The Wrath's Movie reviews

[The Wrath]

I've found myself writing more and more reviews of movies I watch via Netflix. From now on, I will start posting my reviews in here as well.

I'll start with a few of my more favorable reviews, that I've already posted, followed by reviews of movies that I found to be absolutely awful.

First, the good reviews:

No Country for Old Men--5 stars

This movie will go down as one of the all-time greats. Some people complain about the lack of resolution at the end of the movie. If you're one of those people, I ask you to sit back and ask yourself if the filmmakers just might have intended for the ending to frustrate you. The filmmakers aren't idiots. They wanted the ending to be frustrating because, when fighting merciless monsters like Anton Chigurh, resolution is not always possible. This movie takes a person--who might just be the single most irredeemable character in cinematic history--and treats him as a case study in what it means to be evil. The mind of a serial killer is a fascinating subject, but Chigurh is not romanticized in the way that Hannibal Lecter is. This man is far more evil than Hannibal Lecter. The dialogue is flawlessly crafted, the acting is phenomenal, especially from Tommy Lee Jones, who gives what might be his greatest performance.

Solaris--4 stars

Solaris is the kind of movie that makes you think. It's not so much a science fiction movie as it's a movie about what it means to be human. If you've taken an intro-level philosophy course in college, you're likely to be familiar with the questions posed by this movie. So, what is it that makes you "you?" Are you just a certain pattern of behavior? Are you defined by your memories? Or are you defined by the way that other people remember you? If you could make a carbon copy of yourself, would it really be "you?" If you could upload a perfect copy of your brain to a computer, would the computer be "you?" Would you be content to live with a carbon copy of a deceased loved one? These are just some of the questions posed by Solaris. The questions are never answered...just posed. It's also not really clear how these "copies" of people come into being. Presumably, some force on the planet Solaris has something to do with it, but the movie leaves you to draw your own conclusions. The first half of the movie moves a little slower and is a little more vague than perhaps it should be but, overall, this movie's strengths overcome its weaknesses.

Breach--4 stars

There are two kinds of spy movies: action movies and spy movies. This is the latter. The closest this movie gets to action is a few gunshots fired at a paper target on a firing range...which is exactly how a well-made spy movie should be. Don't get me wrong...I love James Bond and the Bourne movies, but they make no pretense at being realistic. This is a realistically-told story about an actual espionage case that will have you on the edge of your seat during some scenes. Even with the total lack of action, there is plenty of suspense. Must-see for anyone who wants a realistic look at how espionage occurs.

Children of Men--4 stars

This is a competently made dystopian flick, though it wasn't as good as I expected. There is never an explanation offered as to why people are no longer able to have children. Michael Cain takes about 10 seconds to throw out a few obligatory theories, but I got the sense they only gave him those lines to preempt this specific criticism, and it is never addressed in any depth. The second half of the movie is very well-done...excellent scenes that show what a de-evolution of human society could potentially look like. Definitely worth watching, but my main complaint is that there is very little commentary on the state of human society or discussion on how it was brought to such a state. It's thought-provoking from the standpoint of "oh my God, look at the savages we become when society de-evolves," but there isn't much in the way of explanation or in offering ideas on how to bring humanity out of its funk.

Lost in Translation--5 stars

I was not expecting to like this movie, but I was pleasantly surprised. I have come to admire the style of filmmaking seen in movies like this one and in Babel...movies that go beyond Hollywood cliches and show human beings as they really are, coping with real problems. This is a movie that could very well have been filmed of 2 real people. Nothing is romanticized or jazzed up. In an age where virtually every movie is sexualized, there is nothing sexual in this movie. For me, the most touching scene is when Bob and Charlotte are lying in bed together...Bob, being a movie star and lying in bed with a beautiful young woman who is searching for meaning and feeling abandoned by her husband, simply reaches over and touches her foot. He probably could have taken advantage of her very easily, but there is no suggestion of sexuality, and it is doubtful if it even crossed his mind.

