This was a strange one, not because of the whole sci-fi artificial organ repossession deal, which I can buy into. This was strange because of a random mixture of sex, gore and an odd twist for the end. Jude Law and Forest Whitaker made this an interesting action movie, but it was really little more than a good action movie.
What I liked (caveat edition):
Law and Whitaker made this fun, and funny, to watch. They played their parts well and were passable as life-long friends, which is what made the twist at the end believable – not worthwhile, just believable.
The story overall was good, however it seemed like there was a lot of avenues the story could have gone down that would have been potentially better, but didn’t. The story kept hitting intersections, but it never seemed apparent why it never took a left or a right. It had a plot similar to ‘The Island’ with Ewan McGregor, however it had neither Ewan McGregor nor a meaningful ending, just a bizarre twist that left me wondering why I’d bothered to sit through the last forty-minutes of action.
The action scenes were a Matrix part 2/3 affair with choreography spewing from every knife hole, which consumed a lot of time that could have been used for either more comedy or more story.
What I disliked (unfortunately without caveats):
A hallmark of a bad writer is the reliance on a Deus Ex Machina to resolve a plot problem. We’re not talking Lord of the Flies usage where the entire novel revolves around them trying to get rescued and right at the crucial time they do, I don’t have a problem with that – if anything it’s less of a plot twist because it’s now frequently expected and can in fact be a rewarding end. No, I’m talking this is a War of the Worlds (Tom Cruise movie) ending where there’s no mention of disease and suddenly all the aliens die from influenza like they’re a bunch of Red Indians dragged into a Pox House, it was sheer irrelevance. Aside from a pre-mention or two of the literal ‘machina’ the twist comes out of nowhere.
I suppose the writer didn’t want a happy ending to the movie, which I can give kudos for but his form of a tragic ending was as irrelevant to the story of the movie as if the movie Bambi had ended with the faun taking a shell of buckshot to the chest. As many can probably assume, the twist was so horrendous that I’m actually taking personal offence to it because not only I could have done better, but anyone reading this could have done better and a monkey hammering away gibberish on a typewriter would have produced a more sensible ending.
Another thing that bugged me was the random sex scenes that appeared to have been contrived solely for the purpose of upping the rating. Yes we get it the bible thumping rednecks at the MPAA can’t stand to see sex and violence in the same movie let alone the same scene, and a sure fire way to get the highest rating is to put sex and violence in the same scene. Of course instead of killing someone and harvesting their organs while they’re rolling around with a hooker in the sack to offend the MPAA, the writer and director for Repo Men decided it would be excellent to have the main characters have a sadomasochistic sex scene while they cut each other open for no apparent reason other than one of the many plot adventures of “well we can’t think of anything else” that this movie frequently took.
The plot is akin to The Lord of the Rings without the ring, they just travel to Mordor to say “fuck you viewer!” It’s good until you realize Frodo left the ring at home because he just wanted some alone time with Sam in a scary place to see if the whole fear-of-death aspect would help get them to share a sleeping bag like it seems to every woman in any Hollywood movie.
Overall: 6/10
This is my lowest review score so far for two reasons. One is because I usually can tell if a movie is going to suck out loud, and this one didn’t suck out loud per se, it just sucks in hindsight. The other reason is that while it was an entertaining romp with multiple action scenes that were enjoying to watch and Whitaker’s believability is the only reason this didn’t get a 4/10 for pissing me off.
A review is supposed to be impartial, and I am. I don’t judge on film makers past works, their reputation or anything I judge a movie solely on its merits and I believe I’d have been less annoyed if you’d have strung every pun against the British from every Simpson’s and Family Guy episode together – in fact I can see myself giving it a far higher review than this movie. Standing on its own merits, if they’d have followed their non-sense policy of ignoring all the crossroads available to them in plot development and followed it to its logical conclusion it would have probably hit around a 7.5/10, but after skipping many logical plot alternatives they decide to take a completely illogical plot twist at the end in a Douche Ex Machina move by the writer and director.
If I can recommend anything to anyone on this movie is that it likely isn’t worth the price to rent it from blockbuster, and probably isn’t worth wasting one of your Netflix discs on when you could get an actual good movie.
Judgement: Wait till it hits TV or a movie channel.
Video Games are already art, Mr Ebert
Video Games are art, but apparently Roger Ebert cannot get with the times on this. He first made his opinion clear in 2005, and recently just cemented the evidence of his ignorance this April [see here]. For those out of the loop, Ebert is a world renowned film critic, he also isn’t a gamer and I question whether he’s ever played enough games to be eligible to comment (IE a single game, ever). He’s as ignorant of the medium as middle-america right-wing psycho-moms. If you’ve never played, you have no clue. If you’ve never seen a movie, you have no clue. If you’ve never read a book, you’re likely illiterate (or should be legally considered it) and have no clue. You cannot justifiably comment on something if you’ve never experienced it, Ebert of all people should know this.
Granted the majority of big-title games care little about telling an actual story (yes Halo, Half-life, you can stand up and be noted as having meaningful story) and merely use it to string together great action scenes. But then I saw the Matrix 2, and I fail to see a valid difference except that video games are more engaging as an art form. Read my review of Repo Men, it was little more than action scenes stitched together by sex scenes and poor plot. Has Ebert never seen a western? They’re little more than action scenes stitched together by modest story, yet they rank as some of the best films in the world. I would personally list The Dollars Trilogy amongst my favorite movies ever, yet by Eberts standard for ‘art’ they certainly are not.
He condemns Braid for telling a story between the games level because it “exhibits prose on the level of a wordy fortune cookie.” To which I would respond Hemingways six-word novel (For sale: baby shoes, never used.), which exhibits prose on the level of a rather terse fortune cookie. If you want to talk about story, look at least at Halo, but please look at something by BioWare like Dragon Age or Mass Effect, or Knights of the Old Republic.
“Why aren’t gamers content to play their games and simply enjoy themselves? . . . Do they require validation? In defending their gaming against parents, spouses, children, partners, co-workers or other critics, do they want to be able to look up from the screen and explain, “I’m studying a great form of art?” Then let them say it, if it makes them happy.”
Why, Mr Ebert, thank you for clearly displaying how abstract you are from the current times. I grew up playing video games with my parents, they never had a single problem with it. In fact I have many fond memories of playing Age of Empires with my dad. As I’m writing this my wife is eloquently displaying my point by rocking out on Guitar Hero to a Weezer song. My co-workers? Video games are a main avenue of conversation, as frequently (if not more frequently) brought up than movies. Also despite not having children, it doesn’t take any skill whatsoever in foresight to know that my children are going to be in a world much more socially accepting of games than this one currently is.