"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is one of my personal favorite films. Granted the script is amazing, by Charlie Kaufman, but the visual aesthetic Gondry used to explore the erasing of memories was so striking and hauntingly real. He even went crazier in the dreams of "The Science of Sleep". So a potentially interesting concept of "Be Kind Rewind", in which to save a fledging video store in the age of DVD and when most of the tapes are accidentally erased, Mike (Mos Def) and Jerry (Jack Black) conceive an idea about refilming the videos. Some strange wind of luck happens and they become highly successful. So why is this film the most annoying film this year?

I see where Gondry was going with the concept, an exploration of not why we love movies, but how we love movies, and when Mike and jerry film stuff like "Robocop", "Driving Miss Daisy", and "Rush Hour 2", we can't help but get excited and laugh. The film switches to their camera's perspective sometimes, and there we can see them in that awkward, home movie, feel with bad lighting and audio; the film shines. It's where Jack black is most comfortable-he's funny and zany and with this material, he's at home. Mos Def, essentially plays the straight man in the comedy team, and is a capable actor and shines in most scenes. If the film was something shorter or capitalized on these segments momentum, we would have a great ode to film and VHS.

Unfortunately, the weakest that Gondry has, script writing, is ever so apparent. The film has no framework or structure and lingers and shambles along to a very predictable and emotionless ending. So mentioned Gondry's weakest in "The Science of Sleep", but that film held together by a solid idea that was well-conceived. Here, I don't know why the glue, which is the home movie segments, doesn't hold together with the rest of the film. It might be the unlikable characters which have no development, all one dimensional, or it could be its too generic. You really won't laugh much outside of the crappy movies Mike and Jerry film and the underlining reason of why they are doing it, doesn't hold up, because Gondry telegraphs the ending in the first couple scenes, which could be okay, if it was better handled. The ending comes and with a lone piano score, Gondry is tying to forces us into emotions that the film didn't earn. We are supposed to care for this hole-in-the-wall video store which is thought to be a landmark of a jazz legend. The film risks everything on this and falls as flat and hard as VHS did when DVD came about.

The film feels too much like the studio hired Gondry instead of Gondry creating this. It has that studio polish to it, especially in its manipulative score and ending, all the while I thought this film would play better on a lower budget, giving it a more indie, do-it-yourself feel, like Jerry and Mike were doing. Gondry's visual flair is rather muted here, only peaking out in the home movie sequences, which to me I found highly disappointing. For a fun concept, it falls flat as it's unremarkable from a director that knows better…or does he?