There is a theory that people of higher intelligence tend to be unhappy. This is due to the fact that they are generally surrounded by people that they can't communicate with. They do, for all intents and purposes, speak different languages. This is why groups like MENSA have to be formed. Whereas people of lower intelligence can congregate anywhere (the mall) and talk about anything (sex).
Idiocracy is about a two people of average intelligence in 2005. They get put in a government hibernation program that is only supposed to last a year. Through a series of events, it lasts 500 years. When they wake up, they are the smartest people on the planet.
This movie didn't really do it for me. It wasn't subtle enough in its satire for me. It wanted to keep hitting us with "Wow! Look how incredibly stupid the world got! Am I right, fellas!" After a while, that wore thin. It also didn't spend enough time showing how the world got stupid. It made veiled jabs at the media saturating us with unimportant details while the big issues got swept aside. It started out strong by mentioning that we spent more time on hair restoration than curing cancer. But it didn't sink it's teeth in. This is perfect fodder for a biting, mean spirited attack on Western civilization! The fact that our protagonist comes across as only marginally smarter than the people he is surrounded by doesn't help. It doesn't sell the concept.
They also rushed it. They could have spent a lot more time developing characters, or just adding more dialogue to scenes instead of narrating over them.
I don't recommend this movie. It's got some laugh out loud bits in it, but there are better comedies for that. It makes some valid points, but there are better satires. Overall, it just didn't work.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Appaloosa...
Westerns are a niche genre. Not so much in how many people like them, but in how they work. Any movie could be a good western, not every western can be a good movie. Not every western can be a good western.
Appaloosa is not a good western. It's an okay film, but it just doesn't work in the genre in which it's placed.
It's fairly standard fare as far as story line goes. Sheriff comes to a town that is being overrun by a vicious gang and he needs to restore law and order with his trusty sidekick...er...deputy. Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen play the parts of sheriff and deputy, respectively, fairly well. Renee Zellwegger is...certainly in the movie. I can't tell if it was her character, or the way she played her character, but something was very unremarkable about her role. Jeremy Irons probably played best as the villain, though his fake south western American accent was laughable the first few minutes until I got used to it. Or stopped paying attention.
Again, let me say that this isn't a terrible movie. There is certainly no reason not to see the film. But, if you're going for a western, there are certainly much better choices to be made. Because this isn't a western. It's a movie. It could have been placed in 1920's Chicago, Millennial New York, or 1600's Scotland and it would have played exactly the same. That isn't a praise of it's universality as a story, it's a dig at it's plainness.
Westerns are supposed to have some sense of grandeur. Some tension of man against man. They should have some grit, some dirt under their fingernails. Appaloosa certainly looked dusty, but I just didn't buy the characters as western. Viggo Mortensen probably more than the others. The relationship that develops between Ed Harris' Virgil and Renee Zellwegger's Allison hamstrung Virgil's character, which made everything else about him questionable. He couldn't have been as street smart as he was supposed to be and fall for it. And if he would fall for it like he did, then he couldn't have been as street smart as he was and would probably have been killed a long time ago.
If you're looking for a good movie, maybe just to kill some time, this would be your pick. If you're looking for a good western, this is not what you want. Re-watch The Dollars Trilogy, or How the West Was Won, or even Tombstone before choosing this.
Appaloosa is not a good western. It's an okay film, but it just doesn't work in the genre in which it's placed.
It's fairly standard fare as far as story line goes. Sheriff comes to a town that is being overrun by a vicious gang and he needs to restore law and order with his trusty sidekick...er...deputy. Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen play the parts of sheriff and deputy, respectively, fairly well. Renee Zellwegger is...certainly in the movie. I can't tell if it was her character, or the way she played her character, but something was very unremarkable about her role. Jeremy Irons probably played best as the villain, though his fake south western American accent was laughable the first few minutes until I got used to it. Or stopped paying attention.