The Dark Knight--5 stars

This is the second greatest superhero movie ever made. The greatest? It's predecessor, Batman Begins. This movie is thoroughly engrossing in every way. Heath Ledger's performance really does live up to the hype. If he doesn't win an Oscar, he will be robbed. Ledger's Joker will rank alongside Hannibal Lecter and Darth Vader, in terms of movie villains. The screenplay is flawless. The Joker is finally done justice by this film which realizes (unlike Tim Burton's film) that the Joker isn't just a mob boss who wears makeup. The Joker is the personfication of nihilistic evil, best put by Alfred as "some men just wanna watch the world burn." The mafia bosses in this movie look cute and cuddly by comparison, and you almost find yourself sympathizing with them. It's kind of an injustice to Christian Bale that he gets so little attention, because he does a very good job. But, watching this movie, you can't help but get the feeling that Batman is the supporting character to Ledger's Joker.

Now, the turkeys:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull--2 stars

By far the weakest of the Indy movies. Actually, I take that back. It isn't the weakest of the Indy movies, because it isn't an Indy movie. It is a half-hearted cut-and-paste job that takes elements from the original series, gives the lead character the same name, then puts them all into a movie that is a blatant rip-off of National Treasure 2. Where is the Near Eastern religious mythology that was a staple of the original 3? Where is the explanation for the absence of Salah? What was the purpose of making CGI groundhogs? I guess because Lucas just couldn't stomach the idea of having a movie with truly no CGI, so he had to put groundhogs in there somewhere. I'm actually surprised that this movie didn't have a shot of a CGI-generated banana slapping itself in the face. George Lucas was once a great storyteller, though he was never a good filmmaker. Beginning in the late '90's when he started "updating" the original Star Wars movies and then punishing us with his ill-conceived prequels, George Lucas set out to completely destroy his legacy. This movie completes the task. Stephen Spielberg and Harrison Ford should be ashamed for agreeing to be involved in this movie. George Lucas should forfeit his lifetime achievement award and retire somewhere with his vast wealth to see him through his remaining years. This movie ruined my childhood.

The Happening--2 stars

I frequently give movies a low rating, then, upon further thought, come back and change the rating to 3 or 4 stars. This is the only time I have done the exact opposite. I originally gave it a good review, because I thought that Shyamalan intentionally made this a self-parodying movie. After thinking about it, I realized that it fits very well, stylistically, with Lady in the Water and The Village, both of which are truly horrid movies. Since it fits so well with his recent trends, I decided that, no, Shyamalan didn't mean for this movie to be self-parodying. Instead, it just sucks. The plot is so preposterous that it really goes beyond asking the audience to suspend disbelief and, instead, asks the audience to suspend intelligence and rationality. It also has at least one BOOGEY BOOGEY BOOGEY moment, when something that is not scary at all (in this case, an old woman in a nightgown) is intended to be scary by having the camera suddenly flash to it, while a tense discordant sound effect plays. If she had jumped out at you, that would be one thing...but, no...she's already standing there, Mark Wahlberg has already seen her, and the only thing "sudden" about it is the fact that the camera suddenly pans to her. As I said in my previous review, it's still worth watching because you can get a few chuckles out of how bad it sucks. I have since come to realize, however, that those chuckles are at Shyamalan's expense, rather than what I originally though to be his self-deprecating humor.

Quantum of Solace--2 stars

I have seen Casino Royale several times (including just a few days before seeing Quantum of Solace), so I have a pretty good handle on the plot. And yet I still get the impression I would have to watch this movie 5 times before understanding what in the world it's about. Or maybe that's just because I understand the plot but wish I didn't because it's so bad. If I understood it correctly...

this big bad organization known as Quantum has penetrated practically every government organization on the planet, yet has managed to avoid making its existence known to the world's intelligence services. With all its power and prestige, it hatches a plot to (gasp) CONTROL BOLIVIA'S WATER SUPPLY!

I'm hoping that the next Bond film will make this seem less ridiculous, but it's hard to be optimistic after watching this film. The villain and Bond girl are among the most boring characters I've ever seen in a spy movie. Daniel Craig does a great job and is the film's only saving grace.

