Waste of time

Sadly Over-hyped

Better Late Then Never

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I'm So Excited is every frame a Pedro Almodóvar film (Talk to Her, Volver, The Skin I Live In): bizarre characters are painted in warm, luscious hues; politically incorrect dialogue are infused with a hint of cheerful irreverence. This saucy Spanish comedy revolves around three gay stewards, two bisexual pilots and a flurry of passengers bound for Mexico.The main narrative occurs against the backdrop of the plane interior itself. When the landing gear of Peninsula Flight 2549 malfunctions, sexual tensions escalate and inhibitions are shed in tandem to the knowledge of impending death and doom.We meet the trio of raging queens Joserra (Javier Cámara of Talk to Her), Fajas (Carlos Areces ) and Ulloa (Raúl Arévalo), chief pilot and Joserra's married lover Alex, his co-pilot and one-night-stand Benito. Seven passengers venture in-and-out of the cramped and narrow-spaced cockpit to interrupt this nervous dynamic. Hyper sensitive virgin psychic Bruna (Lola Dueñas) reacts to her powers of ESP and detects the "smell of death" in certain parts of the plane. Norma (Cecilia Roth), a demanding corporate highflyer in business class has mysterious connections to the oligarchs of Spanish society; she fears the malfunction is an assassination attempt to bury the secrets she knows as a high-end dominatrix. A mysterious and nameless Infante, scandalous middle-aged celebrity Ricardo, troubled husband and father Sr. Más and a pair of dopey, drug smuggling newly weds occupy the rest of Flight 2549's fuselage.Attempts to communicate with family and loved ones ground below are made possible by the only cabin handset that functions — but conversations can be heard over the PA system. This narrative device connects passengers in the plane to various characters on the ground; thus giving shape to back stories that serve to stress and accentuate the panicky mood unfolding within the plane.This latest offering by Almodóvar is an unbridled, satirical film with flashes of political and sexual humour. In many ways, I'm So Excited is a valuable testament to the hedonistic cultural wave of La Movida Madrileña (the famous Spanish 80s) where freedom of expression, transgression of taboos imposed by the Franco Regime, use of recreational drugs all exist to celebrate a new spirit of freedom in the streets of Madrid. Far from existing in a farcical vacuum, it would be prudent to consider the historical undertones in this excellent film — it is a subtle reminder of how far the Spanish identity has since evolved in post-Franco years.cinemainterruptus.wordpress.com

The relative brevity of Pedro Almodovar's airborne campfest is the most intelligent aspect of it. What can you say about a film that opens with Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz improbably cast (and pointlessly misused) as airport maintenance workers, only to drop them after two minutes? You can say it's gimmicky and you'd be right. The gimmicks continue with gay flight stewards who spend most of their time guzzling hard liquor and popping pills (after administering muscle relaxants to the entire economy class to knock them out – and keep them from interfering with the contrived melodramas acted out in business class where most of the story takes place). Within the first 15 minutes one of the stewards has knocked back enough tequila shots to incapacitate several people, yet carries on as if it had been spring water. This nonsensical cartoonish quality – rash acts in real time at close quarters without logical consequences - pervades the film. You can't take such characters or any of their actions seriously, so you can't care what happens to them either. They are merely stooges for the auteur's hothouse fantasies. The two pilots are bisexual, also drink alcohol and spend most of their screen time talking about or engaging in sex – in and out of the cockpit. The plane itself, due to mechanical problems, is forced to fly in circles until a runway can be found for an emergency landing. The action (other than couplings, boozing and pill popping) consists of various characters (including a psychic virgin who stares at the crotches of sleeping male passengers, an aging dominatrix, a rakish film actor and a professional hit man) rattling on about love, sex, mental illness, violence and corruption—in other words, the usual Almodovar obsessions which no longer titillate as they may have 30 or more years ago. He continues to specialize in unhinged people who chatter endlessly and glibly about subjects that the average person would find shocking or unsettling. Woven into the tapestry are intricate and wild coincidences such as a cell phone accidentally dropped from a viaduct by a woman about to jump therefrom in suicidal despair; the person she is talking to is a male passenger on the plane; her phone falls directly into the basket of a bicycle passing below, the driver of which just happens to be a woman who is having an affair with the same man whose voice continues to boom from the dropped phone; the cyclist recognizes his voice and now joins the ongoing drama which eventually, like the plane, goes nowhere in particular. Sometimes the verbal exchanges are wryly amusing, but mostly tiresome and seldom believable. The ending is a rather clever and elaborate visual joke which I won't give away. Metronome's catchy hit "The Look" makes the closing credits bearable.

