Knowing (nobody's bitched about a movie in a while)

The Core RPGC Main Forum
1

Ooh boy. Let’s start with what little positive I have to say about this gigantic steaming pile of feces: it had good special effects. The first ten minutes of the movie are phenominal. Any writer could learn a lot from the first ten minutes of the movie, but I’d stop there. After Nicholas Cage and the rest of the mediocre cast get into the picture, everything goes downhill.

The premise for the movie is absurd, but I rolled with that because it’s Hollywood sci-fi, which often makes less sense than dadaist theater. Science is not only completely thrown out the window, it is made the villain. I’m used to all that. I’m even used to pseudomystical BS like numerology playing a major role in films (it worked out for The Number 23 didn’t it? oh… wait). This film manages to combine all of that with lazily slapped together Christian theology (such as in the predictable ending), especially Genesis, the book any grade schooler can tell you the major stories out of. Not only was this film insulting to the intelligence of filmgoers (especially the ham-fisted ending), it has bad acting, sloppy writing, and ridiculously predictable to the point of characters saying exactly what is going to happen. The last part wouldn’t be too bad if it didn’t pretend to be suspenseful.

The aliens in this movie bear commenting on. They look like Morrissey. You’re clearly supposed to be frightened by their appearance, and they look like freaking Morrissey! I expect them to start singing “How Soon is Now” and giving pouty ambiguous looks to the camera, rather than being the all important… well… I won’t spoil it for you. If you’re masochistic enough to see the movie, you deserve at least the chance to predict their role within five minutes of seeing them, as I did.

Okay, I found one other slightly redeeming part of the movie: Nicholas Cage, being the redblooded American he is, assumes there is going to be a terrorist attack in the New York subway system for reasons that are too stupid to name here. Of course, being a Hollywood hero, he enters said subway system and finds a vaguely Middle Eastern guy doing something suspicious. I was groaning, until I realized that this guy didn’t do anything. When Nicholas Cage finally catches up to the guy, he drops his stolen DVDs and confesses to the nearby police officer. Excellent. It’s stuff like this that makes me mad that this is a bad movie, because there is clearly some competent writing in this. I could blame the patchwork way movies are made, and how focus groups and “too many cooks” can really ruin a screenplay. But it doesn’t matter why it was bad, the point is that there is some really good writing in this movie, surrounded by absolutely HORRIBLE writing. Do yourself a favor, and see ANYTHING ELSE except this movie. Rent Ishtar, for God’s sake, just don’t watch this.

2

But are there jigging titties?

3

No. No there arent. That is possibly the biggest atrocity in the whole film- absence of titties. :stuck_out_tongue:

4

Man, whatever shit Nicholas Cage pulls, I’ll never be able to stay mad at him for long. I’ll just think of Con Air and everything will be well again.

5

Let’s go see the new Nicolas Cage movie

6

Didn’t see that movie since, if I remember correctly, the trailer was rocking out to Phil Collins. That pretty much killed any interest in that movie right there.

7

If Phil Collins KILLS your interest in a movie, you have twisted values.

8

Nick Cage is the most extreme actour around, in that more than any other actour, he chooses films on the extremes of quality; his films are so fucking good (Adaptation), so fucking bad (Ghost Rider), or so fucking bad they are so fucking good (Wicker Man).

9

I hope that’s a quote and you’re not actually spelling actor with a u.

10

Nope, I spell it that way whenever I say something kind of pretentious. Mentioning Adaptation counts.

11

Would’ve been alright had they stopped the movie right after earth got toasted. The ending gave me a headache. :frowning:

12

But didn’t you like the Morrissey aliens turning into angels and taking the children to the Garden of Eden? You heathen!

13

It’s like Nicolas Cage tries to outdo himself each year by trying to make shittier films. He and M. Night Shymalan (there is no way I’m going to look his name up) should form a club.

14

I always call him Shamalamadingdong, because I can never remember how to spell/pronounce his name either. :stuck_out_tongue:

15

To clarify listening to “Coming in the air tonight” while watching an airplane careen through an exploding billboard was what killed my interest in that movie (it just seems way too inappropriate for me).

16

That club would be headed by Ewe Boll… :spam:

17

I actually liked it… I thought it was cool how they tied the whole thing into a master plan by an advanced alien race to save humanity from an inevitable destruction of Earth. Pretty complex stuff, but they pulled it off without being confusing.

18

I didnt like it. I agree with Generican that it did have very good special affects like when the train in the subway crashes. But that was the only thing i liked about it.

19

Would’ve been better had they gone to London and started singing Panic right before the ozone layer evaporated. :stuck_out_tongue:

One of my problems with this ending was that if the aliens had the technology to fly a bajillion lightyears to earth in floaty crystalline spaceships, morph into human form, and transport psychic children and white bunnies to an alien planet, then WHY THE HELL DIDN’T THEY JUST SHIELD EARTH FROM ONE FRIGGIN SOLAR FLARE TO BEGIN WITH? >:E

20

To supplement Trillian’s post, why didn’t they take more than two people if they had that insane technology, at the very least? Especially if they had YEARS to do this, as it seemed in the movie. Oh, wait… because then the third grade religious symbolism would be messed up. :stuck_out_tongue: