News/Updates 

       

Slicer, No Slicing!

I don't remember where I first read it, but there was a critique about the unfinished Gone in 60 Seconds 2 that I thought was pretty fair. First, we can probably all agree that the greatest strength of H.B. Halicki's movies was his ability to do amazing things with ordinary machines. The original Gone in 60 Seconds was the gold standard (as I noted here), with Halicki turning southern California inside out using nothing but a Mustang Sportsroof. In his follow-up, The Junkman, he showed how a bone-stock Corvette could get out of a blockaded restaurant parking lot. Deadline Auto Theft was essentially a re-release of Gone in 60, with a few extra scenes of cars getting destroyed added in.

For Gone in 60 Seconds 2, Halicki decided to change things up. He wanted to expand the scope, and make his character an international thief who specialized in "high profile" jobs. Of the few scenes that were filmed, the big payoff was a chase sequence involving a vehicle called the Slicer: a jet-powered, armor plated wedge that looked like an oversized BattleBots contenstant. It was very cool, and anyone with a daily commute is sure to fantasize about owning one. But for Halicki, it was essentially playing in God Mode. We liked seeing how he could get out of the road hazards that happened during his escape. So when an unstoppable machine means his escape includes "driving straight" followed by "driving straight" and "keep driving straight," it loses some of the appeal.

The aforementioned critique suggested that, while a lot of "Slicer" scenes were filmed, it was only so that there was plenty of material to work with in the editing room—Halicki never intended to have much of it in the final movie. I like to agree with that idea, as Halicki was always a stunt man who knew how to get the most from his vehicles. Simply smashing a straight line through everything seemed to go against his style.

That said, I have to give kudos to the engineers and builders who created the Slicer. Those scenes showed that it was an incredibly capable vehicle capable of going through anything it was pointed at.


Trackbacks


No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

No comments

Add Comment
Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

Submitted comments will be subject to moderation before being displayed.