First of all, the film was pretty good - moved right along and kept our interest throughout. That is the good news.
The bad news is that it gets pretty tiring re-living the moments over and over and over again to get the different vantage points. I think by the third re-start, people started giggling and by the fifth time, people were laughing out loud and one said, 'Not again?!".
Plus, without giving anything away, there were some pretty amazing coincidences happening, especially towards the end. I mean coincidences in the sense that the odds of certain things happening that way are about the same as me winning the lottery five weeks in a row.
My major nitpick however:
The bad guys kill thousands, blow up city streets and hotel lobbies, kill their own team - but suddenly a little girl is standing on the street and “ohmygod, quick smash the van into a wall lest we hurt a child!” Uh…I don’t think so.
Still, if you want a fun popcorn film and don’t mind some tedious repeats of scenes over and over, and don’t mind a bit too much camera jiggling, you will have fun at this film.
Reminds me of that episode of 24 where the terrorists have a change of heart and decide not to blow up the world after a friendly stranger helps them change a tire on their evil van of doom.
I found myself distracted by word choices throughout. The female news reporter refers to the opening ceremonies of a peace conference as a “kickoff.” Darlin’, that’s a football metaphor, and you’re supposed to be a journalist, not a sports writer.
And then toward the end, Quaid has a line:
“So-and-so Agent has gone rogue!”
Which would have prompted any sane operator on the other end of that phone to say, “Huh?”
Seriously. It’s not like that happens so often in Quaid’s line of work that they have a name for it, right?
Anyway… yeah. People were giggling at the rewinds during my viewing of it, too.
My boyfriend and I saw it two weekends ago, and also enjoyed it.
There was giggling during the rewinds in our theatre, too, but I really don’t understand that reaction: the movie is clearly serious and not “Groundhog Day,” so why would rewinds inspire laughter? Also, didn’t anyone know what the movie was about before they bought a ticket? The previews and synopses made it clear that you’d be seeing an event from several points of view.
Anyway, there were several moments that defied even my award-winning suspension of disbelief, but I decided to get over them and just be entertained. And I agree that it wasn’t Dennis Quaid’s finest performance, but I wasn’t expecting Hamlet.
[SPOILER]the terrorists, with their warped sense of morality, think that blowing up numerous (faceless) victims to further their cause is glorious, while mowing down a single child during their escape is less defensible.
Plus, American audiences are going to have a way bigger visceral reaction to seeing a little kid getting run over than a bomb going off. I expected the kid to make it–although I thought Forest Whitaker’s character might make a heroic last-minute dash out into the street and save her, instead.[/SPOILER]
My two pennies: it’s a solid popcorn flick–good, mindless entertainment if you’re looking to kill a couple of hours. The whole “rewind to a new perspective” thing gets gimmicky pretty fast, and the
big car chase
at the end drags on way, way too long. But you could tell all the actors were putting on their best game faces, and it turned out not as bad as I thought it would be.
I don’t understand the problem with “kickoff” the term in pretty ubiquitous outside sports to characterize the start of an event. But, I was curious about the term “rogue” too.
It’s a male metaphor for a competitive event, which I found highly unusual coming out of the mouth of a female journalist announcing a cooperative event she clearly sympathized with. It said to me “a man wrote this movie!”
I figured a journalist could have chosen a much better word: opening ceremony, commencement, announcement, inaugural ceremony, beginning, birth, dawn, etc.
I agree with cinehead: I hear “kickoff” all the time in regards to presentations, proposal efforts, campaigns, etc. Granted the latter two are competitive, but not in a sports event kind of way. It’s hardly just a “male metaphor” anymore. All of those other terms you suggest might be great in writing, but “kickoff” gets the message across succinctly and in casual language while also imparting an air of anticipation. A totally acceptable choice for any on-air reporter, I’d think.
(I didn’t care for it myself…Denis Quaid+ Harrison FOrd)