With those chips in place before the 15-minute mark, Drive Angry quickly settles into a frenzy. Lussier and Farmer’s previous collaboration, the 2009 slasher remake My Bloody Valentine 3D, showed that the duo knows how to have a good time; like Valentine, Drive Angry uses its energy to stage ridiculous setpieces and ring all of the filth out of the 3D format. The movie’s piece de resistance, if you will, is a slow-motion gunfight right out of Zack Snyder’s playbook. As a fully nude blonde rides him like Seabiscuit, Cage empties pistol rounds into a dozen or so of King’s cult members with one hand and swigs a bottle of Jack Daniels with the other. Underscored with low, echoing rock music, the sequence is by far the best part of Drive Angry, hitting the right balance of silliness and hardcore brutality.
Too bad there’s no other sequence like it in the movie. Though it’s clear that Lussier and Farmer conceived Drive Angry more as fans of ’70s vigilante pics than serious auteurs, the final product rarely feels like it’s going all out. It’s a shame, because Lussier handles three-dimsensions better than most of his peers; Drive Angry is one of the few 3D movies that justifies the technology’s employment. At a certain point, though, Lussier begins relying upon slowed-down bullets and bodies going air-born from shotgun blasts, save for the occasional skull fragments. It’s as if the writers expected the film’s superficial throwback presentation and self-aware exploitation traits to be enough on a surface level.
Buying a ticket for a movie like Drive Angry implies recognition of, as well as the desire for, widespread absurdity. And in that frame of mind, the film should give knowing movie watchers their money’s worth. Unavoidably, though, there’s a dominating post-screening wonderment of “What could’ve been?”