Again, let me say that this isn't a terrible movie. There is certainly no reason not to see the film. But, if you're going for a western, there are certainly much better choices to be made. Because this isn't a western. It's a movie. It could have been placed in 1920's Chicago, Millennial New York, or 1600's Scotland and it would have played exactly the same. That isn't a praise of it's universality as a story, it's a dig at it's plainness.
Westerns are supposed to have some sense of grandeur. Some tension of man against man. They should have some grit, some dirt under their fingernails. Appaloosa certainly looked dusty, but I just didn't buy the characters as western. Viggo Mortensen probably more than the others. The relationship that develops between Ed Harris' Virgil and Renee Zellwegger's Allison hamstrung Virgil's character, which made everything else about him questionable. He couldn't have been as street smart as he was supposed to be and fall for it. And if he would fall for it like he did, then he couldn't have been as street smart as he was and would probably have been killed a long time ago.
If you're looking for a good movie, maybe just to kill some time, this would be your pick. If you're looking for a good western, this is not what you want. Re-watch The Dollars Trilogy, or How the West Was Won, or even Tombstone before choosing this.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Zodiac...
I know that the Zodiac Killer murders have never been conclusively solved. Yet, there is one scene in this film that made me believe they would solve it by the end of the movie. This scene makes the whole film. Without it, nothing after it would work and everything before would lose momentum.
What made the film work was not just the acting or just the writing. It wasn't just the camera angles or lighting. It was all of those things. And if I had to say what makes Zodiac one of the best movies I've seen this year, I tell you it is exactly that. This film works on all levels.
The acting is superb. The writing is tight as a drum. The mood and tension created by the technical aspects like the lighting and camera work are not flair...it's part of the whole.
It's the story of a man who starts out as a cartoonist for the San Fransisco Chronicle. In the beginning, he's on the peripheral of the story. Both the news story and the film. The early part of the film focuses mainly on the early investigation. Soon however, we're back with our main character as he gets swept along into a maddening search. He wants to find the Zodiac. He wants to do what three police agencies and even the government were not able to.
The transition from one side of the story to the next is so smooth, I was hardly aware of it. That would be the second thing I would point to as what makes this film work so well. The pacing and flow of it is almost liquid. You float along in this movie. It's engrossing. Every frame, every line of dialogue has your rapt attention.
The Zodiac Killer is really a MacGuffin in this film. That was a term Hitchcock used to describe something that moves the plot without being crucial to it. The story here is about the madness that this kind of terror creates. Not just for the victims and their families, but for everyone that gets involved. No one is untouched by evil, this film tells us. No one walks away unscathed. It ruins lives, breaks up relationships, and even if there is a bright spot of revelation...there is always someone who was never completely healed.
If you love mysteries, this is your film. If you love great acting, this is your film. If you just want to experience one of the best films made in, I would say, the last two years...this is your film.
What made the film work was not just the acting or just the writing. It wasn't just the camera angles or lighting. It was all of those things. And if I had to say what makes Zodiac one of the best movies I've seen this year, I tell you it is exactly that. This film works on all levels.
The acting is superb. The writing is tight as a drum. The mood and tension created by the technical aspects like the lighting and camera work are not flair...it's part of the whole.
It's the story of a man who starts out as a cartoonist for the San Fransisco Chronicle. In the beginning, he's on the peripheral of the story. Both the news story and the film. The early part of the film focuses mainly on the early investigation. Soon however, we're back with our main character as he gets swept along into a maddening search. He wants to find the Zodiac. He wants to do what three police agencies and even the government were not able to.
The transition from one side of the story to the next is so smooth, I was hardly aware of it. That would be the second thing I would point to as what makes this film work so well. The pacing and flow of it is almost liquid. You float along in this movie. It's engrossing. Every frame, every line of dialogue has your rapt attention.
The Zodiac Killer is really a MacGuffin in this film. That was a term Hitchcock used to describe something that moves the plot without being crucial to it. The story here is about the madness that this kind of terror creates. Not just for the victims and their families, but for everyone that gets involved. No one is untouched by evil, this film tells us. No one walks away unscathed. It ruins lives, breaks up relationships, and even if there is a bright spot of revelation...there is always someone who was never completely healed.