In recent years, acclaimed director Pedro Almodovar has turned his considerable skill and craft to fashioning magic out of melodrama; I'm So Excited! represents his return to the high camp and silliness of his earlier comedic output. Unfortunately, the final result is a mixed bag: it features moments so crazy that they approach the sublime, but there are also bits that are awkward and just don't work, however committed Almodovar and his cast - drawn from all stages of the director's fabled career - are to the concept. On a flight bound for Mexico, we meet the kooky cast of characters that make up Almodovar's boozy, drug-addled universe: a trio of flamboyant gay flight stewards - Joserra (Javier Cámara), Fajas (Carlos Areces) and Ulloa (Raúl Arévalo) - serve and imbibe alcohol in equal measure. All seems well as they entertain the first-class passengers and bait the co- captains, Alex (Antonio de la Torre) and Benito (Hugo Silva). But, when part of the aircraft's landing gear is damaged, the looming sceptre of death prompts passengers and crew alike to shed their inhibitions and secrets.In Spain, critics have lauded the film as a timely metaphor for the country, which is still struggling to get out from beneath a staggering weight of financial troubles. True enough, there's a hint of depth tucked within the raunchy jokes and alcohol fumes: Mr. Mas (José Luis Torrijo) is a crooked businessman who must decide between family and freedom, and his fellow first-class passengers include the haughty, demanding Norma (Cecilia Roth) and playboy actor Ricardo (Guillermo Toledo). Meanwhile, the entire economy section of the plane - read: the ordinary folk - has been taken out by the ridiculous shenanigans of the people in charge. But the metaphor remains too thin and fleeting to make much of an impact. Instead, I'm So Excited! busies itself with out-sized capers, best encapsulated in the hilarious song-and-dance routine that gives the film its English title: Joserra, Fajas and Ulloa's colourful attempt to lighten the mood, set to the three-part harmony of the Pointer Sisters.That high point aside, however, it's hard to tell whether to be amused or offended by the hijinks that take place onboard. After the three stewards cook up a heady concoction that plunges the entire first-class cabin into a brew of hormones and horniness, it's great fun to watch uptight family man Alex navigate his complicated relationship with the unfailingly honest Joserra. But self-professed psychic Bruna's adventure in the economy-class cabin might strike many as Almodovar taking it one risqué step too far.With this mile-high cocktail of sex and comedy, Almodovar clearly set out to shock as much as to entertain. He mixes edgy characters with outlandish situations, sometimes to wonderful effect. But, as the film unfolds, the cheerful, campy farce of it all slowly deflates, and it becomes clearer that his quirks and comedy have come chiefly at the expense of character and connection.

This is not a drama, this is a comedy, so please don't compare this movie to other Almodovar dramas. Still, this movie has many issues. It doesn't have a clear message, it tries to entertain, that's all. Is a queer comedy, sometimes it's definitely too gross and stereotyped. I have to admit I laughed sometimes, but not too much. This is not a good movie for families and bigots, of course, but I don't consider myself a bigot at all... It also looks like a movie that speaks only to a gay audience: heterosexual people are quite inexistent or depicted like stupid or repressed. I know that gay characters have a weak presence in blockbuster comedies but please... a movie where straight people don't exist is quite stupid. It looks like a tiny planet born from the mind of an old sex-centric director. I'm not giving a good evaluation because entertaining doesn't necessarily mean that you can't give a message. This movie doesn't teach too much or, if it has a lesson, it's definitely a weak one.