cynthia_keegan

I don't mind a film that moves slowly as long as there are other things to compensate==beautiful cinematography or fine, intense acting (a la The Passenger, The American, or the Tree of Life). But Voight's acting is ordinary, the supporting actors are incidental at best, and the photography is kind of odd. And though the movie was filmed almost exclusively in alleyways and university offices, there is no disguising that this is sooty London and not urban America. The tone of the movie reminds me a bit of the Graduate, moving kind of aimlessly about, with a hero that was not quite sure what he wanted, juxtaposed against the mores of uninvolved upper middle class elders who he secretly despises ( while coveting their WASPy daughters), and grittier street types.

The three lead actors all play to their strengths: Jesse Eisenberg as the gifted prodigy who must overcome his weaknesses, Tracy Morgan as the off-kilter small town drug dealer who succumbed to his, and best, Melissa Leo as a druggie mom trying (and not trying) to keep her self and her family together. The movie kind of has a Weeds meets the Station Agent vibe to it as disparate characters are thrown together and learn to get along. The weakness might be in the writing. Some scenes feel contrived as if to move along the plot, while others are great set pieces. There is a Revolutionary War re-enactors subplot that seems thrown in to give the movie some additional quirkiness (Mr. Black's Miss Muppet line is funny). Tracy Morgan throws in some good ad-libs (when he bumps up against Leo's mom is when the movie starts to hit the mark). Eisenberg can get annoying (or maybe it's just the characters he plays). All in all a good if not great little indie movie.

I had to shut this off after 15 minutes. The movie was fine to start--I got used to the CGI almost immediately and the emotion in the eyes of the apes was wonderful. It's when the human actors came on that the script fell apart.

1st strike-- No pharmaceutical engineering company is going to allow a drug to even be considered for human testing based on a single sample (one successful sample) and without extensive subsequent testing for side effects. There is simply too much money at stake. The James Franco character would not have gotten as far in his career as he had if he had been that rash and foolish all his life. The script lost tons of credibility in just the first five minutes.

2nd strike-- In spite of the apparent failure of the one chimp, no corporate CEO would shut down the entire program immediately. The biologists would continue the study, find errors and exceptions and make adjustments.

3rd--The baby is discovered. The biologists who study the apes would not have known Bright Eyes was pregnant? Give me a break. In a real test program the chimp subjects would have been health monitored daily or at least weekly--blood draws, EKGs, etc.--and the pregnancy would have been discovered in its early stages.

The script writers could have set up the initial premise of the movie in a more reasonable manner. Instead they took the lazy way out. I like science fiction where the characters are realistic and behave as actual people in the real world behave, even when faced with incredible circumstances. The Matrix, 2001, the original Planet of the Apes--the science fiction becomes credible if it is based on real world laws and the lead characters behave as humans actually do and not as script devices. I have no idea how the rest of the movie was but if it was like the first fifteen minutes then forget it--great acting by Andy Serkis or not.

I'm not religious, but it's pretty clear that this great apocalyptic episode is pretty much taken straight from the Old Testament Biblical parable of Elijah leading a village of Israelites in the wilderness. In the parable, God, through his prophet Elijah, withholds food from Elijah's people. The non-believer Ahab comes to the village and confronts Elijah, asking how a true God could deny His people food. Ahab also says a true God would not speak just through one person- Elijah-and demands to be shown proof that this God exists. In the episode Goldsmith is Elijah and James Coburn's army commander is Ahab. The Old Man In the Cave is you-know-who. This episode asks: what would happen if the people followed the non-believer instead of the true prophet? The arch-eyebrowed Rod Serling pretty much sums it up at the conclusion when he states that those who do not have "faith" must pay. Pretty heavy handed but nice.

This is the only movie I have ever fallen asleep at in the theater. Fallen asleep in spite of all the explosions. Hence, this review. Batman and Robin is boring and overdone at the same time. Horrible. This can only be blamed on the director and the scriptwriters, as the actors are all good. It is remarkable that George Clooney's movie career survived this mess, but then, he had so little to do it might as well still have been Michael Keaton under the mask. The biggest problem is that Arnold is not credible as the super villain--there isn't enough for him to do, there is no tension between Batman and Mr.Freeze, and these kind of movies are really only as good as the villain. Uma Thurman's Poison Ivy is a one note joke, and Alicia Silverstone is underused. I would say more about the movie, but, like I said, I fell asleep during the second half, so I have no idea how it all turned out.