If you love mysteries, this is your film. If you love great acting, this is your film. If you just want to experience one of the best films made in, I would say, the last two years...this is your film.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas...
I'm sitting here, and the only thing I can think is "how could the film end like that?" This truly had to be one of the the most heartbreaking ends to any film I have ever seen.
But, how could it have ended any other way? It would have been a greater injustice to end it on a happy note. A just note. Because to do so would be to banish all the realities of what the Holocaust really was.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is an important film. Not one to be taken lightly. Throughout, there is this underlying tension. It instantly reminds you of all those cold, tense silences that fell on adults when you were a kid. You didn't understand what was going on, but you knew it wasn't good. Even the score of the film is subtle. Just underneath the surface, as if it isn't there at all.
Indeed, that is how this film handles much of the realities it portrays. But again, that isn't a disservice to it. It helps you to connect with the bright-eyed innocence of Bruno.
Bruno is the eight year old son of a Nazi commandant. They have moved out to the country from their plush home in Berlin so that his father can be in charge of a farm. A farm, Bruno notices, where all the workers wear stripped pajamas.
He and his mother are unaware of what is going on. His adolescent sister is growing with pride for the Fatherland and the work they are doing to take care of the "Jewish problem". Bruno doesn't know what any of that means. When his mother finds out, she is horrified...yet helpless. What is she going to do? Move? Leave her family? Try to take them away from Herr Commandant?
Bruno is exposed to the propaganda. He also befriends a boy who lives on the "farm". He is also eight, his name is Shmuel. Shmuel is timid and frightened. Not of Bruno...in fact, he seems frightened of everything but Bruno. We know why Shmuel acts the way he does, and so does Shmuel. Yet Bruno never fully understands.
Until the end.
The acting in this film is so good, so engrossing, that Bruno's innocence is never played as willful stupidity. He's a smart kid. And that is the issue here...he's a child. The loss of innocence is a terribly painful process, and I believe the first thing it kills is our understanding of what it means to look at the world through the eyes of a child.
I want so badly to believe that the world is a good place. I want to believe, as Bruno does, that someday Shmuel will be able to come outside and play. They can go on fantastic adventures together.
Sadly, I am forced to see the world as Bruno's mother does. Fully aware of it's darkness, and perhaps by myself entirely powerless to stop it.
I wanted to stop this film from ending. I wanted one more frame to let me know that the laughter could continue. But I know better. I know that in this world, where corporations and governments have built their fortunes on the backs of the poor, that sometimes the only honest ending is the dark one.
And when this film ends, the gravity of it will take your breath away.
This is an important film. It is tense, so I would steer away from calling it a family film. While it is sad to say that parents will someday have to introduce their child to the realities of what Hitler did, I would say that when that time comes to use this film instead of something like Schindler's List. They are equal in craftsmanship, but The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is much more approachable as it sees the world through eye level and not in grand, epic strokes.
But, how could it have ended any other way? It would have been a greater injustice to end it on a happy note. A just note. Because to do so would be to banish all the realities of what the Holocaust really was.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is an important film. Not one to be taken lightly. Throughout, there is this underlying tension. It instantly reminds you of all those cold, tense silences that fell on adults when you were a kid. You didn't understand what was going on, but you knew it wasn't good. Even the score of the film is subtle. Just underneath the surface, as if it isn't there at all.
Indeed, that is how this film handles much of the realities it portrays. But again, that isn't a disservice to it. It helps you to connect with the bright-eyed innocence of Bruno.
Bruno is the eight year old son of a Nazi commandant. They have moved out to the country from their plush home in Berlin so that his father can be in charge of a farm. A farm, Bruno notices, where all the workers wear stripped pajamas.
He and his mother are unaware of what is going on. His adolescent sister is growing with pride for the Fatherland and the work they are doing to take care of the "Jewish problem". Bruno doesn't know what any of that means. When his mother finds out, she is horrified...yet helpless. What is she going to do? Move? Leave her family? Try to take them away from Herr Commandant?
