Category: Reckons

When I saw the first teaser trailer I knew I was going to like this movie.

Then I heard about the chops of some of the people behind its production: director Doug Liman made Go & Swingers, Mr & Mrs Smith, and The Bourne Identity.
The writing team includes David Goyer who wrote the Blade movies, Dark City, and Batman Begins, and Jim Uhls who wrote the screenplay for motherfucking Fightclub.

So, chops. I knew I was in for a good thing.

But I was just so goddamn wrong.

Not that there weren’t a few good ideas… I mean, I guess. I liked all the bits with the library. And the Tokyo driving sequence with the stolen Benzo was fun.

But the thing with the bus was cooler on the trailer than in the movie. And the teleport-fighting was much better dealt with in X-Men 2 (that whole sequence with Nightcrawler in the Whitehouse was osome), than it is here in a movie entirely about teleporting and fighting!  This movie is awful.  It’s childish.  And an unrelenting idiocy pervades it, from shortly after the beginning until the end.

It felt like a good writer crafted a few scenes, and then they had some idiot’s second generation idiot teenage son come up with all of the rest of the ideas.  And it just didn’t work.

The main character (Hayden Christensen) is entirely unlikeable, only barely coming above the appropriately loathsome bad guy (Sam Jackson with badly dyed hair, phoning it in).

Hayden Christensen shouldn’t be allowed to stand around in any more movies. Just cut him a cheque and tell him to fuck off.  He’s done.

If the movie had been about the other Jumper, it would have had a chance. So much potential, but the stupid goddamn stupid stupid fucking stupid.

Just skip it.

It’s hard to know where to start with this latest Coen brothers movie.

Not only will you be creeped out by Javier Bardem’s peformance as the massively defective, bowlcut hairstyled bad guy.

And not only will you cheer for the skilled, capable and smart good guy who seems to do the things you assume you’d do (or, should I say: I assume I’d do).

And not only will you feel sorry for all the dog shooting – not to mention brutal serial killing of innocent bystanders and bad guys alike.

And not only will you wonder just what is wrong with the sound track – nothing, music simply used extremely sparingly,  to powerful effect.

But you will also have all of your preconceptions of ‘normal’ movie structural stereotypes subverted as the film makers go completely off the playbook.  (Not in the Memento sense, but you’ll see what I mean when you watch the movie.)

It has numerous graphically portrayed instances of realistic violence, so if you can’t stand that, I do suggest you skip it.

It’s been out for a long time, so I’m sure you’ve already seen it.  I mean, I saw it 3 weeks ago.  But just on the off chance you’re a complete idiot and can’t see that this is certainly one of the movies of the year: Go see it (allowing for the aforementioned violence caveat).

A fixer for a law firm (George Clooney) works to patch up the fallout of his old friend and partner in his law firm (Tom Wilkinson) going off his meds, and seemingly going moonbat.  Exceptionally well cast.  Strong performances performances all around – including some seriously brave work by Tilda Swinton, as the evil big corporate lawyer.

Good from beginning to end, I thought, with particularly strong (if understated) closing titles.

Strongly recommended.

It turns out we can probably formulate a few simple rules…

1. If you’re making an English language movie, you should probably skip Jet Li
2. If you’re making a Jason Statham movie, it had better be jokey
3. If your movie isn’t about superheroes, don’t call any of your characters Rogue

If you break these rules, your movie will suck – as evidence of this I present Rogue Assassin, a steaming pile of crap.

Don’t bother.