Movie Schizo

random movie musings

Archive for category Thriller

INCEPTION! (2010)

Aug 4

Posted by Helmut in Action, Crime, Science Fiction, Thriller | No Comments

Inception PosterAfter seeing Inception, my opinion of Avatar has been downgraded to a “meh”. That’s how powerful Christopher Nolan‘s masterpiece is. It is without a doubt the best movie in years. If you haven’t seen Inception yet, but are planning to watch it, I give you permission to expect something extraordinary. You won’t be disappointed.

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an extractor. He invades your dreams and steals your ideas and secrets. With the help of an architect (Ellen Page), a point-man (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and a few others, he faces a new challenge – to plant an idea in someone’s mind. Director Christopher Nolan takes us into a rich world of dreams within dreams, bringing surprises and confusion at every turn. For a very long movie, this one doesn’t feel like almost two and a half hours. I was dead tired going into the movie, but never struggled to stay awake due to a gripping plot, characters with depth, and a fast-moving, relentless pace. While a lot of movies offer either visual or intellectual stimulation, Inception offers both. This results in a block-buster that makes you think. And in some ways the movie plants an idea in your head while you’re watching. I don’t think anybody leaves a screening of Inception and stops thinking about what they just saw. It will stick in your mind for days to come.

While Nolan has already achieved some remarkable work (e.g. Memento, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Prestige), I feel like he’s still improving. Watching Inception is like getting an insight into the mind of a genius. It shows that Nolan honed the concept for many years to achieve near perfection.

One of the most intriguing aspects of Inception is that you are left to draw your own conclusions about the movie’s end. And the end is what has people talking the most. Already people have come up with dozens of theories to explain certain events in the movie, but ultimately everyone will have to decide for themselves how they see Inception’s conclusion.

I could say a lot more about Inception, but I don’t want to reveal too much about the plot or character development. But if you haven’t seen it yet, you owe it to yourself to watch it ASAP! There’s no other movie like it. Inception will become a reference-point and yard stick by which a lot of future films will be measured.

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Surrogates: From 1st draft to movie in 1 step

Dec 16

Posted by Helmut in Action, Crime, Science Fiction, Thriller | 1 Comment

SurrogatesOne of the worst thought-out movies this year for me was Surrogates. I’ll explain in a moment. First, a basic run-down of what happens.

Some years into the future people live their lives through robotic replicas of themselves, called Surrogates, while sitting at home in a “stim chair”, through which they can control their surrogate as if it was them. Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) is an FBI agent who is called to investigate the first murder in many years. The victim was killed when someone destroyed their surrogate. When Tom’s own Surrogate is damaged beyond repair during his investigation, Tom must go out into the real world himself. Subsequently he discovers a web of lies as the conspiracy deepens.

Surrogates feels like a first draft that was never revised. It’s as if they asked some 12-year old to write down some ideas, and then they just went with that. Here are some examples:

  • At the beginning of the movie they state that 99% of the world’s population live their lives through surrogates. So, apparently at least one billion people, who live in poverty, could suddenly afford to buy a high-tech robot, along with a docking station built into their shack somewhere in Africa. And then what? Do they use their surrogate to fetch water every day? I don’t think so.
  • It is also stated that since surrogates were invented, crime has been almost eradicated. Specifically, they say that there hasn’t been a murder in years. So let me see. If I were a criminal, and suddenly I could conduct my crime using a robot, instead of putting my own life on line, I’m sure I wouldn’t just give up my illegal activities. And wouldn’t murder be so much easier? You’d know exactly where everyone was. At home, sitting in their “stim chair”.

Don’t get me wrong. The concept of surrogates is a great idea, but they went with assumptions that don’t make sense at all, and so the whole story is built on a shaky foundation. And the movie was less exciting than I expected. If you look at the trailer, it looks like an action/thriller. But the movie doesn’t have any more action than what is visible in the trailer. The rest is rather slow-paced and not really that interesting.

So, in the end, watching Surrogates was a rather disappointing experience. I wouldn’t recommend it, unless it doesn’t bother you that the basis of the story makes little sense. If you disagree with my thoughts, I’d be interested to hear what you thought; leave a comment below. :-)

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2012: That’s so NOT going to happen

Dec 15

Posted by Helmut in Action, Thriller | No Comments

2012At some point, this world will come to an end. 2012 presents us with one option of how this could happen (WARNING: spoilers ahead). A huge solar flare causes neutrino’s to react weirdly, raising the temperature of the Earth’s core. Who knows why. This causes all of the earth’s crust to “detach” and shift by over a thousand miles. Of course this brings with it total chaos and destruction. Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) is a failed author who is caught in the middle of this disaster, and spends the whole movie saving his ex-wife Kate (Amanda Peet) and their children from certain death. Their journey includes the Yellowstone National Park, two airplane trips, crashing in snow-covered mountains in China, and sneaking onto the biggest ship ever made as stowaways.

