`3,000 Miles' a Long, Pointless Trip

3,000 Miles to Graceland

1 Star

As the title suggests, "3,000 Miles to Graceland" is a long trip. A long, useless, tiring, frantic, stupid trip into the boldly unoriginal mind of director and co-writer Demian Lichtenstein.

The movie stars Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner as two casino-robbing Elvis impersonators running from the law and from each other. Along the way, lots of people die.

Slow-motion footage, stop-animation shots and tons of slick camera angles give "3,000 Miles" the shimmer and shine of a great action flick, with gunfire galore and bloody carnage the likes of which have not been seen since an '80s Charles Bronson film.

All the high-gloss filler does little to convince you that you're actually watching a good movie, however, as shallow characters, contrived dialogue and altogether cliched writing plague the film from the onset.

Lichtenstein is almost insulting in his use of pointless glitz, from the first quick-cuts-of-bright-neon-signs-and-big-cars montage to the Matrix-esque slow-motion bullet-slicing-through-the-air shots during a particularly lame showdown between Costner and Russell.

At one point in the movie, Russell's character explains why he robs casinos, saying, "You have to be original." Oh, cruel irony, why must you mock me so?

It's as though Lichtenstein was presented with a really crappy movie, then just pasted on action scenes from other movies to try to spice it up a bit.

The result is an annoying, flashy yet boring, impossibly long movie that's schizophrenic in its styling. Similarly, the casting is just as odd, with (arguably) respected names like Russell and Costner paired with idiots-turned-thespians like Howie Long and Ice-T.

Even John Lovitz shows up for some inexplicable reason, as a short-lived money launderer.

The only decent performances are from Courtney Cox, who plays Russell's one-night stand and love interest, and David Kaye, who plays Cox's street-smart kleptomaniac son.

Kaye's performance isn't great by any means. He's used in the film the same way sitcoms use a toddler, for cute one-liners. But as a newcomer, and compared to the putrid acting surrounding him, he looks like an Oscar winner.

Meanwhile, Cox, for the first time on the big-screen, has some serious sex appeal, oozing hotness as she reveals copious amounts of bare thighs and bits of thong. As for her acting, at least you didn't want to smack her, which is more than I can say about the rest of the cast.

All in all, "3,000 Miles" eerily parallels the actual career of The King. It starts out with a lot of promise but ultimately drags on way too long and dies old, fat and bloated, on the crapper.

The Arts & Entertainment Editor

can be reached at artsdesk@unc.edu.