Movie Reviews for the Bad Movie Lover: Rubber

The Contestant:
Rubber (2010)

The Review:
Well, I was hanging out with a friend this past week and he wanted to watch this movie he just discovered.  All he knew about it was what he told me before we watched it: “It’s about a sentient tire that goes on a killing spree!”

OMG!  That’s a real movie?  I thought it was only a joke movie trailer someone made!
Ever since I have mentioned I saw Rubber to a few people, I have been hearing this exclamation.  I didn’t even realize there was a big to do about it until my boyfriend said he had seen the trailer on some joke website.  I can assure you it is a real movie, or at least real enough to be an hour and a half long and have an IMDb entry.  And here is the official movie site.  There is the trailer for the film on that website.

How is the overall quality?
Honestly, I was surprised.  When my friend told me the basic description, I thought for sure that the movie was going to be terrible B-movie quality.  It wasn’t at all.  The movie is extremely good quality for not being a mainstream movie.  It has the feel of an independent art film rather than a B-horror movie.  It actually might be an art film, but I’m not sure.  The concept behind the movie is interesting, once you figure out what is going on.  There is a lot more to this movie than the description my friend gave me, although I found it to be a bit confusing when I tried to pin down exactly what the deeper concepts were.  I think that might have been the point though.  If you’ve seen this movie, tell me what you think!

How are the plot and the characters?

Meet Robert.  Yes, the tire has a name!
It's in the credits and everything!

Well the basic plot, the sentient tire on a killing spree, is silly and pointless, but rather good for laughs.  There is a lot more to this movie though, as I said above.  I’m not sure what to make of the juxtaposition of the killer tire and the deeper plot though.  The whole movie caught me off guard, especially because I was expecting a bad “horror” movie.  Most of the characters are flat and rather unlikable, but a few of them are interesting for really no reason at all.  They are funny in an intentionally non-intentional way, or at least I think so.  I know this review seems a bit uncertain, and that probably comes from my uncertainty about the movie.  I’m really not sure what to make of it.  I want to pull in a deeper plot, which would make the characters more interesting, but I don’t know if there is one.

Is it so bad it’s good?
I don’t know if I would classify Rubber as a bad movie to begin with actually.  It feels like an art film, maybe one of those movies you would see on the independent movie chanel.  So because of that, I don’t really think it really fits into the category.  It’s certainly not a piece of high quality cinema though.  It isn’t too bad either, so if you have an hour and a half to spare to watch a tire roll around and kill people, I think it is worth the time.  I honestly enjoyed it, some for the ridiculousness of it, and some for the concept behind it.

So would you watch it again?
Probably not.  It’s worth the watch once, with a group of friends to make fun of some aspects of it, but certainly not multiple times!  Although I think my friends really liked it and want to watch it again to better understand the “deep meaning,”  but I don’t think it needs another watch.