Bruno is exposed to the propaganda. He also befriends a boy who lives on the "farm". He is also eight, his name is Shmuel. Shmuel is timid and frightened. Not of Bruno...in fact, he seems frightened of everything but Bruno. We know why Shmuel acts the way he does, and so does Shmuel. Yet Bruno never fully understands.
Until the end.
The acting in this film is so good, so engrossing, that Bruno's innocence is never played as willful stupidity. He's a smart kid. And that is the issue here...he's a child. The loss of innocence is a terribly painful process, and I believe the first thing it kills is our understanding of what it means to look at the world through the eyes of a child.
I want so badly to believe that the world is a good place. I want to believe, as Bruno does, that someday Shmuel will be able to come outside and play. They can go on fantastic adventures together.
Sadly, I am forced to see the world as Bruno's mother does. Fully aware of it's darkness, and perhaps by myself entirely powerless to stop it.
I wanted to stop this film from ending. I wanted one more frame to let me know that the laughter could continue. But I know better. I know that in this world, where corporations and governments have built their fortunes on the backs of the poor, that sometimes the only honest ending is the dark one.
And when this film ends, the gravity of it will take your breath away.
This is an important film. It is tense, so I would steer away from calling it a family film. While it is sad to say that parents will someday have to introduce their child to the realities of what Hitler did, I would say that when that time comes to use this film instead of something like Schindler's List. They are equal in craftsmanship, but The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is much more approachable as it sees the world through eye level and not in grand, epic strokes.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War...
One of my favorite movies is Saving Private Ryan. I love it, even though it is a flawed movie. I love the war movie genre. I love it, even though it is a flawed genre. Francois Truffaut is quoted as saying that it is impossible to make an anti-war film. They are action movies, and they make the combat look fun and exciting. Roger Ebert, in his review of Platoon, said that movie would have made Truffaut "modify his opinion". If every war film were like Tae Guk Gi, he would never have formed that opinion.
For all of the war films I've seen, Tae Guk Gi is one of the first that truly showed war for the horrific experience it must be. Saving Private Ryan, for all of its grittiness, was symbolic and sentimental. Black Hawk Down was thrilling and immersing. Platoon and Apocalypse Now were edgy and rather high concept. Sure, they all showed that men in combat are in danger. Tae Guk Gi showed that men in war-whether in combat or sleeping at night-are in danger.
It takes place in Korea, and begins immediately before the Korean War breaks out. It focuses on two South Korean brothers, Jin-seok and Jin-tae. One is a humble cobbler, the other is ready to start college. Their father died some years ago, and they both take care of their mother. There's also a girl and a sub-plot about a love triangle.
When the war breaks out, the brothers are drafted. The older one Jin-tae wants the younger to get sent back home. He asks permission for them to remain together, which is granted. Jin-tae also works out a deal with his commanding officer. If he gets a medal, his brother can go home. Jin-seok, unaware of this deal, wonders why his brother continually volunteers for the riskiest missions.
They are also put into a unit that is supposed to be protecting an important, strategic area. They feel neither important nor strategic as they are hammered day in and day out by the "commies", while receiving little in the form of food or water from their own military. Soon, after many days of attacks, some become desperate. One wounded soldier begins shooting other wounded soldiers. I've never seen that in a war film before.
American war films, specifically, want to keep the glossy sheen on the brave fighting men. Don't get me wrong. I strongly support the military and believe those men are the bravest of the brave. But, they are still men. They have been asked (or volunteered) to take on one of the most emotionally and physically taxing jobs.
This movie, while graphic, does not display the gore. Saving Private Ryan made a point of showing the visceral horror of war in detail. Tae Guk Gi doesn't gives you a more holistic experience of battle. It sets your nerves on edge by not quickly cutting to a scene of violence, and then quickly cutting away. You sit there wondering, just at the soldiers themselves, when the next attack will happen. When the next bullet will strike. Who is the next to die?
It wraps this around a very powerful story of brotherly love and family connections.
It is a very powerful film, and I would highly recommend it.
