Movie Info
Movie Name: Rubber
Studio: Canal+
Genre(s): Comedy/Horror/B-Movie
Release Date(s): November 10, 2010
MPAA Rating: R
Be prepared to be underwhelmed by a high concept picture!
An experiment is underway. A group of strangers are gathered in the desert to watch a film play out in real life. A tire named Robert comes to life and discovers it has psychokinetic powers. Robert pursues a woman named Sheila (Roxane Mesquida) and starts a killing path. When the man playing Lieutenant Chad (Stephen Spinella) learns that his experiment has left a man in the wheelchair (Wings Hauser) still watching. Can Robert be stopped?
Directed by Quentin Dupieux, Rubber is a comedy? Rubber is a horror movie? Rubber is an art-house film? The movie is a strange mesh of genre. The movie’s strange mix got big mix of reviews from critics and many attacked the one-trick-pony of the film.
Oh yeah, this is one tire that gettin’ some action!
Rubber is one of the strangest movies you will see. I like what the movie attempted, but I don’t like how it was executed. I kind of liked the idea of the movie being watched by an audience within the movie. I almost wish that the movie would have attempted this with another genre instead of horror. With horror, it was an attempt to bring in a different audience and the horror audience probably would not accept the mesh as well as some other less extreme story. I kind of wanted to see the art movie or the cheesy horror movie…not both.
The problem with Rubber is that with its attempt to be creative, it turns into a pretty boring movie. The set-up and all the weirdness with the viewers doesn’t live up to the plot of the movie. Lieutenant Chad makes a big deal that the movie has no meaning (in the opening and probably the most entertaining scene of the film), and later says it won’t have an end. There are tons of art movies without plots or ends, but Rubber doesn’t get it right.
What’s a tire watch? NASCAR of course…and it pisses it off!
Rubber does look very good. It is nicely shot and it makes good use of the landscape. It also comes up with some creative shots and the film stylizes itself in a good way. I can’t argue about how the film looks, and yes some the jokes and moments are genuinely funny.
Rubber is a tricky movie. I wanted to like it just because of its concept, but I expected more from it. I mostly felt underwhelmed by Rubber. I would have loved just a playing old grindhouse movie about a killer tire in the style of something like Christine or Killdozer…Instead it became this art house movie that wasn’t bloody enough or ruthless enough or funny enough to get it over the hump. If Robert wasn’t a tire and was a human actor, would you be interested? No…but by simply making him an inanimate object, it does try and almost succeeds. Still, if you want a weird movie, stick this in for a bit…you’ll get the point.
