You’ve just finished watching a movie, and leave the theater thinking “The writers messed up. That movie should’ve been like this . . .”
What movie would you change/improve, and how?
I’d have rewritten the last Mission Impossible to remove all the flying through the air kickboxing.
That stuff just spoils the spy concept for me.
It’s like watching a Chinese circus act at the “filler” stage at Sea World.
I play this game all the time. Sometimes the difference between a good movie and a really stupid one is pretty subtle.
For example, in the movie While You Were Sleeping Sandra Bullock, through the power of wacky misunderstanding, ends up posing as the fiance of a man she’s been fantasizing about when that man falls into a coma. If I had been writing it, Bullock would have intentionally deceived the family, because her innocence in the misunderstanding makes the theme hollow – intentionally seizing on the opportunity to live out her fantasy would have made a far more compelling character.
Fair Game was a bad movie that I think missed being fantastic simply by not tying itself together. Or, rather, by not acknowledging the tragedy at it’s core. The story is about a cop who has fucked up absolutely everything in his life. One day, almost by accident, he saves the life of a lawyer who has pissed off some ex-KGB mobsters. Afterwards, he takes great pains to keep the lawyer alive, and we’re supposed to believe that it’s just because he’s a cop, or maybe even because he’s hot for the lawyer. But in the story as I would have written it, he would be desperately trying to save the lawyer because the fact that she was still alive was the only accomplishment of the cop’s entire life, and his only validation. And from suddenly feeling like there was a reason God put him on Earth, he couldn’t stand to let her get killed and leave him feeling worthless again. This would have made his epic struggle and his sacrifices compelling. The movie should have ended with him crying instead of laughing and kissing the girl.
Phantom Menace: Dump Jar Jar, dump the midichlorian crap, cast a kid who can act decently (or at least less woodenly) as Anakin and try to hammer out a decent script.
I kinda like the “rock 'em, sock 'em” ending Homer Simpson had Mel Gibson put onto his remake of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington…
Speaking of MI:2, ditch all the face swapping that everyone could see a mile off… and the sheer unbelievability…