Here's a link to the trailer with the scene I mentioned.
Generally, I really liked the movie. It's mostly a supersized action movie hopped up on mega-steroids. Yep, it's not surprising that the credits for stunt people and special effects are fairly extensive. Some people have likened the action to being the next generation from what was in "The Matrix" movies. I only saw the first one, and that was when it first came out, so I don't remember much, but this movie definitely had some pretty fantastical action sequences, more unbelievable than you get in most movies, but after the first or second of these occurrences, you pretty much just have to let it go and enjoy the ride.
The movie had a decent story to explain all the weirdness it then goes into. Much of it is fairly predictable - insignificant and perennially crapped-upon drone (Gibson) one day discovers that he has this amazing ability, and he's recruited into an organization (The Fraternity) that helps him develop that ability, but he's not really into it and wants to quit until he finds a holy grail reason, usually family related (his murdered father), to finally give it his all, where he then goes out and kicks ass, but the organization comes to regret having taught him so well.
I thought the beginning of the movie was rather slow. I got that they had to establish his miserable existence, but they laid it on incredibly thick - sucky apartment right next to an L train track, rotten and self-centered best friend, bitchy girlfriend who happens to be sleeping with the best friend, sucky dead-end job and superbitch boss from hell. Yeah, ok, I get it, he's got a sucky life. I actually think it would have been more interesting if he'd had an ok life or a mundane life, because then it would have been a more difficult decision to join The Fraternity. With life as he knew it, he really had nothing to lose. The opening premise had slight reminders to me of Philip K. Dick's short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" (which was turned into the awful "Total Recall"), even though the two stories go off in totally different directions, but it was mostly the non-descript wimp who turns out to have this amazing power that reminded me of the short story.
Once Gibson actually joined The Fraternity, it was a bit more interesting as we were introduced to the other significant characters and saw the training regimen they put him through. The killings themselves weren't all that interesting - once we'd gotten used to the idea that they could bend space, it wasn't that novel anymore. It wasn't until you got to the cat and mouse game between Gibson and his target, Cross, that it became more interesting again, especially after you throw in the part where Cross told Gibson he was actually Gibson's father rather than the person who killed his father, and Gibson further discovers that the head of The Fraternity, Sloan, has been manipulating matters on his own.
I liked the bookend closing of how Gibson finally got Sloan, and I especially liked that the "X" was made with post-its.
James McAvoy does a good job showing the transformation of Gibson from dolt to trained assassin.
I'm not necessarily a particular fan of Angelina Jolie's (though I did really like her in "Girl, Interrupted"), but I thought she was terrific in this movie as Fox. She was particularly good at conveying emotions with just expressions, without saying a word. I specifically enjoyed the smile/laugh on her face when Gibson was in the fortress for the first time, and he was wanting to leave and she very slowly got out of his way, grinning at him the entire time. She was also pretty funny when she was driving the destroyed red sports car and pulled up to a red light and then just smiled to the people in the car next to her as she drove away, bumper falling to the ground. I thought her most outstanding scene was when she was beating the crap out of Gibson, trying to get him to figure out why he had joined The Fraternity in the first place. I also liked the character bits of showing how calm she was in the face of Gibson's training - as he was getting his ass kicked, she casually pulled out a sandwich and started eating it. I understand why she would have been drawn to this character, especially since she ends up being the only noble one out of the group when her bullet takes care of everyone whose name had come up previously, that Sloan had protected.
And then we come to Morgan Freeman. He was just superb in this film. I think this is the first time I've seen him play a bad guy. Oh, sure, he's played characters with a lot of edge before, but there's always been a substantial good side to them. In this case, he doesn't really have that. He's basically power-hungry and willing to deceive everyone to suit his purpose, especially since he had initially spouted a "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one" philosophy. I especially loved his speech near the end, when he's trying to get the others on his side, saying that with their abilities, they should be the ones deciding the fate of the world, that they should be gods. Terrific delivery in that whole scene.
