Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind is a movie that wants to be many things. It strives to be a movie about loving movies. It yearns to be a movie about community. It hopes to speak to the YouTube generation while also appealing to our parents. It aims to be funny and light, but also attempts to touch on race, class and property rights. Sometimes it succeeds. Sometimes it doesn't. But if nothing else, Be Kind Rewind ends up being a delightful romp through Gondry's endless visual tricks.
In the film, Mike (Mos Def) works for Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) in a titular movie rental shop, which somehow only carries films on VHS. Jerry (Jack Black) is Mike's best friend who, through a series of ridiculous and semi-unfortunate events, ends up magnetized. This bizarre physical mutation serves as a plot device in which Jerry ends up erasing all of the store's movies. Further compounding this predicament is the fact that the building is targeted for renovation and Mr. Fletcher's store has fallen on tough times. Thus the stage is set for Mike and Jerry to remake famous and iconic films, such as 2001, King Kong, Rush Hour 2, Ghost Busters and RoboCop with cardboard, clever cinematography and heart-warming charm.
These remakes, or "swedes," are the strength of the movie. Gondry has had years of experience making short films with impressive graphic power through the clever use of household materials; his use of cardboard and tinfoil in this movie is nothing short of amazing.
And these "swedes" are wonderful gems. They are cinematic desserts, sweet, fulfilling and fantastic. But desserts are also theoretically at the end of a meal, and unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much substance to Be Kind Rewind. The movie feels as though Gondry came up with the idea of sweding and then forced a plot around that concept. And it shows, as the other aspects of the movie are relatively mediocre; the acting is pretty flat, the plot is nebulous and caricatured, the pacing is bizarrely slow and the racial commentary rings hollow.
But the remakes and the joy associated with them in the movie are so genuine that you can almost forget about the mediocrity of the rest of the movie. Be Kind Rewind is full of great concepts and charming moments of joyful nostalgia. unfortunately it doesn't live up to the classics it in fact emulates.
