there's far too many things to nitpick. A lot of these little things add up, though, making for a very confusing viewing experience.

Overall, this is a very disappointing movie. It had a promising storyline, but it was ruined by a poorly written script. Even Bruce Campbell's performance was lacking, and he was one of the main reasons I watched this movie. It could have been a lot better, but at least the production quality was good. But nonetheless, it's a boring and bland film that slowly degenerates into a bland and confusing mess. I wouldn't recommend it at all, it's a waste of time.

Enjoyment: 2/5

Quality: 2/5

IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0281686/