"Shoot the wings off the flies" (WANTED)

Cafe Society
21

And for a board that defends it’s science and physics so closely (just mention The Core in any thread to get diatribes on it’s poor handle of scientific fact), everybody seems to be keeping pretty sctum on the whole curving bullet thing. Ok, I’ll start;

CURVING BULLETS ARE PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE, NOTHNG COULD POSSIBLY MAKE BULLETS BEHAVE IN THE WAY THEY DO IN THIS GODAWFUL MOVIE.

The protagonists make their bullets “curve” with a flick of the wrist before firing; THATS BULLSHIT. Were these special, aerodynamically altered bullets, ok, I might buy it, but NO they are just regular bullets. Fuck me discretely with an anvil.

And also, after watching the trailer, I remarked to a friend how overused the whole slo-mo bullet floating towards a target shot was used, so during the movie I kept count;

24 times.

Thats the same shot, repeated twenty four times. twenty four; thats also (probably) the amount of lines that Angelina Jolie’s character has. Merciful Ponyriding Christ. Fuck this movie.

22

Wow, I’m surprised at how many people don’t like (and really really don’t like) this film. Many for the same reasons I loved it. It was a cool idea, extremely well done. The action, effects, and cool factor were all superb. The main complaint seems to be the aspects that are physically unrealistic, but the setup for the film clearly places it in a fantasy superhero setting where such things are possible. And it doesn’t suffer from any awful martial arts movie wirework maneuvers. I loved it, and saw it again. Enjoyed it just as much the second time.

The only thing I had mixed feelings about was the ending when Angelina:

Shoots everyone in the room including herself. On the one hand, assuming she and the others really were on the loom’s list, it was a very cool and noble thing to do (as well as not falling into predictable happy endingness). On the other hand, Morgan Freeman admitted he’d been falsifying the loom hits. Why should they believe him when he says that they were on the list? Especially since Angelina apparently believed him that she was on the list, but not that James MacAvoy was. Plus, assuming sequel, would have been nice to have Angelina around.

For those finding the protagonist to be an unlikable fellow, I think that was sort of the point. Here’s a character who represents the loser with no outlet for greatness but also the antisocial misanthrope who knows better than to express his antisocial feelings. Then he gets this golden ticket that says he doesn’t have to be a loser, and he can express all of his antisocial rage in a way that is morally justified. Who can’t identify strongly with the liberty of that? Certainly anyone who has played GTA, and various members of extreme religions…

23

[QUOTE=bubastis]
And for a board that defends it’s science and physics so closely (just mention The Core in any thread to get diatribes on it’s poor handle of scientific fact), everybody seems to be keeping pretty sctum on the whole curving bullet thing.
[/QUOTE]
Pretty easy thing to understand.

The Core was about a team of scientists saving the earth with science. When the science is stupid in a movie like that, the movie is stupid ipso facto. Completely different issue when the story involves a team of secret assassins with links to the middle ages, and a magical loom. It’s an alternate universe.

24

The only thing that really bugged me in the movie was how much people could get done in the time that it took a bullet to get anywhere, such as the tossing of the gun at the end of the movie.

Well, that and the around-corners gunrig. That just seemed goofy.

Last line of the movie is an insult if you want to take it as an insult. From what I understand, the last line of the book was an insult no matter what your opinion of things was.

And my personal favorite line in the movie, of course, is “I’m sorry!”

A question:

Did anyone else catch on to the bit that the Exterminator was helping Wesley’s father all along?

25

I thought it was fine. The flop around of events 3/4ths of the way through was, in my opinion, worse handled than Hancock (which was blasted for it) but it was fun enough. I liked it better than the Matrix and about even with Iron Man, but I’d rather watch Get Smart over all of those.

This year’s summer action movies are failing at their comic book histories and dumping all of the stories and emotional struggles that make the things worth reading, and instead just giving us any other Instant Action Movie in a Can plot but with people with superpowers. It’s a bit of a shame that the comic book crowd is accepting this.

Hopefully The Dark Knight will be better.

26

[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
This year’s summer action movies are failing at their comic book histories and dumping all of the stories and emotional struggles that make the things worth reading, and instead just giving us any other Instant Action Movie in a Can plot but with people with superpowers. It’s a bit of a shame that the comic book crowd is accepting this.

