There’s no rule anywhere that says critics and audiences have to be in agreement on the merits of any movie or TV show, which is just as well when a huge amount of the ones that make money are those greeted apathetically be the people tasked to review them. More than 20 years ago, Gone in 60 Seconds fell into that trap, but it didn’t matter when it proved to be a runaway success story.
Watching it now makes for a fascinating experience because director Dominic Senna’s reimagining of the 1974 original is so turn-of-the-millennium that it acts as a time capsule for viewers of a certain generation, with everything from the dialogue to the soundtrack via the characters’ wardrobes and the cinematography harking back to an era when every expensive blockbuster looked and felt roughly the same.
Either way, in spite of a terrible 25 percent Rotten Tomatoes approval rating, a 77 percent audience score and box office tally of $237 million ensured the dream team of Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Jerry Bruckheimer and the rest were left laughing all the way to the bank. Gone in 60 Seconds has endured as a cult classic for many valid reasons, and seeing as it’s revved back onto the streaming charts, that reputation remains as solid as ever 23 years on.
Per FlixPatrol, the high-octane heist thriller has put pedal to metal and exploded up the iTunes worldwide watch-list, and it’s as unabashedly cheesy, gleefully stupid, and endearingly entertaining as it ever was.