The Darwin Awards (2006)

One of my all time favorites.

Great Film overall

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Here is one movie which begins well enough and the social premise is that accidents are everywhere. The film is called " The Darwin Awards. " The theory of social stupidity and why so many people commit suicide through thoughtless accidents is redundantly explained. However, there are just as many people who don't wait for the accident to happen, they insist on accomplishing their task despite the obvious dangers and possible consequences. Michael Burrows ( Joseph Fiennes) plays a washed out policeman who cannot stand the sight of blood. Seeking employment, he is teamed up with Siri Taylor (Winona Ryder) to investigate a rash of accidents which have million dollars insurance policies. In their travels, they discover how a simple plan, can unleash a series of mishaps and behavioral actions which cause great bodily injury. With special guest in cameo roles like Wilmer Valderrama, Lukas Haas, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, director Finn Taylor creates a comedic wild ride for audiences. A laughable film which contain much slapstick, but somehow does not quite hold the story together. Nevertheless, a fun film to watch. ***

The Darwin Awards was too well written for the substandard acting of Winona Ryder and Joseph Fiennes who were very privileged to be given the main roles. It was full of funny concepts, twists, and turns; but fell short of the gut-busting laughter that I had hoped for. I can say, however, that I won't forget the movie because the back-up casting was excellent and helped keep my attention between nodding off and hovering my finger over the "stop" button on my remote. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this movie to a friend as a "good" movie to watch, but rather something to watch if someone is home sick on a Friday night with either this or "Nanny Dearest" to choose from to keep them remotely distracted from fever, chills, and general discomfort...such as I did.

Now, I can say that I have sen two films with Wilmer Valderrama, both in the same week.I have always enjoyed reading the Darwin Awards, and it was interesting to see them on film. Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love) and Winona Ryder (Girl, Interrupted; Heathers) made a good team (with Valderrama in the background) to keep things interesting - and funny.This is clear evidence that explosives and military hardware should be kept far away from people who shoot guns, and foreigners with international drivers licenses should not be allowed on the road. Well, I had one of those in Europe, so maybe I'll rethink it.It was a funny film about accidents and how we cannot avoid them.

It took roughly five minutes to tell The Darwin Awards was an awful, misbegotten, badly directed piece of tripe; I gave it another fifteen to change my mind, and when it didn't, I turned it off, not willing to give up another hour and change being tortured with gag inducing 'quirky' characters undergoing a 'quirky' storyline that would no doubt entreat the viewer to find its 'quirky' heart and undergo a 'quirky' catharsis. The disgust this movie induced in me was a familiar sort, and when I checked IMDb and saw it was by the same fellow who inflicted "Dream with the Fishes" on hundreds of unsuspecting film enthusiasts including myself, Finn Taylor, I understood what I needed to do, namely warn you, my fellow movie watchers, against this and any other film written and directed by this man. (There are only three, the two aforementioned and "Cherish"; it's a small blessing that Taylor seems to take his time either writing, editing or -more likely- getting funding for his project, which have come out at four to five year intervals.) You may, like me, have been curious about this film due to your also having chuckled at the grotesque comedy of the Darwin award winners, but I will say in all honesty, this film does not do them justice. Ironically, the filmmaker himself has not has his career killed churning out these horrifically stupid films, which would seem to imply that the Hollywood independent film scene is not governed by natural selection. That's a pity.What is the essence of what makes this and his other films suck? It's a number of things, starting with the quirkiness. Why bother with richly imagined characters when you can stack up a couple esoteric phobias and qualities and call it macaroni? Why indeed. So our main character in The Darwin Awards is a police profiler who faints at the sight of blood: comedy gold, because you know it is just soooo ironic, and irony is best when it isn't subtle and is poorly executed in annoyingly mannered performances.Then there is the 'intelligence' of the scripts, where you'll find, for instance, a serial killer complaining about the profiler quoting an overused line from a famous poem. How exquisite, and yet in the midst of such a badly made film, one sees the difference between knowledge and practical wisdom.The Darwin Awards features a moronic and grating student documentary maker who is following the main character around, giving another 'clever' layer to the film, by annoying the viewer with those stupid camera frame lines that let you know when you're looking through the documentary filmmakers pov, versus all the other shots that aren't annoying hand-held drek. The maker of the actual film tries to avoid being seen as pretentious and untalented by having a filmmaker in it that is satirized as being pretentious and untalented. Because I'm an irresponsible reviewer, I'll guess that this character is an unconscious avatar of Taylor's own self-doubts about his talent, and I'm hoping someone who knows and loves this man will play intellectual midwife to him and help him realize that he should stop making films, and maybe consider a profession more suited to his talents, which I'm sure are substantial, albeit not manifested in his cinematic work thus far. They say as a young man, Kurosawa was interested in painting, but realized after a time that while he was proficient enough, his works were derivative, and so he got into film making, where he excelled. Perhaps Finn Taylor should get out of film making and become a painter.