Lady in the Water--1 star...would have given it less, if Netflix would let me

This movie is ridiculously awful. Shyamalan is a talented director, but I can't understand why he wastes his talent on movies like this, not to mention The Village. When you sit down to watch a movie about a water nymph living in the swimming pool of an apartment complex, you expect it to contain a heavy dose of fantasy and fairy tale. But this is way over the top. One of the biggest problems is that the apartment residents seem to accept, uncritically, that there is a water nymph living in their swimming pool...no skepticism from anyone. Personally, however, the worst flaw in this movie is that all of the "plot twists," for which Shyamalan is so well known, seem contrived for the sole purpose of having the movie last long enough to be called "a movie." Unlike The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs, the twists in this movie are completely unnecessary and do not move the plot along at all. Shyamalan attempts to preempt criticism of this movie by including a movie critic as a character who seemingly ridicules the movie with every line that he speaks. But, rather than merely using the character to predict criticisms of this movie, Shyamalan would have done better to show us that the criticisms aren't spot-on. Hint: the criticisms are spot-on.

Something else that I didn't include in my Netflix review of Lady in the Water...Shyamalan actually cast himself in this movie as a genius writer who will be martyred before his political ideas change the world and bring about global harmony. Between this and the parody of the movie critic, Shyamalan made what might be the most self-aggrandizing movie of all time.

Edited January 4, 2009 by The Wrath

[JMeganSnow]

Re No Country For Old Men:

Of course the lack of resolution was intentional, and that's precisely what makes it such a horrible movie. I don't mean technically horrible, the technical details were all FANTASTIC. The movie is *philosophically* horrible, representing reality as a realm of total randomness completely without hope. Calling it great degrades the concept of greatness.

[Zip]

Facing reality means acknowledging every now and then that the good doesn't always win out over the evil. To call this a "horrible movie" because it ends illustrating this fact is a disservice to a compelling story, great directing and acting.

If the directors had a similar theme throughout all of their movies I would be more inclined to lay the blame on a malevolent philosophy, but I don't think that was/is the case.

[KurtColville]

I agree with Megan on No Country For Old Men. It is great at portraying life as a philosophical nightmare, which is exactly what makes it horrible art. This is what the Coen Bros. revel in: life/people are random, weird, and pointless, and we'll entertain you by showing you just how random, weird, and pointless they can be. So what? It isn't true of life as such, nor does it merit artistic attention. Art without fuel for the soul is just nihilistic babbling.

I find NCFOM entertaining. It is tense and suspenseful and has some interesting characters. I want to know if Llewellyn will get away with the loot. Will he escape with Carla Jean? Just how crazy can Anton be, and will anyone be able to stop him? Will Ed Tom track him down or stumble around until Anton disappears? What's going to happen to Carson Wells with Anton sitting there pointing the gun at him while the phone rings? All that, with good story flow, is enough to hold my attention, but it isn't even on the radar for great art.

P.S. To see just how randomly the Coen Bros. view life, just look at the car accident at the end.

[JMeganSnow]

Facing reality means acknowledging every now and then that the good doesn't always win out over the evil. To call this a "horrible movie" because it ends illustrating this fact is a disservice to a compelling story, great directing and acting.

This is a statistical or naturalist approach to art. Yes, it's TRUE that the good guys don't always win. But it's IMPORTANT that they CAN--and art is about isolating what is *important* about your subject by means of selective recreation, not taking a photograph or a statistical cross-section. The message of No Country is not "shit happens" but "there is no hope"--which was purposefully selected by the Coen Brothers. They did a fantastic job of communicating it, their technique was flawless, but it's still a horrible movie.

A spectacularly *good* movie about defeat would be Million Dollar Baby, which concentrates not on the random chance or hopelessness of the heroine's fall but on what she *chooses* to do about it and her ultimate success in seeing her choice realized against serious opposition (with some necessary assistance, but she talked him into it).

[Zip]

This is a statistical or naturalist approach to art. Yes, it's TRUE that the good guys don't always win. But it's IMPORTANT that they CAN--and art is about isolating what is *important* about your subject by means of selective recreation, not taking a photograph or a statistical cross-section.

So it is unimportant that evil can win? I honestly don't understand why depicting the same story with the good guy winning would be better art than it is with the bad guy getting away with it all.

The message of No Country is not "shit happens" but "there is no hope"--which was purposefully selected by the Coen Brothers. They did a fantastic job of communicating it, their technique was flawless, but it's still a horrible movie.

