MPAA Rated – R
It’s 2:04 Long
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right
| On the Road Movie Stats & Links |
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| Starring: | Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Kirsten Dunst, Amy Adams, Viggo Mortensen |
| MPAA Rated: | R |
| Released By: | IFC Films |
| Blu-ray Release Date: | August 6, 2013 |
| Kiddie Movie: | There is sex, drugs, and jazz. Send them to bed. |
| Date Movie: | If she likes sex, drugs, jazz, and a long, drawn-out tale of boys and a girl travelling across the country. |
| Gratuitous Sex: | Quite a bit. |
| Gratuitous Violence: | Ehh. |
| Action: | Nah. |
| Laughs: | Ehh. |
| Memorable Scene: | Sadly even some of the more shocking scenes didn’t shock me. |
| Memorable Quote: | Nah. |
| Directed By: | Walter Salles |
I wanted to like “On the Road” a lot more than I did, I think mostly because I think I was supposed to. I guess that’s not a great start for a review, at least if you are thinking of getting the movie, but there was a part of me just waiting for Sal’s travels to end.
“On the Road” is the film adaptation of the novel by Jack Kerouac by the same name. Having not read the book, whether or not the movie is a fair adaptation of the book I couldn’t tell you, but I do know that what seems like should be an interesting story of the travels of a young writer across the highways and byways of these United States turns into, at least for me, an uninteresting after uninteresting story of Sal the writer, played by Sam Riley, and Dean the ex-con, played by Garrett Hedlund, with Dean’s woman, Marylou (Kristen Stewart) along for the ride. Sure, they come across all kinds of characters in their journeys, and sure, all of them being kind of young they all seem to be searching for life’s meaning, but after a while I just wanted to tell them to stop and finally tell me exactly what is going on.
Sure, Kristen Stewart isn’t her normally brooding self that we know and love/hate from “The Twilight Saga” stuff, and she’s actually kind of a spitfire, but as the movie plods along from one escapade to another, I just got bored.
From the critical acclaim that the book has received over the years, I’m thinking that, in the end, it’s probably a story best left to the pages of a Kindle. The movie looked great, especially bringing a lot of the periodness as it was set in the late 50’s, and the scenery of the United States and the parlay into Mexico with a giant joint were beautifully shot, but as Jack/Sal was punching a line into his typewriter at the end, “I first met Dean…”, I was glad the story was over.
Maybe it was my mood at the time, but I doubt it, as usually I can be easily drawn into any story about people meeting fun people, and living on the edge, but not this time. The boys get in trouble, they boys smoke weed, the boys get laid, and the boys see the country. In the end the boys ended up kind of boring to me with a story that’s been told a hundred times before. It’s 2 stars out of 5 for “In The End.” I think I wanted more with the reputation I kept seeing about the book, and maybe that ruined it for me. Nah, I just didn’t like it.
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!