There are ways to use 3D as a subtle effect and an added narrative layer, but who wants that when you can have Nicolas Cage shooting bullets out of the screen? My Bloody Valentine 3D director Patrick Lussier showed up in Hall H this morning to show off two more minutes of his latest 3D schlock adventure, Drive Angry, which was "shot in 3D" and shows it. It's the best looking live action 3D I've seen since, well, maybe My Bloody Valentine, and uses every pop-out gimmick imaginable to thrill the audience, with no pretensions about being anything more than a joyride.

The tagline pretty much says it all: Nicolas Cage is a man who has escaped from hell (literal hell? prison? who knows!) and the devil (William Fichtner) is trying to get him back. Meanwhile he's off on a quest to rescue his grandchild from the people who killed his daughter, and has brought along with him Amber Heard, who probably serves some sort of narrative function but seems to spend most of her screentime leaning over the hood of a car in short-shorts. She's also sporting a terrible Southern accent, but in a movie in which Nic Cage drives a car with the bumper sticker "I brake 4 pussy," that's the last thing anyone will be paying attention to. If you liked My Bloody Valentine 3D for its unabashed goofiness and violence, it looks like you'll find the same thing in Drive Angry, with the added bonus of Nicolas Cage saying stuff like "Hell is already walking the earth."

Cage was on hand for the panel as well, answering questions with typically enigmatic answers like "It's no secret that I like characters that raise more questions than answers" and describing his Drive Angry character as a guy who "doesn't do drugs, but he likes a bit of sugar now and again." Lussier also confirmed that the title really does come from the scene in Groundhog Day in which Phil drives the groundhog into the quarry, and repeatedly cited the bizarro Western High Plains Drifter as an inspiration for the movie. I'm not sure I see the connection just yet, but that gives us even more to look forward to from Drive Angry, which looks unpredictable and very, very fun.



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