I didn't get that at all out of the movie. Not shit happens and not "there is no hope" Hell the good guys showed hope and promise throughout the movie, right up to the bitter end.

A spectacularly *good* movie about defeat would be Million Dollar Baby, which concentrates not on the random chance or hopelessness of the heroine's fall but on what she *chooses* to do about it and her ultimate success in seeing her choice realized against serious opposition (with some necessary assistance, but she talked him into it).

Yes that was a really good movie, but I maintain that NCFOM was just as good, though darker.

[The Wrath]

Evil doesn't really "win" in No Country...it's just unresolved. Chigurh will eventually lose, whether it's to law enforcement or other criminals. A truly nihilistic movie, in which evil wins, is one in which there are no strong protagonists that have any reason to hope. For instance, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or any movie made by Wes Craven. The protagonists in No Country come close to stopping Chigurh several times. I don't get how you can watch that movie and say that there is no hope.

I think a better paraphrasing would be: Hope is "hope" precisely because the outcome is uncertain. If the outcome were certain, it would be called victory or defeat.

Is Silence of the Lambs nihilistic because Hannibal escapes and there is no resolution?

P.S. On another note, can an admin please change the title of this thread? I didn't mean it to be just for my own movie reviews. I meant for anyone to post reviews in here...I just thought we could use a thread for spur-of-the-moment type reviews that don't necessarily merit separate threads.

Edited January 5, 2009 by The Wrath

[JMeganSnow]

No--if other people want to review movies, they should start their own thread. We have an entire *subforum* for movie reviews because people want to have some clue as to what they're going to be reading before they go into a thread. Either do one thread per movie or this is going to be the thread of *your* movie reviews, take your pick.

[The Wrath]

Partition

The last 5 minutes of this movie almost made me bump it from 3 stars down to 2, but I decided that it isn't fair to judge a movie based on one scene. The ending is unnecessarily cruel. It's the rough equivalent of giving a child a piece of candy and then--not only taking the candy away--but breaking both of his legs just so you can watch the joy on his face change into sheer terror. Sad endings are fine and, sometimes, appropriate. But a movie should never make you think you're about to get a happy reunion and then punish you with horror for daring to think that there is goodness and decency in the world. I have no opinion on the historical accuracy of this film. It is a good story and its primary strength is that it makes you genuinely care about the characters. You can tell it is a low-budget, indie film, but it does a good job with what it has. Other than the ending, its main drawback is that it is laced with every "forbidden love" and "cross-cultural acceptance" cliche that you can imagine. I enjoyed it...but if you watch it, I sincerely recommend turning it off after as soon as you see the 2 main characters embrace on the train platform.

[Jake_Ellison]

P.S. To see just how randomly the Coen Bros. view life, just look at the car accident at the end.

Do you have any other examples to prove this alleged randomness? This one, taken from a movie which is an adaptation of a book written by someone else, seems insufficient.

In all the other movies I have seen with killers involved (Fargo, Miller's Crossing, The Ladykillers, there are others but I'm too lazy to look), the killers die at the end, clearly as a result of being evil.

I agree with Megan on No Country For Old Men. It is great at portraying life as a philosophical nightmare, which is exactly what makes it horrible art. This is what the Coen Bros. revel in: life/people are random, weird, and pointless, and we'll entertain you by showing you just how random, weird, and pointless they can be. So what? It isn't true of life as such, nor does it merit artistic attention. Art without fuel for the soul is just nihilistic babbling.

That's an indictment on comedy in general. (meaningful comedy that is, it's not an indictment on bad comedy, like Steve Martin's version of The Pink Panther or the long series of romantic comedies that have plagued my entire existence as a man with a girlfriend).

Everything that is weird and pointless in Coen Brothers movies is that way for a reason: it's funny. If you watch a truly nihilistic movie, there's nothing funny about it. I guarantee you that there's no way people with values could be entertained by a truly nihilistic movie. (look for a movie with great reviews which you truly hated while watching it: that's a nihilistic movie - I've been told Revolutionary Road is like that)

The fact that you were entertained proves that there's value to Coen Bros. movies.

[Sir Andrew]

Re: Indiana Jones

The movie turned me off when they brought aliens into the picture.