You Rubber, You Brought 'Er

When I first heard of the movie Rubber earlier this year, I thought it was a joke. The trailer even trumpeted an April 1 release date in limited theaters. Totally an April Fools' Day joke, right?

I should back up here... maybe you've never heard of Rubber. It is a "slasher" film in which the villainous murderer is a tire. As in, one of the four you would find on a car. This tire rolls around the desert like your typical animate tire would... plus it has the ability to channel psychokinetic energy to make things explode, Scanners-style. Things and people. And it uses this ability on basically anyone and anything that gets in its way.

It sounds like a joke, but it is indeed an actual movie -- made by a French director, though an English language film. And it's actually even weirder than what I just described. Because part of the movie involves a small audience in the desert somewhere actually watching the action from a distance, through binoculars, like it's some sort of play being put on for their enjoyment. (Though they speak of it like a movie, not a play.)

This movie just earned the "wtf?" tag.

It does start out strong. A character delivers a lengthy monologue to the audience (in the film, but clearly to us), explaining that some movies just have elements that exist for "no reason." Warning us that we're about to see such a movie. So don't bother getting uppity trying to question why a killer tire is making people explode. It's really funny, and a great table setter.

Unfortunately, the movie starts a slow downhill slide from the moment the monologue ends. The big problem is that there's enough of an idea here for maybe a 15 minute short, and it's stretched into a 90 minute movie. The first 25 minutes are an endless parade of watching the tire blow things up, with no semblance of plot making any appearance. Even once a story arrives, most scenes end up just being repetitions of earlier scenes in the movie. The simple premise wears out its welcome, then becomes boring.

But the upside is that the first time you see any given idea in the movie, it's pretty good. Original, entertaining, funny, over-the-top. I laughed out loud on several occasions, and smiled on several others. It was just later, seeing the same basic scene for the third or fourth time, that I had a hard time remembering that original joy.

Overall, I think I'd call it a C+. I think you'd have to be a real slasher film enthusiast to like it. Everyone else should probably content themselves watching the quirky trailer and leave it at that.