This movie was very long and entertaining. But, considering that it tried to portray something that could possibly happen one day, it was one of the most unrealistic movies I’ve ever seen. But in this case, it worked out quite well, since it made me laugh out loud at several points. It was just ridiculously funny how improbable the plot became. There were even a few times where it became so corny, I just wanted to shout out, “Oh, come on!”

Even though the movie might not have been very realistic, it did a good job of beating some other similarly themed “end of the world” movies, like The Day After Tomorrow. 2012 was a more spectacular production, and felt more worth it. If you’re going to end the world, at least make it go down in flames. ;-)

Another little aspect about 2012 that interested me was how human greed and selfishness could take over in such a situation and, for some (actually most), destroy the basic right to life. At least that part of the movie was realistic.

If you’ve seen 2012, would you say it makes your top 10 of the most unrealistic movies every made? What other movies would make it onto your list? For me, Surrogates is also definitely in there. But don’t get me started on that…

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Review: The Taking of Pelham 123

Aug 4

Posted by Helmut in Action, Thriller | No Comments

The Taking of Pelham 123

The Taking of Pelham 123

Based on a book (which I haven’t read), The Taking of Pelham 123 tells the story of a subway car and its passengers taken hostage. Walter Garber is the dispatcher who becomes entwined in the negotiations, not knowing how this situation will affect his life and career. The hijacker, calling himself Ryder, threatens to kill passengers one by one if his demands of $10 million are not met within the hour. When the authorities start getting involved, things go wrong, and the first person on Pelham 123 is executed without hesitance. Since Ryder will only talk to Garber, the dispatcher is forced to sit out the ordeal, trying to bring the nightmare to a peaceful close.

Denzel Washington does an excellent job of portraying the dispatcher. The character is believable and my sympathy for him started early. But much more striking was John Travolta‘s performance as Ryder. He created a cold, ruthless, decisive, and methodical criminal mind that strangely reminds me of his role in Swordfish. I don’t imagine there being many criminals like this in reality (or any at all), but it worked for this movie. And as in Swordfish, there was a slight twist to the story, but this time it was quite predictable. But that didn’t detract from a good action thriller with some clever turns that I’d recommend to most people.

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Knowing (2009): What was the point?

Jul 30

Posted by Helmut in Paranormal, Thriller | No Comments

Knowing

Knowing

Earlier this year saw the release of Knowing, starring Nicholas Cage and Rose Byrne. The trailer made it look promising, and the first two thirds of the movie were not too bad, but then the story took a turn for the worse. And the ending just put the last nail in the coffin.

The premise was a good idea: people being able to predict when and where disasters happen in the future. There’s a lot you can do with this. So what did the film makers do with it? Here’s a (slightly tongue-in-cheek) plot outline (Warning – SPOILERS ahead):

  1. John Koestler discovers “the code”.
  2. John discovers what the code means and witnesses disasters as they happen.
  3. Along with Diane and the children, he investigates the “final” event of the code.
  4. They discover that the end of the world is imminent and everyone will die. (not too bad up until this point)
  5. Diane dies and aliens (in a pixelated spaceship) come to fetch Diane’s and John’s children (who are remarkably unaffected by all this).
  6. The alien’s leave in a pixelated display of CGI to start a new Earth, since this Earth has gone awry.
  7. The audience gasps at how badly the sequence has been rendered (graphically).
  8. As Earth is consumed by huge waves of fire, John dies with his family.
  9. The audience wonders what the point was.

In many ways it made for a very flat story, once you’ve seen the ending. There’s really no purpose in everything that happens, which is disappointing.

What did you think of this movie? Did you enjoy it, or did you have similar thoughts to mine? Let me know by leaving a comment below.

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Deja Vu

Jul 25

Posted by Helmut in Action, Thriller | 1 Comment

Deja Vu

Deja Vu

I had been looking forward to Deja Vu, starring Denzel Washington, for a long time before it came out. The trailer looked really promising, and the movie turned out to be quite good. The concept wasn’t anything new, really, but it was presented in a fresh way, I thought. Here’s how the concept works:

  1. Baddie A does something bad.
  2. Goodie A finds a way to go back in time and prevent it.
  3. Goodie A goes back in time and prevents it.

The way in which this was executed was very interesting, quite different to any other time-travel movie I’ve seen. The pace was sustained fairly well, and at no point did I become bored. The characters were well cast, and the story kept my attention.

On the downside, this movie has, as almost all other time-travel movies, the typical paradoxes that come with time-travel (if you assume time travel is possible, which it now might be). Quite a few elements don’t make sense to me if I think it through properly. But in the end I don’t think this is supposed to be a deep, thought-provoking movie. It aims to entertain, and it does quite well, in my opinion. And even though Denzel almost always plays a cop nowadays, I like his work. If you haven’t seen it yet, go watch it; it’s worth it. If you’ve seen it, tell us what you thought by leaving a comment below.

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