For all of the war films I've seen, Tae Guk Gi is one of the first that truly showed war for the horrific experience it must be. Saving Private Ryan, for all of its grittiness, was symbolic and sentimental. Black Hawk Down was thrilling and immersing. Platoon and Apocalypse Now were edgy and rather high concept. Sure, they all showed that men in combat are in danger. Tae Guk Gi showed that men in war-whether in combat or sleeping at night-are in danger.
It takes place in Korea, and begins immediately before the Korean War breaks out. It focuses on two South Korean brothers, Jin-seok and Jin-tae. One is a humble cobbler, the other is ready to start college. Their father died some years ago, and they both take care of their mother. There's also a girl and a sub-plot about a love triangle.
When the war breaks out, the brothers are drafted. The older one Jin-tae wants the younger to get sent back home. He asks permission for them to remain together, which is granted. Jin-tae also works out a deal with his commanding officer. If he gets a medal, his brother can go home. Jin-seok, unaware of this deal, wonders why his brother continually volunteers for the riskiest missions.
They are also put into a unit that is supposed to be protecting an important, strategic area. They feel neither important nor strategic as they are hammered day in and day out by the "commies", while receiving little in the form of food or water from their own military. Soon, after many days of attacks, some become desperate. One wounded soldier begins shooting other wounded soldiers. I've never seen that in a war film before.
American war films, specifically, want to keep the glossy sheen on the brave fighting men. Don't get me wrong. I strongly support the military and believe those men are the bravest of the brave. But, they are still men. They have been asked (or volunteered) to take on one of the most emotionally and physically taxing jobs.
This movie, while graphic, does not display the gore. Saving Private Ryan made a point of showing the visceral horror of war in detail. Tae Guk Gi doesn't gives you a more holistic experience of battle. It sets your nerves on edge by not quickly cutting to a scene of violence, and then quickly cutting away. You sit there wondering, just at the soldiers themselves, when the next attack will happen. When the next bullet will strike. Who is the next to die?
It wraps this around a very powerful story of brotherly love and family connections.
It is a very powerful film, and I would highly recommend it.
Monday, May 18, 2009
The Watchmen...
"Quis custōdiet ipsōs custōdēs?" That, roughly translated, is "Who watches the watchmen?" It is the phrase that we get the title of this film and the graphic novel it was based on. I throw that in there so everyone can feel smart. Feeling smart makes you feel good about yourself. After viewing this film, I did not feel good about myself.
I was very excited to see this film. I had heard negative reviews about it, but they mostly came from people unfamiliar with the graphic novel. Unlike Batman or Spider-Man, The Watchmen is a story set in the real world. It is an alternate history of the United States. Regular citizens take on vigilante roles as "masked men" in order to finish what the police couldn't. None of them have any real super powers in the books, except for Dr. Manhattan. He was a man who was basically blown apart in a particle accelerator and then pieced himself back together. This made him able to "walk on the surface of the sun" and "observe moments so small and fast it's as if they didn't happen at all." He can see his own past, present, and future simultaneously (only his, no one else's).
Yet, for all of the super human ability none of the other characters have...they sure can take a beating.
The story begins with The Comedian being killed. The Comedian, Edward Blake, was one of The Watchmen. His death is brutal. He is beaten and thrown out of his apartment window to the sidewalk several stories below. I have to say that, in all the films I've seen, I have never witnessed an attack as vicious as this one. I don't know what it was that made it so unsettling, but at one point I actually wanted to yell "stop it!" to the screen.
As the story progresses, there are several moments where I wanted to yell stop. Not because of what was happening, so much as the way it was being presented. And thus, my real problem with the movie comes out.
