Tusk

TUSK

This movie originated from Kevin Smith’s podcast where after seeing an ad that offered free lodging for someone that would agree to dress up as a walrus, Smith and his friend Scott Mosier came up with a movie idea based on that ad, but it goes off in a completely twisted direction. Their idea might have made for a pretty entertaining podcast, but it isn’t much of a story for an entire movie.

tusk_wheelchair

In the movie, it starts with Justin Long  playing Wallace, a podcaster who makes fun of stuff from the internet with his friend Teddy (Haley Joel Osment). He has scored an interview with one internet celebrity (a Star Wars lightsaber-type kid) who lives in Canada so he heads up north, but when that interview falls through, he tries to find someone else to interview since he has already made the trip. That’s when he finds an ad that offers free lodging for menial household tasks by a man who has a lot of stories to tell. Wallace thinks he has found someone to interview so drives to the middle of nowhere Canada to seek out this guy. Once there, things do not go as planned since this guy really just wants to drug and turn Wallace into a walrus. Yes, a walrus.

There is a story behind why he wants to turn him into a walrus. There are a lot of other stories too. Maybe too many stories. There was a lot of talking in this movie. I can be a fan of someone talking a lot when it is interesting, like in a Tarantino movie, but these stories were not as interesting, so I was just waiting for something to happen for good portions of the movie. I felt like all the talking was a way to make the movie longer than a short film, which this probably would have worked better as one. The side story with Wallace’s girlfriend, podcast buddy and their search for Wallace with a Quebec policeman played by an uncredited Johnny Depp with a fake nose also felt like they were added just to make the movie longer. Depp’s character goes on and on telling stories when they are just trying to figure out where Wallace could be located. It really takes away from the tension, if any tension was intended in this movie.

I couldn’t tell if the movie wanted to be a horror or a comedy. It wasn’t scary. It had more of an ick factor like Human Centipede when you finally see the transformation except that when everyone in the theater did finally see him as a walrus, they just laughed out loud. That could have been the intention as well, but I think if it was a comedy or horror comedy, there would have been a lot more laughs. Maybe I’m spoiled by Shaun of the Dead or Evil Dead II. I wanted it to be ridiculously over the top, but I was mostly bored. I will say that I did enjoy the walrus fight scene at the end. I wish it had more of that humor in the rest of the movie.

Grade: D

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