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a_flynn78
Reviews
Source Code (2011)
To summarise this film in one number? 93
I thought this film was terrible in every facet but the fact that it only runs for 93 minutes is completely unacceptable, it's a waste of my money and yours. 30 years ago that would of been acceptable for a thriller, not any more. Mission Impossible 4, that came out only a year later, ran for 2 hours and 10 minutes, and it was part comedy. TWICE, we had a flutter of special effects and quick explosion to signify the lead character had traveled into the Source Code and had died before finding anything, 16 minutes had passed in the structure of the film that we didn't get to see. For a film that is only 93 minutes long, how dare you quickly hash over anything!
This film has no artistic discipline, the premise is interesting if entirely unbelievable, the main character has 8 minutes, EXACTLY 8 minutes, to avert a disaster. Can you not afford a stopwatch? It was always short of that 8 minutes and often it jumped around, give me exactly 8 minutes, no cuts please, that is what I would expect from a great film, discipline. The last trip into the Source Code was a farce, Colter defuses the bomb and apprehends the suspect in about 30 seconds due to cuts.
SERIOUS SPOILER: The main character is actually dead. Okay, I actually think that is interesting, just decide what your focal point is. I'm not sure what the movie was mostly about, was it about relationships? Was it about saving the world? Was it about death and alternate realities? I think it was about all three equally. Too many things happening for a 93 minute film, all meaning was rendered mute by the fact it rushed through so much.
Deja Vu has a lower rating but is a far better film in my opinion. Its running time is 126 minutes and it is much better off for it, it gives it time to develop the thriller plot more.
Source Code is not a great film, it may be in some respects be a good film, an enjoyable watch, but it is not art, it should be closer to 6.5/10 then 7.5/10 because it isn't that good. You don't get that good a rating by only running for 93 minutes (INCLUDING CREDITS).
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
8/10, yeah right.
I hated it, It was just pure awful, that will teach me to watch trailers of a comedy before I see it. Every joke was ruined cause id seen it in the trailer, thus no comedic appeal. The romance was so cliché and unbelievable that the plot went as well. Sure Scott could get Ramona, but after she was so unbelievably 'piss off and leave me alone' at the party, to agreeing to a date just because he wouldn't sign for his package, just horrendous. Stylistically it was just dizzying, the lack of rhythmic progression in the film just made my head spin, and the fighting just got repetitive and unrealistic. Scott gets smashed by evil ex but gets the final laugh, over and over again. It was like being stuck in a rave but not being drunk.
Loud music, claustrophobic action, the worst romance ever and being completely aware of it.
Rocket Science (2007)
Depressing from start to end
You know how there are stories that are adversity to triumph, unstable to stable, confused to knowing. This is not a happy story, i sat through all the frustrating bits in the movies, putting my shirt over my head whenever he tried to debate with his enormous stutter, thinking its okay, because I'm gonna see some scenes at the end where he has finally lost his stutter. I didn't.
Maybe i had the wrong idea when i watched this movie, i was convinced from start till perhaps the last scene, that i was going to see an inspiring transformation, where i would no longer feel sorry for the kid, and that marred my view on the film. All i could think about during the whole film is not what this kid was talking about, what he was thinking about, but how he was speaking. Its like a movie where the main character looks like a bunyip, all you can think about is this main character looks like a bunyip, and not really what he/she is saying. I was convinced the inevitable transformation was going to be in his speaking patterns so i wasn't particularly interested in his views on love, because I'm sorry, i don't mean to be offensive to anybody but having a speech impediment as BAD as that, is something i couldn't bear to hear for the rest of my life, you have to try and do something about it. I thought thats what this movie was about! Look I'm sure what the kid was saying was important, and meaningful, but i was looking for more blunt changes that were imperative to me saying at the end of the movie, wow that was good. The stutter was a vehicle to portray a message about love when i went through the whole movie thinking it was the opposite, that all the references to love would make him lose his stutter. Not a horrible movie, but after i finished watching it, i felt horrible, Im a bit tired of movie producers thinking 'it will be more meaningful if we deprive the movie of a happy ending'. To be honest, i don't need happy endings, but what i do need is some light. At the end of 'Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind' i was left thinking, despite its lack of a cliché happy ending, that the main characters were not doomed because of it, that they could bounce back from the issues in the movie. I felt at the end of 'Rocket Science' that the kid was never going to get rid of his stutter, and when did his last debate and he turned to the judges and said 'Im killing it right?' that he was in fact, not killing it, he sucked, you can't debate in a musical tone, there was no growth there.
Was it that hard to put a happy ending in!?!
Love Actually (2003)
A few too many story lines perhaps?
Recently I've been watching a lot of movies, happily sitting through them, and then at the end, well i realise that they weren't that good. Maybe the fact i didn't mind watching them is a better reflection on the movie then picking it to pieces but i think the second analysis is still valid.
The first thing i thought was wrong with the movie is that after a 2hour 10minute movie the only characters who i can seriously say i knew anything about were Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman, which i will say now was the highlight of the movie, very well executed. However you could probably remove some of the other characters that have so little air time it might as well be given to some other characters. Bill Nighy has to go, i love him as an actor but not only did they almost ruin my perception of him by portraying him as a potty mouth rock star, with no form of disguise to make it seem like it wasn't Bill Nighy, but i didn't feel like i knew him at all. The whole point of his presence in the movie was to make it seem like he was abusing his manager too much, which i thought wasn't very subtle at all and i couldn't grasp much else from his 10 minutes of on screen time.
I thought the porn stars were an interesting couple but weren't given enough airtime, so give them somebody else's. Keira Knightley and her husband had promise but were given little airtime to make me think they were a worthwhile inclusion in the movie. One of the better points of the movie i thought was when the best man was in love with Keira Knightley but chose to back off completely because his best friend was married to her, and then they ruined it by making him inappropriately approach her and make her laugh at all his ridiculously stupid joke palm cards.
Just too many characters, i didn't feel the plight of any of them, some of them should have stayed in the editing room, thats for you to decide.
Im not writing this to encourage you to see the movie because obviously either you've already seen it or I've just completely ruined it for you, but id just like to see whether anybody else felt the same way about the movie as i did.