Zach Snyder did a good job, I thought, with 300. Simply because it was more or less meant to be cartoonish. It was graphic, but in a video game style that was juvenile, but not entirely offensive. Here, it was less cartoonish and more grotesque. I went in understanding that the characters are all pretty much depraved. But reading that in a comic book one single frame at a time and seeing it portrayed by people are two entirely different aspects. I wasn't expecting that. This movie is violent to everyone. Women, children, old, young. Nothing is sacred, nothing is pure. I understand that this is the point of the story to an extent. I also understand that better films have made the same point without reducing it's audience to the viewing of a nickle peep show. I was shown stomach churning violence, in patented Snyder-Slow-Down-Speed-Up-vision. Certain parts of the story that were shown in bold colors and left nothing to the imagination had been handled far more subtly in the comic. If I am making this out to seem very dark, it's because I believe it to be so.
I had recommended seeing this with some friends of mine when it first came to theaters. We never did, and for that I am grateful. I wouldn't feel comfortable having my friends watch this.
It is violent, soft core pornography and I feel dirty for having witnessed it. I almost walked out half way through. The only reason why I didn't was because I wanted to give the film a chance to redeem itself. Not it's characters...itself. I wanted it to become aware that it was dragging the audience into a world that it needn't view, and stop. The film never did this. It simply pulled us along, without remorse.
I would still recommend the graphic novel. This is based, again, on the fact that it handled many aspects of the story with more subtlety. It's also richer. It goes deeper into why these men are the way they are. The film simply lets them be that way, and makes us watch.
I can't recommend this film for any viewing, for any purpose.
I was very excited to see this film. I had heard negative reviews about it, but they mostly came from people unfamiliar with the graphic novel. Unlike Batman or Spider-Man, The Watchmen is a story set in the real world. It is an alternate history of the United States. Regular citizens take on vigilante roles as "masked men" in order to finish what the police couldn't. None of them have any real super powers in the books, except for Dr. Manhattan. He was a man who was basically blown apart in a particle accelerator and then pieced himself back together. This made him able to "walk on the surface of the sun" and "observe moments so small and fast it's as if they didn't happen at all." He can see his own past, present, and future simultaneously (only his, no one else's).
Yet, for all of the super human ability none of the other characters have...they sure can take a beating.
The story begins with The Comedian being killed. The Comedian, Edward Blake, was one of The Watchmen. His death is brutal. He is beaten and thrown out of his apartment window to the sidewalk several stories below. I have to say that, in all the films I've seen, I have never witnessed an attack as vicious as this one. I don't know what it was that made it so unsettling, but at one point I actually wanted to yell "stop it!" to the screen.
As the story progresses, there are several moments where I wanted to yell stop. Not because of what was happening, so much as the way it was being presented. And thus, my real problem with the movie comes out.
Zach Snyder did a good job, I thought, with 300. Simply because it was more or less meant to be cartoonish. It was graphic, but in a video game style that was juvenile, but not entirely offensive. Here, it was less cartoonish and more grotesque. I went in understanding that the characters are all pretty much depraved. But reading that in a comic book one single frame at a time and seeing it portrayed by people are two entirely different aspects. I wasn't expecting that. This movie is violent to everyone. Women, children, old, young. Nothing is sacred, nothing is pure. I understand that this is the point of the story to an extent. I also understand that better films have made the same point without reducing it's audience to the viewing of a nickle peep show. I was shown stomach churning violence, in patented Snyder-Slow-Down-Speed-Up-vision. Certain parts of the story that were shown in bold colors and left nothing to the imagination had been handled far more subtly in the comic. If I am making this out to seem very dark, it's because I believe it to be so.
I had recommended seeing this with some friends of mine when it first came to theaters. We never did, and for that I am grateful. I wouldn't feel comfortable having my friends watch this.
It is violent, soft core pornography and I feel dirty for having witnessed it. I almost walked out half way through. The only reason why I didn't was because I wanted to give the film a chance to redeem itself. Not it's characters...itself. I wanted it to become aware that it was dragging the audience into a world that it needn't view, and stop. The film never did this. It simply pulled us along, without remorse.
I would still recommend the graphic novel. This is based, again, on the fact that it handled many aspects of the story with more subtlety. It's also richer. It goes deeper into why these men are the way they are. The film simply lets them be that way, and makes us watch.
I can't recommend this film for any viewing, for any purpose.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Sunshine...
