SOUTHLAND TALES (2006)

When I first heard about Richard Kelly's follow-up to cult sleeper hit DONNIE DARKO, I wondered if he was taking the piss. Not so much the story - which, when you look at it closely, is actually very similar to DONNIE DARKO - but rather the casting choices.

Arguably the biggest name in the movie is Sarah Michelle Gellar, an actress who achieved fame in a popular television series but has done little of note since (we all know why people remember CRUEL INTENTIONS, don't we?).

Added to the cast list alongside he we have mediocre pop stars turned bad actors Mandy Moore and Justin Timberlake (the latter also providing the voiceover which, I confess, I thought was actually a woman until Timberlake showed his face).

Then we get Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, a former wrestler who acts every bit as badly as you'd expect him to, and he's in pretty much the lead role.

There's also Sean William Scott, the man who was, is and forever shall be Stiffler from the AMERICAN PIE movies. THUMBSUCKER's Lou Taylor Pucci turns up as a young draft dodger who says "dawg" to everyone a lot. And how about Christopher Lambert, who starred in the HIGHLANDER films before churning out a living from straight to video turkeys? Still not selling it to you? Okay, throw in a couple of cameos from directors Eli Roth and Kevin Smith just to amuse those in the know, and garnish it with Miranda BLACKADDER Richardson sitting at a desk for the whole film and a supporting role from the wee woman with the high pitched voice from POLTERGEIST.

That latter one's particularly ironic given that I'll always associate her with the words "step into the light" - something that anyone viewing this in the dark of their local cinema probably couldn't wait to do.

So, I ask again, was Richard Kelly taking the piss?

I've just watched the film and I still don't know. The story, what I could piece together of it, is as follows: in 2005, America came under nuclear attack. It's now 2008. America are still at war in Iraq; a police officer is searching for his twin brother; a star of adult movies has her own TV show; there's an election coming; sod it, I can't be bothered. There's lot of stuff happening, which may or may not be related to each other.

What unfolds (or rather entangles) is a mess of a movie which actually proves it's possible to have too many ideas. The stories are all over the place but seem to be tied together in some way that eludes me. Kelly appears to have enjoyed the combination in DONNIE DARKO of crazy physics, weird people, odd dialogue and kooky music so much that he's essentially just done the same thing again but on a grander scale and with a bigger budget. Will this film, which also tanked, gain the same kind of cult following?

I doubt it. DONNIE DARKO at least concentrated, more or less, on one story rather than a huge number of stories all fighting for prominence. It also created a coherent mood and atmosphere so that you were in no doubt that you were watching a serious, if odd, sci-fi drama. SOUTHLAND TALES on the other hand is wilfully weird far too often and the combination of ludicrous scenes and bad acting just leaves you wondering, as I already stated, if it's taking the piss. Is the film a sci-fi drama or a comedy? I genuinely have no idea, but lines like "the soul of a monkey can't survive the dimensional threshold" really don't help.

The film has some redeeming features - the opening scene is terrific, there are some nice visuals courtesy of the increased budget and most of the score is terrifically evocative. Sadly, pretty much everything else is way off the mark. Sure, Kelly has obviously made a film that's exceptionally ambitious but then again, climbing Mount Everest on a spacehopper is also exceptionally ambitious but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.

I'd love to know what sort of film the cast of this turkey thought they were making. Maybe once they've figured it out they can tell the rest of us.