Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

From the previews I was really looking forward to this movie, but I have to say I was pretty disappointed with it after actually seeing it. I really wanted to just turn it off while watching. I felt like it was giving me attention deficit disorder. The flow was choppy and hard to follow, the events just didn't make sense, the lines were cheesy, etc. I then realized why the movie seemed so weird. They were trying to mimic a myster-detective-trashy-romance paperback series they reference throughout the movie. When I finally realized this, everything started to make sense. However, I still didn't like the movie. For starters, we have Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan as the three main characters in the film. Downey is a theif-actor who is job shadowing Kilmer. Kilmer is an actual private detective investigating some murders. Monaghan is Downey's childhood/high school crush that randomly turns up and runs into Downey. The movie is narrated throughout by Downey as he re-tells this story with Kilmer interjecting a couple times. I will say the movie is clever, but it's probably a little too clever for most people to follow. So much so that I really, really wanted to just turn it off. Luckily I have a rule that I need to just watch movies til they're over because you never know how you might feel about it after the credits start to roll. Some of the reason it's hard to follow, in my opinion, is because the story is being narrated. And just like when some people tell a story, Downey would accidently leave a part out or have to re-tell something. So the story would backup or pause while the details were worked out. The story also jumped from one character to another, which isn't bad in itself (Look at Pulp Fiction for example), but didn't flow very well. Another problem I had is that things just weren't making sense. I felt like I was watching a soap opera at times. This can be explained by the following-the-book-genre theory of mine. People would say weird things or have stupid ideas, crazy thoughts, do weird things, etc. Many of the situation just seemed contrived and not real. There were even several times where nudity was introduced. However, it didn't have a point and it wasn't really that American Pie/National Lampoon-esque either. You know - the kind that draws in the 13-20 yr old crowd. If I didn't think this movie was the way it is, I would say this is probably the worst movie I've seen in a long time. I'm sure there are many that would disagree with me on this one, so maybe you should give it a watch yourself and then put up a comment as to what you think.