It's... problematic, but I have trouble dismissing it outright. In a way, I wish it was better, because I'd prefer to be able to engage it's points (almost all of which I vehemently disagreed with) on merit rather than having the endpoint always being "badly made." In filmmaking terms it's a complete mess - sloppy, scattershot and cheap-looking with no sense of consistent tone: One minute we're doing slapstick, the next minute the "hero" - a one-note caricature of Michael Moore - is being time-warped back to the freshly-destroyed WTC wreckage on 9/12 to be lectured on patriotism by the ghost of George Washington. Really.ccesarano said:
The main problem seems to be that the director, Jerry Zucker, isn't a lifelong "conservative" but rather a liberal who's been "shell-shocked" into Republicanism by 9/11, a'la Dennis Miller; so the film is less about "satirizing" the left than it is about self-directed anger. All the "best" bits come early on: The spirit of JFK appears to the Moore character to point out that he was actually a "pro-military" president, a present-day anti-Iraq War protest time-dissolves back to a 1940s anti-WWII isolationist protest and a visit to an alternate-future America where African-Americans are still slaves because Lincoln was "anti-war." Now, obviously, I don't "agree" (even a little) with the "point" being made here, but at least it's a new spin on the debate backed up by some thought. The rest of it, though, is just dopey slapstick (a trio of terrorists who act like the Three Stooges,) awful running gags ("Gaaah! Zombies!!" "No... It's the ACLU!!!!!") and shameless pandering (a Trace Adkins USO concert.)
