nomerit

I don't know why the special effects everyone raved about don't work for me?? This movie had zero visual appeal for me. It felt like watching a mashup of the simpsons with the faces cut from Roseanne. And it was so childish, the script, the characters, the emotional temperature, the plot were all far more suited to Walt Disney. My 6 year old nephew kind of liked it, but even he struggled to believe it was real, it comes off all so fake its like watching a really really long cartoon. Hats off to Cameron for successfully squandering so much time, talent and money to a film pitched at the lowest common denominator. I hope future generations don't judge us by the popularity of this trashy film

I know its meant to be about dreams....is that why i found it so hard to stay awake to watch it? This is a typical American shoot'em up/blow'em up crapola with ugly characters woodenly reading out a script so bad it's embarrassing. Right from the start, an amateurish gun shot/smash-up everything you can find scene I realised this was going to be another Hollywood failed attempt at making a thriller. If only the guy who made the ads for it had also directed the movie, sighhh Perhaps they hoped to mix Medium with Bourne Identity, but failed so badly i kept dozing off. Think eyes wide shut, or mothman 2 for dragging script and plot, and imagine the team at sesame street being tasked to think up Matrixlike effects and you have it, utterly utterly disappointing.

I lasted only 12 minutes into this, ugly muddy colours, embarrassingly awful script, amateur actors overacting so much it becomes unbearable. I guess if you are a film student or enthusiast it might be worth a laugh to watch this and appreciate how badly constructed and executed it is - but for the general public this puddle of puke should be avoided. As a side whinge and to fill in my requisite 10 lines - another really irritating thing is how badly the sound has been dubbed - voices and sounds don't at all match the characters, everyone looks like they are lip-syncing their lines- just like those bad Italianised versions of American soap opera where a 40 year old woman's voice is pretending to be some schoolgirl, and you see the schoolgirl's mouth stop moving but the words keep on coming - but the special thing about this movie is it actually was filmed in English so the dubbing is pure incompetence.

I saw this movie last night - and really enjoyed it - it is fast and funny and memorable. It has the unique flavour of horror and comedy that only this director manages to do well, and feels like Evil Dead(I) The most memorable and favourite scenes for me were: The fight in the car with the old woman; The nightmare where the old woman turns up in her bed; The old woman falling on her at the wake, and vomiting in her face

The female character is not very nice - she seems like an average kind of person, but then she does some really evil things to everyone around her...after she killed her pet cat and lied to her fiancée I was not so sympathetic to her afterwards and was really hoping for justice.

There are some weird stray side stories that don't get answered (Like so what if she used to be fat -what does it mean?), but I guess these help to settle the pace and keep you looking for clues.

Very nice film - good tear jerker as it takes audience on emotional roller-coaster.

Motoki gives believable performance and is quite convincing as a cellist. Although the scenes with him playing the cello in wildflowers with ice capped mountains in the background look so much like a Visa advertisement it was a bit too chocolate box. Also the end scene where he is crying over his father could have been a good 10 minutes shorter as the audience is so exhausted by then that there isn't enough energy to sustain them through that overly long emotional scene.

Hirosue's performance is as calming as hearing fingernails screeching down a blackboard for an hour. The horrible fake laughter and false cheer, accompanied by the girlish behaviour are really irritating. She ruined what should have been a dignified role as the long suffering ever respectable Japanese wife. If the film could be shot again without Hirosue I am sure the audience would feel a lot more empathy for the character and the movie would have a greater dimension.

It is charming to see the quite elaborate manners of the Japanese so nicely displayed, and it is this theme about showing respect for both the living and the dead which makes this a quintessentially Jpanaese movie.

Recommended!

I loved this movie! It was so sophisticated in it's approach - it is almost subliminal in the way it progresses the plot. Such a novel approach to unfolding the concept - instead of simply barrelling along the plot like riding an express on the subway this film slowly and tantalisingly hints to the truth... like witnessing the petals of a flower slowly opening until the surprising ending blooms open and you just stare and cant believe how subtly you were taken to it! Just like in dreams where people from your past can take on unexpected roles and do non logical things, these strange gaps in logic are actually essential clues to finding your way along the journey. As the film unfolds and the quirky weird and yes sometimes annoying non-sequitors which nag in your memory suddenly all come together in a blinding flash and you are transported to an entirely new and unexpected truth - absolutely terrific! Ann Hathaway's character is quite irritating, with lots of nervous hand movements, hair adjusting, twittery expressions etc - but then at the end you see how masterful and necessary it is for her to be so insecure. The only negative would be Patrick Wilson's performance - as I found him really too smug and self-conscious, kind of like he was wearing an invisible "I'm a chick magnet" T-shirt throughout. But that is a small negative compared to the host of great plot devices that i kept recalling even two days after seeing the movie :)