I first heard about Sunshine from Wired Magazine. My sci-fi loving geeky heart was all a-flutter. Certainly, it is a good film. It's not a great film, but it could have been.
"Our Sun is dying." These are the opening words. And so it is. Our nearest star is dying and we have sent scientists up with a really big bomb (the size of Manhattan...why does everything in movies have to be the size of Manhattan?). The bomb is going to be flown into the sun to "restart it". They already had one mission go up, Icarus I, and it disappeared. So, a new group is sent up. Icarus II.
This film borrowed all the best from the best science fiction of the past. There is this ever present quiet that gives the sense of isolation. The claustrophobic interiors of a spaceship. The crew that slowly grows weary of each other. The ship looks freaking awesome. It's all there.
Along the way, they find Icarus I. In doing so, parts of their ship get broken, one crew member becomes suicidal because he blames himself for it, and they lose their only way of communicating with Earth. Then we get the mystery of what happened to the first crew. Psychological drama, ghost ships, science, space, a really cool holodeck thingy. This just keeps getting better and better!
Oh, but wait, let's throw the audience a curve ball.
Without going into a lot of detail, I'll just say that this appears to be another attempt at making two films for the price of one. I don't want to spoil the details, but I want you to be aware of it. It suddenly becomes some kind of mild slasher flick/whodunnit in space. They throw in a story line that adds nothing and detracts a lot. Characters die for no other reason than to kill them off. All the logic and psychology that has been building behind these characters gets deflated so that we can have some dude with a really bad sunburn run around with an X-acto knife (you'll have to see it).
I was really disappointed. The way they built up to it was still intriguing. If given it's own film, it would have been a really great concept. This film was already a great concept, but the two did not work together.
I still recommend this film just to experience the good parts. The good parts are very good. The effects work in the film without pushing it. The acting was okay. It could have been so much more than it was. I guess, perhaps, it just flew to close to the sun.
P.S. The first gripe that came to my mind was the fact that Cillian Murphy is Irish. And there is no way you send a man with the complexion of an Irishman to the sun. Not without a tube of SPF A Billion.
"Our Sun is dying." These are the opening words. And so it is. Our nearest star is dying and we have sent scientists up with a really big bomb (the size of Manhattan...why does everything in movies have to be the size of Manhattan?). The bomb is going to be flown into the sun to "restart it". They already had one mission go up, Icarus I, and it disappeared. So, a new group is sent up. Icarus II.
This film borrowed all the best from the best science fiction of the past. There is this ever present quiet that gives the sense of isolation. The claustrophobic interiors of a spaceship. The crew that slowly grows weary of each other. The ship looks freaking awesome. It's all there.
Along the way, they find Icarus I. In doing so, parts of their ship get broken, one crew member becomes suicidal because he blames himself for it, and they lose their only way of communicating with Earth. Then we get the mystery of what happened to the first crew. Psychological drama, ghost ships, science, space, a really cool holodeck thingy. This just keeps getting better and better!
Oh, but wait, let's throw the audience a curve ball.
Without going into a lot of detail, I'll just say that this appears to be another attempt at making two films for the price of one. I don't want to spoil the details, but I want you to be aware of it. It suddenly becomes some kind of mild slasher flick/whodunnit in space. They throw in a story line that adds nothing and detracts a lot. Characters die for no other reason than to kill them off. All the logic and psychology that has been building behind these characters gets deflated so that we can have some dude with a really bad sunburn run around with an X-acto knife (you'll have to see it).
I was really disappointed. The way they built up to it was still intriguing. If given it's own film, it would have been a really great concept. This film was already a great concept, but the two did not work together.
I still recommend this film just to experience the good parts. The good parts are very good. The effects work in the film without pushing it. The acting was okay. It could have been so much more than it was. I guess, perhaps, it just flew to close to the sun.
P.S. The first gripe that came to my mind was the fact that Cillian Murphy is Irish. And there is no way you send a man with the complexion of an Irishman to the sun. Not without a tube of SPF A Billion.
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