Love him or hate him; that seems to be the consensus with Kevin Smith.  I tend to enjoy his work, as long as we’re not talking about Red State.  His newest film, Tusk marks Smith’s first movie in what is supposedly a trilogy called the True North Trilogy.  Warning: if you’ve never seen a Kevin Smith film, know that it is a dialogue heavy affair.  Interactions take precedent over story or action.  So what do we think?

With a plot that sounds familiar to Human Centipede, but replaces the centipede with a walrus, you’re probably not expecting much.  It’s preposterous and most likely why Justin Long was keen on being part.  I’m ok with that.  The problem comes with the fact that you’re going to have to show me that shit.  You can’t say you’re making a movie where a guy turns someone into a walrus and then not show it.  Unfortunately Smith does indeed show the final product, and it’s… shall we say disappointing?

Now before we pass out the pitchforks and torches, we have to address the dialogue.  This is where Kevin Smith usually shines, and luckily it appears that despite his last outing, he has recovered fully with Tusk.  I honestly have no idea how long the scene of Justin Long and Michael Parks first meeting goes on for, but it could have easily went on longer and still kept my attention.  These moments are where the story and humor are found, and that’s what keeps the film afloat.

On a personal level, I got a kick out of seeing Haley Joel Osment, who looks exactly the same except with stubble, Harley Morenstein of YouTube fame, and a well disguised Johnny Depp portray their respective characters.  Of course there’s some decent humor to the film as well.  It’s not Will Ferrell style, but I also wouldn’t call it sophisticated either.  It’s simply subtle.  A prime example is the film opening with one of horror’s favorite tropes: “the following events are based on a true story”.  That story is the guys shooting around the idea of this movie on their podcast, SModcast, which you can hear the actual audio of if you hang around after the credits roll.

Tusk was a difficult film to review, but I think our own Luke Rodriguez summed it up best when he said, “I never really thought a movie could be worse than I expected, and better than I expected at the same time.”  As confusing as that may sound, it’s the perfect description..