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The Hurt Locker (2008)
Hard to watch with camera whiplash
I can understand the effect of giving the audience the feeling of being there by manipulating the camera to shake and move as if it's a cameraman at a war zone but the excessive jitters, quick zoom in and out, thrashing all over made me feel sick, literally. I had to watch this movie in several sittings and limited segments because I was nauseated, felt very sick to the point that my eyes were hurting, having headaches. It was just too much. The only reason I persisted to keep watching until the end was mainly because the number of awards. Clearly I am wrong in my judgement of this movie when it has won so many awards.
Taking aside my discomfort in watching it, I came away still not sure why it garnered so many awards. I can sort of understand that this movie tries to convey what the war in Iraq was about, to give a perspective of the soldiers' feelings. However, it didn't give me much of a perspective of the Iraqis. There are just there a props to fulfill a narrative that they are dangerous and the Americans are there. I don't see the reasoning why they are there. They aren't really having a relationship with the locals aside from buying things from the local vendors that sell DVDs, etc. This is a pretty shallow movie in my view. Rather than making a movie like this one, perhaps they could have presented in more effectively in flashbacks with James dealing with life back home and flashing back to the various bomb deactivation missions he did so as to provide a stark comparison between life back home and in war. This movie could have been much better but instead falls flat.
If the movie was trying to make the audience feel for the characters, America's reasoning in its occupation of Iraq, unfortunately I didn't come away with that at all. I've watched many war movies and I enjoyed a lot of them but this one was in my view, just a waste of time. Even taking away the discomfort of the jittery camera shots and just reviewing the movie based on the plot, it was a huge disappointment for me.
Before I Fall (2017)
Surprising for a teen themed movie
Considering the target audience, I was surprised to find that although it touched on the teen themes, the bullying, need to belong, fear of not being part of the crowd, etc. I am reminded of my own high school years and this movie brought back a lot of what I forgot from my own past. When we were young, in order to feel like we belonged to something or look cool or whatever, we did a lot of stupid, hateful, dangerous things. I'm glad that this movie touched on that to show the insecurities and give a teenage perspective.
This movie like many reviewers have said, is like a cross between Groundhog Day and Mean Girls except it is not comedic at all but with a more serious tone. A girl on Cupid's Day Feb 12th relives that day over and over again, practically with the same result, regardless of what she does. However, she realizes over the many times that she goes through this same day and through different variations of what she does, she gets a glimpse and insight on the people and things that she didn't know or pick up previously. Eventually, she figures out how she should live that day. Unlike others who said it was a twist ending, it wasn't at all for me and ended the way I expected it to.
This movie was much better than I expected and I didn't have much expectations about it before watching but came away quite satisfied.
Serenity (2019)
Confusing until you get near the end
My opinion of the movie while watching it and after watching were very different. Throughout the movie, and especially the beginning, I was like what is this mess? Is it going anywhere? The characters were stiff and didn't seem to make sense, until you keep watching. The clues were there from the beginning and thrown in frequently but the thing is that I didn't catch them until three quarters through because I didn't expect this movie to turn out to be something different.
This is the problem I had with the movie. Most of us watch a movie expecting it to be something. Yes, sometimes we get plot twists that make it enjoyable but in this case, it really wrecked it because it was like, you got hit on the side of the head because you didn't expect a ball to be thrown over left field. You don't go to watch a comedy to find that it becomes a serious drama. If they intended to give us this twist, they should have prepared us for it. To have them throw us a twist like this, I wasn't pleased. However, I changed my view after finishing the movie and thought about it a bit more.
Again, this is another movie that had some good names in it that I felt were wasted. The movie could have been practically as good or bad with lesser known actors playing. For the elaborate plot and the number of characters in the movie given the background of the plot, it seems a bit hard to believe but, this is a movie. If you start to tear it down, it really falls apart.
You can watch the movie for entertainment value and it could be enjoyable. Just don't get upset when the twist happens which brings me back to how the movie didn't give its audience a heads up on what kind of movie it was. I would have enjoyed it slightly more if I had an idea rather than having it hit me unexpectedly. Duh! Yeah, I should have seen all the clues and hints throughout the movie except I wasn't.
I'm not sure if the ending could have been better but I wished they offered something else.
Eat Pray Love (2010)
Not even Julia Roberts can save this
I had high hopes for a movie based on a best selling book. I have not read the book so I'm probably not qualified to give a review.
Considering the majority of the reviewers gave this movie one star, I personally did not find it warranted that low of a rating. The movie at certain times were good but overall, I found that it lacked cohesion. Sure, the protagonist was on a soul searching trek across the world to find herself and the movie like the book (I'm guessing) had to give its audience that feel and connection to that disillusionment but I was overwhelmed by the confusion of what it wanted to convey.
The movie was way too long and winding that I felt like it lost me. I do enjoy the shots of the picturesque locales, a dip into the culture of Italy, India and Bali but if the objective was to give us that feeling, it lost me there. It was beautiful to watch, especially the Indian wedding and the chaotic taxi ride (my God, I was reminded of my trip to Mumbai) but it lost me in the connection to the people and culture.
If there was one really annoying thing about the movie that I can point out (again, I didn't read the book), it was the frequent narration of Liz and her thoughts about everything. I didn't like it when the author or the movie preaches about life's lessons or insights like I'm some naive child. If the movie cut that part of it out, I think I would have enjoyed it much more.
