7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Pretty strange for a Biopic, February 29, 2004
Not much could be said about John Belushi's life. He lived it way too fast and that was what killed him. I've only recently heard from a friend that they actually made a movie about Belushi, much like they did to other SNL stars who have passed on, like Andy Kaufman and Gilda Radner. It was then did I hear the film was blasted by numerous critics and fans at the box office, calling it a piece of garbage that would make John spin in his grave. I figured it was worth seeing, becaue I was a big fan of his, so I managed to buy a copy (for only $0.98, when about a week later, it went up to about $70!) from Ebay. Not expecting much, I tuned in and became wired (no pun intended). Essentially, the whole film is like Charles Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" with a nasty twist in the end.
Most importantly, the film is played out like A JOHN BELUSHI FILM, not a film about john belushi. No, that's not supposed to be Michael Chiklis playing John...that's actually John! Ah, forget it.
Well, how do we start? We open up on the evening of March 5, 1982, with the dead body of Belushi being reeled into a morgue. Hey awakens, suddenly, as if nothing had happened to him recently. Frightened and confused, John attempts to escape the morgue dressed only in a blanket. He's then picked up by a cab driver, named "Angel"...oh, geez, I guess you know where this is going. Angel is John's Puerto Rican Guardian Angel ("Well you sure f**cked up, pal!") and his job is to take John back into the past and show him basically where he screwed up. Meanwhile, after hearing about John's death, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward jumps on the topic, wondering about whether or not he should investigate. During this time, we are shown SNL skits that have never existed (Samurai baseball?!?), songs that the Blues Brothers never have sung (634-5789) and an ending that may prove John attempted to save his life from the speedball his took by playing a game of pinball with Angel!
It's very pathectic, yes, but then again, no one else would do a Belushi biopic. The cast is very weird. Chiklis however is very, very good with Belushi and gets his voice, look and style down good, while the others need some practice. Larry Grooms, who plays Dan Aykroyd, looks more like Kevin Nelon and sounds more like Jimmy Stuwart. Don't even get me started on the guy who played John Landis. Geez, he didn't even look like the guy! Much less, sound like him! J.T. Walsh is basically the only celebrity in the film and he was pretty good playing straight as an arrow Bob Woodward. Some scene were quite odd, like the confrontation between Woodward and Belushi (WTF?) in what the director was trying to say was "Purgatory". The ending kinda hints that Belushi went to Hell, which upsetted many fans (including me). The budget supposively was so shoe-string, that they couldn't get the rights to several of the SNL skits, (which is the reason for the random and lame skits that they show instead). I suggest that WIRED should be redone into a better movie! Period!
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Don't waste your time or money, May 26, 2004
If you are a John Belushi fan or Michael Chiklis fan do yourself a favor... DON'T BUY THIS TAPE! This movie stinks! I am a huge Belushi fan and I like Chiklis in The Shield, but watching this movie just made me feel sorry for both of them. It has a rotten plot, premise and script. Please, for the love of humanity, stay away from this movie. Don't say I didn't warn you.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Wired is a hunk of garbage., March 27, 2001
By A Customer
This is the kind of movie where after watching it, you want to demand your two hours back. For those of you who don't feel like wasting your time, here's a summary of the film: John Belushi dies of a drug overdose and then magically wakes up right before his autopsy. With the help of his sidekick guardian angel named (get this..)ANGEL, he re-lives points in his wild life, eventually realizing the error of his ways. Sound like a Charles Dickens story? Almost. The only difference is, he never comes back to life. Don't waste your money on this horrible excuse for a film. If you want to see how crazy John Belushi's life was, read the book the movie was based on (also titled Wired) or just watch one or two episodes from the early days of SNL. This movie covers absolutely NO new ground regarding Belushi's life.
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