Simon Sez (1999)

A fairly well choreographed film. That's the positive review. So much has been said negatively that I won't repeat it, but you get the same experience listening solely to the audio of the film as you would watching it for an hour and a half.I hate this movie.Although nowhere near as bad as some others, such as Leonard Part 6, The Amazing Bulk, Sharknado, Sharktopus vs Whalewolf etc., it's still boring.My friend chose this movie for me to watch over "Foodfight!" hopefully I don't burn my laptop when I watch that.

Maybe the number of the people who love Dennis Rodman is few. But I'm sure the number of the people who can actually stand looking at him is fewer ! He's a celebrity who was having a fine hour in the late 1990s. So why not making movies. There are fool fans to watch, and companies to win money. Therefore let's film an action thriller named (Simon Sez) starring that walking store of earrings, that heavy bad joke, and that Madonna's ex-lover too, who occasionally plays basketball !By the way it's a Germany/Belgium/USA production. I always say be aware of the European sense of humor. Sometimes there is none. Though this movie has none humor, action, thrill, acting, or any kind of attractiveness at all. So who cares about the absence of humor ? The problem though is that it has nothing but an ugly time that alleges having all of the above! Think like this : it's a long video clip meets camp James Bond meets the independent B-movie crap meets any bad nightmare you have ever seen. P.S : The hero, the sidekick, the evil guy, and the girl they all belong to the bad nightmare part ! It'll make you nauseated and dizzy. Rarely to see a movie that oozes awfulness with this much. The presence of its leads gives it even more awfulness. I bet they can turn off the 2 or 3 idiots who got hocked by this movie in its start !In the same year of 1999, there was one true Bond (The World Is Not Enough). And one Bond spoof (Austin Powers The Spy Who Shagged Me). Now (Simon Sez) is like something in a faceless middle. It couldn't be neither. Or anything different with a good taste either. Well, to tell you the truth, this could have been good in one case; if everything was changed! It's poor, provocative, and totally detestable. I feel I'm talking about Dennis Rodman here! But believe it or not, the miracle has happened; I loved some things about it ! Yes !! It's 1) The explosions. 2) A funny take on a phrase has been said 4 years earlier in (Brave Heart). I'll let you discover it yourself (maybe according to my extreme need of having someone to share my grief over experiencing this movie alone !).Watch it only to tell your young grandchildren that you saw the hobgoblin once, yet in a form of a movie !

We all have had jobs where we are only there for the wage and have no allusion that it is a terrible job and that some day we will do better, but for now this will do. Well, I cannot imagine that filmmakers are any different and, as such, Simon Sez must have been one of the films where, eventually, everyone was just clocking in to get the job done, without any allusions about what a terrible piece of junk they were involved in. It is not any one thing about it that makes it terrible so much as, well, everything. The plotting is pretty poor to being with in general sweep down to the detail. Well, actually that is not fair because I suppose the overall kidnap plot could MAYBE have been turned into something good if every aspect of it was not so badly done. It isn't just the silly cars with parachutes built into them, or the stupid fight scenes but just how generally incoherent and cheap the whole mess feels.This feeds over into the characters which are either lazy clichés delivered in basic terms or, worse, embarrassing "comedy" characters that are as funny as being on fire. Of course we have all see "bad" films which are enjoyable because the action scenes work in big fun ways and I guess Simon Sez was never going to produce tension so this was the way to go. However it is never fun and instead the action sequences just feel so incredibly poor, like director Elders just thought pointing the camera at people firing guns or jumping around would be enough, which it isn't. The cast are perfect for this and they are roundly terrible. Rodman is a massive stiff board of a man without any of the fluid movement he showed in the NBA at his best and certainly none of the passion – he is the charisma version of dark matter. Dane Cook is worse though because he tries really hard. Now, I kinda like his goofy performances in other things but here he is given sh1t to work with and he performs accordingly with an unfunny and irritating character – his "get prehistoric" doesn't get shaken from the memory easily either it is so bad. None of the rest of the cast can do anything but one does have to give special mention to the unimaginative "comedy monks" who are painfully unfunny (Pinette and Harris) and the effete bad guy who is useless as a central villain.Simon Sez is a terrible film. It is not even a "bad" film with a bit of fun or action about it because the cheap and nasty production standards and poor ideas conspire to leave anything of value on the screen at any point. Those picking on Rodman as if it is all his fault are missing the point – everyone is to blame here because nothing about it is good. Not the direction, the scoring, the stunts (terrible wire-work), the acting, the dialogue, the story – nothing. It is a terrible waste of space whose only memorable thing is just how insulting to the viewer it is.

Let's face it, nobody rents a movie starring Dennis Rodman expecting it to be "good". You just want some mindless, unpretentious entertainment, and on that level "Simon Sez" largely delivers. Of course, Rodman is not the first person that comes to your mind when you're thinking "action star", but thanks to the discreet (and sometimes not so discreet) use of wires, stunt doubles and rapid-fire editing, he almost pulls it off. But the show is stolen by a female martial arts expert, played by Swede Emma Sjoberg, who fights with style and confidence. Xin Xin Xiong, in the small role of the villain's No.1 henchman, also appears to be a good martial artist. What nearly ruins this film is the obnoxious, lame-brained comic relief from Dane Cook and the two monks/agents. If they had completely written off these three characters, made the villain a little less openly gay and given more screen time to the people who were actually good at serious action, this would have been a much better film. (**1/2)