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REVENGE IN THE OLD WEST:
Legendary lawman Wyatt Earp (played by Val Kilmer and Shawn Roberts) had a life that was unlike others, at times he was thought of as an outlaw, other times he was a lawman, but the one side that went unnoticed was his caring side. That is until Spike Kenedy (played by Daniel Booko) kills Dora (played by Diana DeGarmo), the actress that Wyatt was in love with. Getting the help his friends Bat Masterson (played by Matt Dallas), Charlie Bassett (played by Scott Whyte), Wyatt denounces his authority as a US Marshall so he and his posse can hunt down the men responsible in the murder of the woman he loved no matter what the cost. That cost might end up being too steep for the posse as they start to learn that the Kenedy family has a powerful grip on the surrounding towns of Dodge City, a grip that has everyone afraid to go against the true outlaws while turning the Wyatt Earp and his friends into the outlaws.
OLD WEST TOUGH GUYS:
These movies about such gunfighters like Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Bat Masterson have always been ones that I enjoy watching. Having a new movie called “Wyatt Earp’s Revenge” I was expecting it to be one that would be filled with a whole lot of gun fights but what I got was nothing like that. The plot is pretty simple, the girl that Wyatt Earp loves is killed by the outlaw Spike whose father is able to keep him protected for the most part. Of course Wyatt Earp gathers the other legendary figures of the old west to go after Spike even though they have no authority to do so. It would sound like this movie was going to be filled with a lot of action and intense shootouts while showing how tough these figures in history were. Instead what this movie is, is an hour and half of a slow moving plot, action scenes that have about as much action as a playground fight, and a story that should have ended within a half hour.
This could have been a fun movie to watch, especially with having Val Kilmer in it, I mean come on one of the best gunfighter movies features Kilmer in it, so how did this movie go so wrong? First off, Kilmer is underused in this movie by only allowing him to play the part of the aged Wyatt Earp who is telling the tale of how he and his posse had went after Spiker when he was younger. Not that I was expecting much screen time for Kilmer, in fact when describing the movie to my father I told him that Kilmer would more than likely only be in a scene for a few minutes. Though he does get more than a few minutes of screen time it’s still not that much and all he is doing is sitting in a room talking to a writer about the story.
Nothing really happens in this movie, even when there are the gunfights it’s boring to watch. It took way too long to get to the fights and when they do happen I just waited for them to be over with. None of the characters seem tough at all, especially the outlaw Spike, who was supposed to be this ruthless killer that plagued the lands from Dodge City to Mexico. If anything this character Spike was a bully who had a gun but far from being this intimidating outlaw. Not that Wyatt Earp in this movie was any tougher. Shawn Roberts plays Wyatt Earp as this guy who is always wearing a mean squint with a deep voice that looks and sounds ridiculous but not tough.
Though being a boring, slow paced, no action movie is not the only aspects about this movie that makes it a waste of 93 minutes. Scattered throughout the movie there are times that the sound track sounds like it’s being recording in a tin can. I don’t know if the editing on the sound gets messed up, it might be the transfer from the editing program over to the DVD that makes it sound bad, but for whatever reason that makes the sound on here bad it hurts the movie a great deal. Worse still is the music being played throughout the movie. These songs are meant to improve the mood and moment of the scene but it does none of that. Most of the time the music went unnoticed because it just didn’t have any lasting impact on me and when I did hear what was playing it didn’t fit to what was happening in the movie. When there was a fist fight the music felt more like what would be played during a card game but not a fight. Though the worst part of the movie was the ending, it’s so lame that it made me feel worse than already did for watching this movie. Not only is the ending so easy to see that it lacked any kind of interest or closure to the movie. For a movie that was based on a character that his name alone gives thoughts of toughness and action, “Wyatt Earp’s Revenge” was slow and boring.
Links:
[1] http://shakefire.com/movies/wyatt-earps-revenge
[2] http://shakefire.com/genres/movie/action/adventure
[3] http://shakefire.com/genres/movie/drama
[4] http://shakefire.com/genres/movie/western
[5] http://shakefire.com/talents/val-kilmer
[6] http://shakefire.com/talents/shawn-roberts
[7] http://shakefire.com/talents/matt-dallas
[8] http://shakefire.com/talents/scott-whyte
[9] http://shakefire.com/talents/daniel-booko
[10] http://shakefire.com/talents/michael-feifer
[11] http://shakefire.com/studios/sony-pictures-home-entertainment
[12] http://shakefire.com/formats/dvd
[13] http://shakefire.com/sites/default/files/images/reviews/dvd/packshot_043396395060_fbec1b791.jpg