"Kaboom" Movie Trailer Review

"Kaboom"

Movie Trailer Review

By our guest blogger, Nick Hanover

Gregg Araki's films have always occupied their own weird universes. Araki's style is wholly singular, a day-glo mixture of trippy, druggy visuals and dreamy characters who lack ambition in favor of a life floating on the ether. But in 2005, Araki's style and the rest of the world came together for a brief moment in the magnificent "Mysterious Skin." At this point, "Mysterious Skin" is almost certainly still Araki's crowning achievement, a perfect balance of his adventurous interpretation of reality and his interests in characters whose lives are decimated or scarred by sexual misadventures and incidents, forcing them to often seek solace in enhancements of the chemical sort.

Though it isn't totally surprising that Araki's latest effort, "Kaboom," seems to find the director returning to the ground he covered in his "Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy," specifically "The Doom Generation" and "Nowhere," it is somewhat disappointing. Likely disappointed himself by the less-than-stellar reception of his "Mysterious Skin" follow-up "Smiley Face," which was notable for its focus on stoner comedy rather than Araki's sometimes stifling pessimism, it seems that Araki has retreated back into the realm of the f*cked-up as a manner of self-defense.

Watching Araki's trailers though always builds up hope for his films. Perhaps more so than any other recent director, Araki's films excel in the trailer format, where the day-glo excesses and sudden tonal jumps feel a bit more fitting. And the premise of "Kaboom" is undoubtedly solid--a sexually omnivorous young man named Smith (Thomas Dekker) finds himself having eerie, apocalyptic dreams and becomes convinced the world will soon end. "Kaboom" fared well on the festival circuit, receiving high marks at Toronto and awarded the first ever Queer Palm at Cannes.

If the buzz is correct and it isn't just festival-induced mass hallucination, then my skepticism surrounding Araki's apparent return to his apocalyptic early days will be for naught. If Araki can improve on "Nowhere," "Kaboom"'s closest spiritual ancestor, by dialing down its excess and relentless pacing, we might just be looking at another work on the level of "Mysterious Skin." And that, my friends, is undoubtedly a great thing.

View the trailer below. Thoughts?