Hopefully The Dark Knight will be better.
[/QUOTE]

In my opinion, almost every comic book movie ever made has failed, with a few notable exceptions. Do you really think there’s something different about this year as opposed to last year, and the year before, and the year before, etc? Spider-Man 2 & 3 were crap, X-Men 2 & 3 were crap, the 2003 Hulk (your attempt at story and emotional struggle) was crap (this year’s was slightly better), Batman (Tim Burton) through Batman & Robin (Joel Schumacher) were crap. Catwoman, Elektra, and Daredevil were crap. Superman Returns was supercrap. It’s a shame that the “comic book crowd” has accepted all of these, but I don’t think there’s anything special about 2008.

27

Raguleader I didn’t catch that. Care to explain?

28

[QUOTE=rpinrd]
Raguleader I didn’t catch that. Care to explain?
[/QUOTE]

I think he means the rat-guy, the guy that worked in the regenerating bathhouse. It seemed he had a connection with Wesleys dad, although I was past caring at that stage.

29

[QUOTE=rpinrd]
Raguleader I didn’t catch that. Care to explain?
[/QUOTE]

Basically, he showed Wesley the rat trick, saying “Your dad loved this”, and gave Wesley everything he needed to know about how to set it up. When he showed up during the chase scene after Wesley visits his apartment for the last time and he gets shot, the Repairman asked what he was doing there to begin with, implying that they weren’t expecting Rat Guy to show up (which of course, could be explained by saying that he was visiting Wesley’s dad, who lived nearby).

Right before he died, his last words were “A Thousand”, which could either talk about the ripple effect (“Kill one, Save a thousand”) or literally just throwing back to his previous conversation about the rat bombs (“Imagine what you could do with a thousand of these!”)

Finally, Wesley is looking at the weapons cache in his dad’s nookie nook, and he sees the diagrams about the rat bombs and a large pile of wristwatch detonators identical to what the Exterminator used earlier in the film.

Re: the rats, was there an old story about someone bringing promised treasure to some city, and then instead unloading thousands of plague rats? Cause that mental nerve got plucked by the rat bomb scene.

30

[QUOTE=Raguleader]
Well, that and the around-corners gunrig. That just seemed goofy.
[/QUOTE]
That, actually, is a real piece of equipment. The Corner Shot

[QUOTE=Link]
The Corner Shot has already been acquired by police and special forces units around the world.
[/QUOTE]

31

[QUOTE=bubastis]
And for a board that defends it’s science and physics so closely (just mention The Core in any thread to get diatribes on it’s poor handle of scientific fact), everybody seems to be keeping pretty sctum on the whole curving bullet thing. Ok, I’ll start;

CURVING BULLETS ARE PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE, NOTHNG COULD POSSIBLY MAKE BULLETS BEHAVE IN THE WAY THEY DO IN THIS GODAWFUL MOVIE.

The protagonists make their bullets “curve” with a flick of the wrist before firing; THATS BULLSHIT. Were these special, aerodynamically altered bullets, ok, I might buy it, but NO they are just regular bullets. Fuck me discretely with an anvil.

And also, after watching the trailer, I remarked to a friend how overused the whole slo-mo bullet floating towards a target shot was used, so during the movie I kept count;

24 times.

Thats the same shot, repeated twenty four times. twenty four; thats also (probably) the amount of lines that Angelina Jolie’s character has. Merciful Ponyriding Christ. Fuck this movie.
[/QUOTE]

Wait… really? bullets can’t do that? :confused: :eek:

:rolleyes:

furthermore if you went in counting slo-mo shots, it sounds like you went in determined to hate and ridicule the movie. So you didn’t like it. I’m always amazed when people don’t like movies like this because they’re not realistic. OF COURSE THEY’RE NOT REALISTIC. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie.

32

I thought it was cool until they survived the train falling.

33

[QUOTE=Cisco]
In my opinion, almost every comic book movie ever made has failed, with a few notable exceptions. Do you really think there’s something different about this year as opposed to last year, and the year before, and the year before, etc? Spider-Man 2 & 3 were crap, X-Men 2 & 3 were crap, the 2003 Hulk (your attempt at story and emotional struggle) was crap (this year’s was slightly better), Batman (Tim Burton) through Batman & Robin (Joel Schumacher) were crap. Catwoman, Elektra, and Daredevil were crap. Superman Returns was supercrap. It’s a shame that the “comic book crowd” has accepted all of these, but I don’t think there’s anything special about 2008.
[/QUOTE]

The first Hulk could have been good, but they really need a director who can direct 3D artists to make the Hulk look real. And mostly they needed a script that didn’t end with a big WTF. Ang Lee was trying for a decently serious film. So while he failed, you can’t lump Hulk 1 in there with all the fluff films.

Tim Burton’s Batmans were good–particularly the second one. Though they’re really not part of the recent run of movies, which I’m talking about. The recent run began with X-Men and Spiderman, where they had two good serious comic book movies that were true to their source and lead by serious directors.

