Some amount of spoiler here, if this movie can be further spoiled. What narcotic was chemtrailed over America that anyone has rated this movie as anything but an off-the-cuff T.V. quality screenplay changing from something having to do with Crop Circles to stupid monster alien invaders invading a Panic room, which suddenly get a summons from somewhere unknown to leave, except one which is killed by "swinging away." The end.
Reviews
10 Reviews
Minority Report
(2002)
Wish the precogs should have prevented this movie.
4 January 2003
Warning: Spoilers
Warning--some degree of spoiler here.
Speilberg just didn't know what to make of this movie. He didn't build suspense, didn't even get a decent or consistent music score. Instead, like a song without a melody or even a consistent key, it jumped all around in tone, in era (future versus modern), and even in plot, which utterly changes partway through to having nothing to do with a so-called `minority report' with a resulting mishmash of other movie pieces and tones, borrowing momentary bits here and there from Bladerunner, Angelheart, Jacobs ladder, country love stories, Patriot Games, even your run-of-the-mill action flick (the ones with those chase scenes that are interminably long and not at all interesting). There's even a little MIB-like face-changing gizmo, used only once and for no purpose at all. While we start all high tech sideways travel, by midway, we're just plain old mall shopping in the rain, the scenery, clothing, architecture straight out of 1990s (wasn't that mall interior used by Woody Allen?), and country screen porches elsewhere. And when are movies going to quit being all gray and blue and humorless as if that is how to create suspense? Wish the precogs could have foreseen this waste of film.
Speilberg just didn't know what to make of this movie. He didn't build suspense, didn't even get a decent or consistent music score. Instead, like a song without a melody or even a consistent key, it jumped all around in tone, in era (future versus modern), and even in plot, which utterly changes partway through to having nothing to do with a so-called `minority report' with a resulting mishmash of other movie pieces and tones, borrowing momentary bits here and there from Bladerunner, Angelheart, Jacobs ladder, country love stories, Patriot Games, even your run-of-the-mill action flick (the ones with those chase scenes that are interminably long and not at all interesting). There's even a little MIB-like face-changing gizmo, used only once and for no purpose at all. While we start all high tech sideways travel, by midway, we're just plain old mall shopping in the rain, the scenery, clothing, architecture straight out of 1990s (wasn't that mall interior used by Woody Allen?), and country screen porches elsewhere. And when are movies going to quit being all gray and blue and humorless as if that is how to create suspense? Wish the precogs could have foreseen this waste of film.
Body Heat
(1981)
the gold standard for snappy dialogue, matched by music, direction and acting
1 January 2003
Has there ever been a better screenplay? Hard to think of one. The dialogue is, in Ned Racine's lingo, perfect. The musical thrust is relentless, the camera work and acting are special gifts. Not a film frame wasted -- each one meticulously crafted to advance the movie in the best example of top-notch filmmaking. The gold standard against which others should be judged.
Gangs of New York
(2002)
less fake blood, more (some) plot
29 December 2002
For this whopping undertaking, Scorcese would have been well-advised to have spent less of his huge budget on fake blood and whacking sounds, and a little more on a plot. The tedium of the gray simplistic, uni-dimensional and incredibly long-developing plot, sprinkled with gratuitous half-naked women kissing each other -- a little male fantasy having nothing to do with what plot there was -- gave a feel as if we were watching a kid at work who was trying to be a big movie maker. Maybe the "catch me if you can" kid. Where did Scorcese get his reputation anyway? Even had his plot had more than one dimension, he would have benefitted from remembering what Shakespeare mastered -- break up the tone, the mood, then to return for better effect. The monotony of the atmosphere and blood and more blood and whack, whack, whack, whack was, well, utterly boring. Too bad. Interesting period. The good news -- Leonardo can escape into character.
Bullitt
(1968)
The one start that started it all.
30 November 2002
The prototypical "Lucy" of three decades of car chase, cop thriller, detective mystery offspring -- think French Connection as one of the best of the spawn -- and in many ways has still never been bested. At the car chase beginning, the clicking music begins, all slow, following him, then the switch, they buckle up, music stronger, and we're off. McQueen's everyman tells big truths amidst the mystery and excitement. A classic.
Panic Room
(2002)
Help, I got to get out of this movie.
28 November 2002
Despite the interesting beginning, atmospheric set up and locale, oops, what to do for a plot. Waiting forever in a room is as boring as, well, waiting forever in a room. Or it seemed forever. And when it ended, well, someone must have yelled "quit'n time." Original promises unfulfilled, pieces scattered, and some caricaturish acting. Let me out!
The Ring
(2002)
David Lynch ruined this movie.
4 November 2002
Naomi Watts still think he's in Mulholland Drive, infusing the otherwise possibly frightening movie with laughable Lynchian melodrama and total lack of subtle human emotion toward her own son, own sister, own friend. Who cast this movie? Even her little son was an irritating and unpleasant-looking character. Contrast with the Shining's Danny. In the hands of a competent female lead who faded behind the material and allowed the story to unfold for us, rather than causing us to watch her overact, particularly with a son marginally concern-worthy, this could have been a top-notch horror movie. As it is, one never really gets beyond Naomi's facial reactions. Pity to have wasted the script so.
Body Double
(1984)
Fascination has staying power
21 October 2002
One mark of a good movie is how much the images, ambiance, and characters stay with you afterwards. There are so many movies, even so-called blockbusters, that I will see more than once, forgetting I ever saw them the first time. Did I see Road to Perdition? Rented Live and Die in L.A. several times. Lethal Weapon--what happened? In the case of Body Double, the characters (especially Jack), that wonderfully captured Hollywood feel and scenery, the nothing-is-as-it-seems symbolism right from the opening credits and that desert shot that turns into a backdrop, the "Relax" orchestration, and music generally, all stay with you vividly after -- for this reason alone it rates as a very good, successful film. It captured something fascinating(and I don't even like pornography).
Insomnia
(2002)
Yes, go to sleep
19 October 2002
The story sets up a fascinating premise in the shocking circumstantial similarity between the two main characters, and then blows it all to hell. How did so many mistakes, so much improbability, so little continuity in theme get by everybody, especially someone who could conceptualize Memento? The only Al Pacina movie I can remember that was really not very good.
Windtalkers
(2002)
Two hours of bullets, explosions, and fake screams
19 October 2002
Someone in hollywood got a good deal on pyrotechnics, and the sound track for bullets fired out of an automatic. Plus, did or should have gotten hold of a sound track for the repetitively agonizing yells as soldiers get shot and blasted, shot and blasted, flames, flames, yells, blood, shot and blasted, shot and blasted -- for two hours (or the length of the movie). Plus there were two Navahos. At one point, they actually use their code. At some point in the future, someone might make an interesting story out of the unique and successful code. At some point in the future.
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