This movie sucked hardcore. Don’t waste your money. It’s not even fun bad, it’s just plain bad.
So, wait a minute. If she’s really 33, thats legal! Right? :eek:
This is why I don’t go to movies. That, and I’m too cheap.
The adoption community, of course, has lodged all manner of complaints. But what about the dwarfism community? I would think it would be double-good fun to call attention to one’s particular issue AND ruin the offending movie’s twist ending.
I find these sorts of things to be ridiculous bullshit. While granted there is plenty of horror based on outlandish monsters, most good scary stories work because they make you scared of something usually innocuous. And anyway unless the villain is invisible and incorporeal it’s going to have some kind of identity. You can’t go around banning all horror films or indeed all films with antagonists for fleshing out the character of the bad guy.
How old is the actress playing the title character? I assume she is just a little girl but if they had gotten an actual dwarf that looked that young, it would have all been much creepier.
:smack:
Are they convinced that this could affect adoption rates? As though there is a couple out there with the money, desire, and love to want to adopt and then they see Orphan and change their minds.
“You know what? I think we will go get a puppy instead. A puppy won’t try to seduce my husband, kill my other kid, and turn out to be a 33 year old dwarf. Can we have our money back and directions to the nearest PETSMART?”
And when they get to the store, they’re going to ask for one of the puppies that TALKS. 'Cuz they saw THAT in a movie, too.
Here’s another possible real-life inspiration: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/10/magazine/forever-young.html?sec=health
12.
That would make quite a disturbing sequel, but we’d see the twist coming this time.
At Rotten Tomatoes, 43% is considered rotten not fresh. Of 79 total reviews, 35 were fresh and 44 were rotten.
I would never waste my time on anything much below 75% fresh. But the herd that goes to whatever was the most heavily promoted the week prior to release made “The Orphan” number 4 at the box office last week with $12.9 million.
It wasn’t awful but it wasn’t particularly good. The fact that she wasn’t really 9 was pretty obvious but I thought there might be a second route they’d go. Since she kept her neck covered I thought maybe it would turn out she was a made vampire or something like that and thus unaging but old.
But the “pretending to be 9” thing was more likely and proved to be true.
That said, I thought it was a very strong child performance from Isabelle Fuhrman, just 11 at the time of filming. And having to do an accent (not necessarily a great one but not a bad one) to boot.
All I had to do was read the final paragraph of the link that Ferret Herder supplied to realize I just saved myself $10 and 90 minutes of my time.
Sounds like it ends like the other 10,000 crappy “thriller” movies ends.
I realize 43% is not fresh (the big green splat next to the number was a giveaway…), but I’d again venture that it’s a better-than-average rating for horror movies in particular, and there have also been a handful of quite good reviews, including the above-mentioned 3 1/2 star one by Roger Ebert. All this points to the movie being middling entertainment for most viewers (or at least not the piece of vile crap most people in this thread assume). Your comment about the “herd mentality” of viewers is rather snide and uncalled for: the movie has a respectable 7.1 rating on IMDB, so it’s likely that positive word-of-mouth helped the movie out, in addition to its ad campaign.
It’s your loss that you won’t see anything below 75% fresh - while I’m not one of those people who argues that critics are worthless (actually, I think people should utilize them more, rather than less), you are missing out on some interesting movies every year that get mixed reviews.
I saw it last weekend. If you enjoy cheap thrills and you’re scared easily like my sixteen year old sister, maybe you’ll like this movie. If you’re like me and need something more than just the suspense of “Oooh when you close that bathroom mirror the creepy music will climax and she’ll be right there watching you!!1!” then don’t bother.
I had already figured out the plot twist halfway through, got bored of the “suspense” which I felt I had already seen in every other movie, and shared lots of awkward moments of “Wow, is this really a horror movie?” with my sister and the rest of the audience. I think it’s a sign when the audience laughs more at the absurd parts than they gasp or shriek at the supposedly scary ones.
I wanted to leave half an hour before it ended, I was just thoroughly bored. I’m trying not to give away the plot in case other people still want to see it. I thought the movie had potential, the trailers looked decent but when I went to see the movie it became obvious that it was nothing special. Might be good for a rental in the future, but in my opinion it wasn’t worth the $10 a person to see in theater.
I tend to agree with critics more often than not, but there are great movies that a lot of them just don’t get. You’re really giving yourself the high-hard one here.
I don’t read movie reviews or look at IMDb scores until after I see a movie, because I don’t want them to influence my opinion of it.
My wife and I saw it last weekend. I’d inadvertently read about the “twist” prior to seeing it, but I still thought it was a terrific film for what it was – pretty smart in some places, even. It managed to turn a few horror movie clichés on their ear such as characters appearing in bathroom mirrors and behind refrigerator doorsand embraced others to the point of squeezing everything out of them that they could the Evil thing Just. Will. Not. Stay. Dead.
I liked it a lot, but I’m certainly not going out of my way to recommend it – I can certainly understand that it’s not a film for everyone.
I’ll take a chance on something below 75% on RT if there is some compelling reason for me to do so. Theme I’m particularly keen on, actor I admire, ect.
But here’s the thing, there are thousands of movies I’ve never seen. Some very highly regarded by critics and audiences. Perhaps there are many great movies you have never seen. Why would I waste my free movie-watching time on what I have every reason to believe is going to be a poor film? Especially in this day and age when I have access to those thousands of great movies I’ve never seen and I am likely going to enjoy more?
That’s me. Different strokes. I know some like to go to see the highly hyped movie of the week, perhaps for social reasons. (That’s the ‘herd’ I referenced above.) Perhaps some people just like to see a crappy movie now and then. But life is short and as long as there are so many great movies I’ve never seen and can see, it doesn’t make sense to me to waste my precious time on a film I already have a pretty good idea is junk.
You say you don’t check reviews before seeing a film. How do you decide what you are going to see?
Huh. And here all this time I thought the twist was going to be:
her parents AREN’T REALLY DEAD!
I usually check the Rotten Tomato score but not read the reviews if something seems interesting. But I agree that 75% fresh is a pretty high standard - I don’t seriously start to worry unless it drops under 55 or 60%.
On the current Top 10 Box Office list, only Harry Potter and The Hangover meet the 75% standard.
You’re right - different strokes. Just be aware that when you dismiss people who go to a movie you’re not interested in by saying that they’re following a “herd mentality” and that you would never “waste” your “precious time” on such low-rated movies, it doesn’t exactly come across as a “live and let live,” “different strokes” attitude. 
I’ve found the RT aggregate to be generally fairly accurate and helpful. A movie with a ranking in the 20’s alway pans out to be about that bad. A movie in the 90’s always turns out to be very good (it’s hard for a movie to break 90).
That’s not to say that I can’t still enjoy a 25% movie on a prurient or campy level, but I can still recognize that it’s a bad movie and the the ranking is deserved. I can also be bored to tears by 99% Oscar bait, but still recognize that it’s skillfully dirceted or well-acted or whatever.
I’ve seen movies which I thought were slightly better thn the RT ranking, or perhaps a little overrated by it, but I’ve never seen one where I thought the RT rating was radically wrong. I’ve never seen a complete piece of shit ranked in the 80’s, or a truly good movie (which I would argue is not necessarily synonomous with an enjoyable one) ranked below 40.