Catwoman and Elektra were patently stupid. I don’t think anyone even pretended they were intended to be good serious comic book movies.

X-2 was fine, it just didn’t finish the series.

Superman Returns I didn’t see, but my impression is that it ended up being a two hour testament to Bryan Singer’s mancrush on Supes rather than a serious movie. Again, this isn’t part of the Action in a Can issue.

The new Hulk had a fine script, but the director and thereby a good bit of the acting sucked. If it had had a better director, it probably would have been near Spiderman 1 in terms of quality. (I mean, remember back to the action scene on the college campus where every time something fails, they send in a couple of matched jeeps doing a leap out of the bushes. The director was who-ever-heard-of-that-guy not Bryan Singer, Ang Lee, Christopher Nolan, or Sam Raimi and he fairly consistently chose the best way to ruin the script he was given out of all the choices available.)

The failure of Superman Returns, Spiderman 3, and X-Men 3 almost definitely lead to the current slashing of story, but there was at least Christopher Nolan’s Batman, and all the movies that failed were panned by the comic book crowd. While as this year they’re going all ra ra for what is a spectacularly vapid turnout. And that’s my issue. I don’t have a problem with weak movies. I have a problem with weak movies making lots of money and getting raves from the people who panned X-Men 3 for being trite.

34

[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
I have a problem with weak movies making lots of money and getting raves from the people who panned X-Men 3 for being trite.
[/QUOTE]

Wow. Could we possibly point out that maybe - just maybe - you are demanding just a wee bit too much? Comic book movies have some advantages, yes, but they go in with numerous strikes against them from the get-go. This movie season, I was happy to get something which was competent, fun, and not dragged out to hell and back.

Which, of course, was the problem with a lot of said movies. Hulk (Ang Lee), X3, Spidey 3, Superman Returns - all of them had more plot than they needed and a lot of wasted space. The newer movies tried to fix that and work through it better. If they didn’t exactly succeed perfectly (I felt they didn’t adequately set up Abomination, for instance), they at least get a plot rolling and ended it.

35

To me that mostly seems to be saying that they should make comic book movies be longer (like two and a half or three hours.) Plot is sort of worthless if you don’t care about the characters.

“This good guy. He good because parents killed. This bad guy. He bad guy because…we needed one. Woo eksploshuns! The End.” Yeah, it’s a plot buuuut…

36

Enjoyed the action sequence and the humor. After the first scene, I just think “It’s Jedi with Guns” and suspended my disbelief and it’s a smooth ride all the way. It’s guns and magic! Relax :slight_smile:

The last part though, where the hero somehow appears at two points at the same time (in the office and at his stake-out), is the last straw. And there was this not-explained part of what happened to him.

37

[QUOTE=CrazyChop]
Enjoyed the action sequence and the humor. After the first scene, I just think “It’s Jedi with Guns” and suspended my disbelief and it’s a smooth ride all the way. It’s guns and magic! Relax :slight_smile:

The last part though, where the hero somehow appears at two points at the same time (in the office and at his stake-out), is the last straw. And there was this not-explained part of what happened to him.

[/QUOTE]

Eh what?

He was only in the one place, his stakeout. He even goes so far as to point this out to the audience by specifying that he wasn’t the guy in the office :cool:

38

But…but…who was the guy sitting in front of the computer? Who would be brave (dumb) enough to be his substitute against an assassin who can make bullets curve?

39

[QUOTE=CrazyChop]

But…but…who was the guy sitting in front of the computer? Who would be brave (dumb) enough to be his substitute against an assassin who can make bullets curve?

[/QUOTE]

He was the Motherfuckin Decoy! :cool: Which is, of course, much more badass than a mere normal decoy.

40

[QUOTE=jackdavinci]
…
The only thing I had mixed feelings about was the ending when Angelina:

Shoots everyone in the room including herself. On the one hand, assuming she and the others really were on the loom’s list, it was a very cool and noble thing to do (as well as not falling into predictable happy endingness). On the other hand, Morgan Freeman admitted he’d been falsifying the loom hits. Why should they believe him when he says that they were on the list? Especially since Angelina apparently believed him that she was on the list, but not that James MacAvoy was. Plus, assuming sequel, would have been nice to have Angelina around.

…
[/QUOTE]

About the last line in your spoiler box, I’d have to say “Don’t worry about it.”

Since when in the comics universe or even in some sorta-mainstream movies has the death of a villain (or even a super hero) been an impediment to them showing up again?

:wink: