We saw the new version of the Italian Job last Tuesday at Paramount
Studios. It was a "drive in" for Mini owners staged mostly as a publicity
stunt for the movie. That said it was good fun with about 350 Minis, mostly
the new version but a pretty good selection of originals.
The new movie doesn't share a lot with the old one, which is a shame. The
new movie is a pure action drama with little of the humor of the original.
There really isn't even that much to the car chase with the Minis.
Considering they used (and probably wrote off) 32 cars there just isn't
that much to it. If you've seen the previews you've seen most of the Mini
scenes. There are some good scenes in the first part of the film of
Charlize Theron tearing through Philadelphia in a Mk II Mini. Mark Wahlberg
plays the character Michael Caine did in the original but with none of the
flair and style Caine showed. Edward Norton is the bad guy who double
crosses the gang in Italy and runs off with the proceeds from their gold
heist. He kills the leader of the gang, Bridger, and thinks he kills the
rest, but they survive to seek a little payback. Norton as the villain is
just not nasty enough. The best performance IMHO, is Seth Green as the
computer expert who constantly tries to be cool like the rest of the gang
but pretty much keeps falling over his own feet.
The appeal of the original movie to me is the light hearted nature of it
all and all the cool cars scattered throughout. Michael Caine drives as
Aston DB5 Volante drophead and the Mafia boss trying to outmaneuver him
drives a Fiat Dino coupe. The rest of Caine's gang use a couple of E-types,
a Land Rover and a Dormobile. The Italian cops all drive Alfa Berlinas and
the scenes in Turin are filled with all flavors of Fiats, Lancias and
Alfas. Then there are the Minis. Oh and we can't forget the Lamborghini
Muira in the opening sequence that head-ons a bulldozer and is shoved over
a cliff. Yes, a real Muira!
So on the gearhead scale of car movies the New Italian Job rates a marginal
three out of five lug nuts, where the original rates a solid four and a
half lug nuts. Remember folks, YMMV.
Cheers Lads,
Kurt Oblinger
03 Mini Cooper S
80 TR7
62 Sports 6
57 TR3
54 TR2
54 Swallow Doretti
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