Overall, the movie seemed too contrived. I find that although the movie tries to touch on what meditation does, it didn't really do a good job. Rather than try to enlighten those who are not into meditation, it seems to reinforce the stereotypes of what most people perceive it to be. This movie did not have a good focus on what it wanted to shine on so in the end, we are left with a disjointed diary of one woman who went through mid-life crisis trying to find herself and shutting people out of her life.
Dim Sum Funeral (2008)
Missed potential
I was intrigued by the story background because it seemed to offer a lot of potential on exploring the typical conflicts of a Chinese American family from the perspective of the children living with Western values and a parent with traditional Chinese background. The opening offers some hope of shedding some light but as the movie continued on, I realized that my expectations were not going to be met. The only reason why I continued to watch the entire movie was to watch the story unfold. The acting wasn't stellar but it wasn't that terrible either. I was trying to figure out what went wrong with this movie and decided it was a combination of the script and direction.
We were told about what happened between the mother and her children and how she was perceived by them and how through others they discovered a different side to her they never knew. That wasn't too well fleshed out either. This is a movie that I continue to keep saying had a lot of potential.
Sometimes the scenes try to make light of a situation or give us few laughs but they seemed manipulated and artificial. The characters seemed stiff and not very personal. It's not the fault of the actors but the lack of meat in the script to allow the actors to flesh out the characters and the directing. I'm not sure about why some parts of the plot were in the movie because they were pretty ridiculous and implausible. The twist is something pretty ridiculous that destroyed and hope of being taken seriously.
This is the problem of the movie. What does it want to be? A comedy? Drama? Both but with a twist and some sprinkling of life's lessons mixed in, all neatly tied up. If it was better focused with a tighter script it could have been much better.
I really wanted this movie to work for me and like I said, I watched it until the end hoping for something to redeem itself. The twist was stupid and unbelievable.
What a waste
Stuber (2019)
Funnier than I expected
Watching the trailer, it seems like an interesting movie about the an uber driver being kidnapped by a cop on his hunt for the killer of his former partner. I had some reservations but figured that I should still go and see the screener. I have to say that it was better than I expected. However, after saying that, and even though the movie is about an hour and half long, much shorter than the extremely, unnecessarily drawn out movies nowadays, I still found this movie could have been better had it been even shorter.
Both Kumail Nanjiani (Stu the Uber driver) and Dave Bautista (Vic) were pretty good. I find that although both characters are very different, they did seem to work well in this film because the jokes that focused on their personalities and culture did work, although the obvious one about mistaking Bautista as a whole list of different races including Chinese was a bit of a stretch. But most of the jokes did work well because they focused on the cultural differences and usual stereotypes but it wasn't in bad taste which typically, most jokes that touch on them can be.
The plot of the story really centered on Vic's obsessive manhunt for the killer of his former partner. The movie basically showed his leads to his man with a lot of fighting, shooting, blood splattering everywhere, heads getting busted, that sort of stuff. Stu ends up being an unwilling helper for Vic as he drives them around in search for Teijo, the cop killer. The action scenes are pretty good, although a lot of them are very hard to watch not because of the violence but the camera seems to unnecessarily shake way too much that I got sick watching. I'm guessing the whole point of these blurry scenes is to give the audience of how Vic sees the world without his glasses and how he is practically blind but I think if most of the action scenes are like this, you are turning away a lot of the viewers who don't want to watch because it's making them sick.
What I enjoyed were the scenes where they show Stu dealing with the shock of witnessing all these murders happening in front of him, watching people's brains getting blown off and trying to deal with it. That was something that seemed to be genuine in terms of how a regular civilian would react to such intense, stressful moments.
After all this, I am trying to figure out what this movie is trying to be, an action movie or a comedy? I think they are trying to make this into an action comedy, but more of an action than comedy. In this case, it does work but it still feels awkward. Are we supposed to laugh when someone's brains get blown off when it really shouldn't be a laughing matter? It seems strange. Yes, there are many funny moments but like I said, it seems awkward to raise comedy during such violent scenes. It almost makes it seem okay.
What I found was a time waster was the scene when Vic and Stu had their big brawl. What was that all about? Yes, I see the reason but does this scene really need to be there? Yes, it's their "bonding" moment but still...
Considering that I wasn't expecting much, I did end up enjoying it more than expected. Don't expect this movie to be too complicated with much of any twist. Just enjoy the ride.
Hotel Artemis (2018)
The trailer is deceiving
If you base your decision making on whether or not to watch based on a trailer, well, you've been duped. The movie, like many others, have mentioned, is a disappointment, The cast is so wasted on a movie with so much potential, especially Jeff Goldblum. I watched it for the cast and the trailer alone and yes, I was disappointed. There are a good deal of action scenes that make it fun to watch but as we get closer to the climax and the end, it was like, that's it? Did I miss something?
This could have been an awesome movie if someone took some more time to work it out more. Instead, we get some action scenes, fighting and some insight on the characters and then we're left disappointed.
My take is to just don't expect it to be a great movie, but just enjoy it for what it offers. Don't expect to be blown away. Don't expect a lot of fleshing out of characters. There is none.
Lucy (2014)
It's an entertaining movie. Take it as that
We watch movies for entertainment. That is the bottom line. And this is a very entertaining movie. And if you start to dissect into the scientific facts, then you are watching the wrong thing. Watch a scientific documentary instead.
What this movie achieves is entertainment. You get a lot of action, a lot of science fiction and things that require a vivid imagination. But what I enjoy is that it makes us think beyond what we know and to break us out of the usual mode. And this movie achieves that.
I haven't seen a more entertaining movie in a while and compared to a lot of what is out there, I'm surprised why this is rated so low.