stevebronco

...to a really lame 1-liner.

I wanted to like this movie, being a fan of both stars' since their breakout films. So I paid attention through the whole thing, watching for subtle clues that would pay off later as the plot thickened. And it did thicken. Characters evolved in predictable and unpredictable ways; the plot twisted around engaging dialogue, and even uncomfortable silences. So as some back-stories expanded from peripheral characters, I still had high hopes. Right up to the gratuitous sex scene that was so poorly choreographed that it wasn't that gratuitous. So by the time the fake climax rolled around, it was obvious that it wasn't the point of the film. The whole thing felt like the longest & most-boring joke ever for a pointless punch line. It's too bad the real actresses didn't pay more attention to the film's actress' method of choosing scripts.

Obviously, this 1-hour documentary can't cover every aspect of AI from every perspective with every nuance expertly explained, so IDK why so many other reviewers seem to bash it for not doing those things. It's only an hour, and it does a good job of touching on many of the issues & perspectives. Do we need AI? Of course. Will there be abuse? Of course. Is that already happening? Of course. Will it get worse? Of course. Will anyone try to slow that process down?

??

???

That's what I see as the real point of this documentary, and in that light, it does an excellent job of presenting the arguments for slowing down right beside the arguments for speeding up. That's why I think some reviewers were confused, or thought that the documentary was confused/confusing. It doesn't make an argument, and then answer that argument - it raises the issue to be debated & dealt with in a way that the average viewer can follow & (hopefully) appreciate.

Because EVERY example shown of AI being used, and the few examples shown of it being ABused, were dangerously easy for any government, corporation, faction, religion, glee club, or introvert next door to accomplish with no special training or equipment.

The military applications are the LEAST-worrying.

Having just finished The Diplomat Season 1, my expectations were high. But after 30 minutes, I not only couldn't tell what the story was about - I had lost all interest. I've enjoyed several of Rachel's previous works, and she does a good job reacting to herself in what I can only assume is a plot that will eventually make some point. And I'm not squeamish about field-dressing a fresh deer, but the barrage of graphic births, C-sections, and a bare-handed retrieval of a miscarried fetus from a toilet to say "Hi" seemed not only gratuitous, but pointless. They're twin OBGYNs working at the same hospital as peers, but frequently swap identities, take drugs, and hang out in bars till the wee hours? Yeah, it all sounds like some bad movie... I'd rather watch Val Kilmer as Neek Rivers.

This comparison of the movie to the actual story of the K129 (better told in "Azorian: The Raising of the K-129 (2010)") is fairly entertaining, and well-done with many interesting details about the film, the actors, the writer, the director, and the K-129. But it's long-winded at about 2 hours, and there's a very-obvious effort to make it all fit the narrative of another book with a wild theory about what K-129 might have been doing (not based in any facts offered in this film) when it sank. This story would have been better if that fantasy had been omitted, but it's still worth watching.

Kidnap, Falling Down, Duel... It's been done to death, and it shows. There's nothing new in this film, and nothing interesting. It's a boring way to waste an hour & a half watching people do what people don't do. The tough-guy line at the end and the cheesy "moral of the story" final scene could have been shown in the first 5 minutes, ending the agony. This movie makes me want to finish watching Leonard Part 6 (I walked out of the theater on that one) - at least it's not a remake of anything.

If you think the answer is zero, you really need to watch this. Beyond the shocking lack of accountability among the scientists who created these machines, and the military that operates them, I was really bothered by the (mis-)treatment of the crewmen who responded to the site.

I don't think anyone would really believe a documentary would be released of a failure, or of the main character dying, so the cliffhanger moments are really overdone. And as has been noted by other reviewers: the science we're promised at the beginning is entirely missing. What really grated on my sense of reality was calling him their "pilot" - he had no more control than Abraham Lincoln would, if they had dropped a penny from that height, so he wasn't piloting anything. But if you can get past all that, it's actually an interesting story about a lot of money being spent to seriously risk a man's life just to break someone else's useless record. No mention at all is made of the ONE guy who originally did this for actual science - Colonel Joe Kittinger.

Watching this documentary is about as humbling as being at the senior olympics, as a teen-aged logistical supporter. Seeing what these kids accomplished with their physical & societal challenges makes me embarrassed to even think about giving up on ANYTHING, or complaining about my problems. But it's not a depressing film - it's remarkably optimistic & uplifting. It's also hilarious - the jokes they tell on themselves had me rolling! They're also surprisingly insightful about their place in the world, and not accepting what they're told that is. One of the campers with CP was even poetic, despite her profound disability. Yes, it was VERY hard to understand her, but the effort paid off. You won't regret taking the time to watch this.

The list of stars made this look like it might be an interesting story. And the acting was good. It was also nice to see Diane looking better physically than in some of her previous works.

But the story is a complete let-down. The forced suspense & peculiar behavior from the characters is tedious and distracting; moreso when they start spoiling the twist themselves. It felt like watching an M. Knight Shyamalan movie with all the characters discussing the real situation and pointing into the camera laughing at the audience for being tricked into buying tickets. Thankfully, I didn't - but I ought to demand my rental money back.

I won't spoil the story for you directly, but I will say I'd rather have re-watched Fight Club (1999), The Truman Show (1998), The Machinist (2004), or the last act of Brazil (1985). Even Basic (2003) had a better twist, and I consider it to be a waste of 90 minutes.

As hellish and pointless as that war was, this story inspires pride and patriotism. With just the right mix of technical animations, dramatic reenactments, voice-over exposition, and real-life participants' recollections, the tale these guys tell will keep even the worst ADHD pre-teen riveted for an hour. Three Huey pilots and an engineer out to get photos of the countryside unwittingly enter one of the fiercest firefights in Vietnam to fly more than a hundred men to safety - withOUT a landing zone. Not even the designers could have imagined that rotor blades could sustain that much damage cutting down tree branches and bamboo, fly out, AND RETURN half a dozen times or more; ultimately carrying more than TRIPLE the helicopters' nominal capacity. All this while taking heavy small-arms fire from a force estimated to be nearly five times the size of the evacuees'. If the helicopters were alive, they'd be heroes, too. Do yourself a favor and record this because you WILL want to watch it a few times - it's SO much better than watching greedy back-stabbers competing for money on an island, listening to bad singers competing for record deals, or numbing your brain on dwarf amateur chefs flipping houses.

I wish I could. But IMDb wants me to waste 10 lines to express to you how big of a waste of an hour and half this movie is, so here goes: it's bad.

No, not like that. REALLY bad. Beyond bad.

Remember Ishtar? Remember Leonard Part 6? Remember Kung Pow? If you see this, you'll think those weren't SO bad, after all. It's not galactically bad like those 3, but it's certainly in their league.

It's not zany, like Airplane! It's not quirky like This is Spinal Tap. It's not hilarious like Stripes. Its story isn't as inventive or original as Caddy Shack. If you didn't see the whole thing coming just from the poster, you weren't looking.

It was clearly an attempt to bottle the lightning from The Heat, using Midnight Run's storyline, and it's an insult to both of them that they're mentioned with this catastrophe.