And only vaguely on topic, can I just say that Terence Stamp looks remarkably like Malcolm McDowell?
One of the plot points I thought should have been addressed at least peripherally was when Sloan came out with the binder of all the pages with the other people's names on it, targeting them to be killed. Everyone took for granted that those were for real. Well, he'd just been exposed for manufacturing names of people to be killed. It never occurred to them that he might have manufactured those as well just to mess with their minds and get them on his side?
And can I just say that I really wanted both the bitch girlfriend and the superbitch boss to die horrible, painful deaths? Actually, in the case of the boss, I think maybe stapling her lips shut would have been a better idea. Her malignant use of that stapler drove me insane. I think justifiable homicide would have been a totally legitimate defense.
Something that I was interested to note is that the film gave not even lip service or a second thought (or even a first thought, for that matter) to the fairly high body count that gets racked up during the course of the movie. People are hurt and property is destroyed in the numerous chase scenes, but you never get even a shot that really addresses any of that. And then, an entire trainful of people are killed (why the heck did the stupid employee think it was a good idea to bring the train to an abrupt stop ON A SUSPENDED BRIDGE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE?), but there is absolutely no attention paid to a single one of them. The most you get are unconscious/dead passengers that are glimpsed as Gibson, Fox and Cross make their way through the collapsed train (which also begs the question of why when the train cars are bouncing around and between cliffs where everyone else is dead or at least unconscious, they get away with mere bruises that they just brush off), but otherwise, the collateral damage is completely disregarded and treated as unimportant. Sure, there is often destruction in other action movies, but I don't recall this kind of indifference being paid before to deaths as a result of the action - in other cases, it's often just property damage or minimal deaths.
And there are even intended deaths for people who haven't even necessarily done anything wrong in the context of the movie's events. Gibson discovers that Sloan has been manipulating the death assignments, but as far as he knows, no one else is in on it. And yet, he kills pretty much everyone on the grounds and on the first floor in his quest to get to Sloan. Well, haven't they all been duped by Sloan as well? Wasn't Gibson also duped by Sloan, but he had the benefit of someone telling him what the real deal was? There's a fairly drawn out battle with the sword guy. Gibson never once tries to explain to him why he's there or why he's after Sloan. He just needs to dispatch him. And then, one member of the circle has expressed his desire to forget about the code that has ordered their deaths, and no one else has expressed either agreement or disagreement with him, but Fox takes it upon herself to execute the entire circle, herself included. (Of course, there's also that whole issue of, trajectory aside, how the bullet would have enough force to shoot through all of those people and still have enough power left to kill her, but I digress.)
The disregard for life also comes into play with regard to the rats. When they blew up the first one, I thought that was pretty callous. But then, they basically had a trash-truck-load of them, all of whom were fed peanut butter and gasoline (a waste of perfectly good peanut butter, I might add) for the express purpose of being scurrying time bombs. Sure, they were really vermin as far as being street rats as opposed to being raised for pets or anything, but still. Oh, and the scene when all the rats are dumped out? Yeah, didn't so much watch that. Actually I didn't watch most of the slow-motion, bullets-ripping-through-flesh scenes that were so prevalent.
The movie is based on a comic book/graphic novel property which I understand is extremely dark - not surprising given the way the film adaptation turned out.
Danny Elfman does nicely with the score of the film.
One last note - this is an "R" rated movie. An extremely "R" rated movie, for "strong bloody violence throughout, pervasive language and some sexuality". You could pretty much tell that from the trailer - it's about assassins. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that BRINGING YOUR 3 OR 4 YEAR OLD CHILD TO THIS FILM IS COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE. I don't care if you don't have a babysitter. I don't care if your babysitter bailed out on you at the last minute. Maybe you're not normally a bad parent, but in the moment that you decided it was ok for your very young child to be in that theatre with that movie playing, you were an extremely bad parent.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment