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lars.dahlager
Reviews
Hoodwinked! (2005)
Animation should have been worse, not better
It's a sign of the immaturity of CGI-cartoons that people generally think that the animation of 'Hoodwinked' should either have been 1) technically better or 2) should be forgiven it's technical flaws because of the story's strengths. Both views panders to the idea of CGI-technology as a quality in it self, rather than a means to expression. The problem that 'hoodwinked' has, in my opinion, is rather that artistically it doesn't choose sides: It's technically naive in some animations, and technically sophisticated (as in individually animated hair) in other scenes. It's artistically neurotic. It's Toystory meets Monsters Inc. I still loved the 'Usual Suspects'-setup coupled with basic Agatha Cristie-confrontations (but why the hell wasn't the frog french, sorry, belgium?). But I was disappointed that these setups wasn't brought to their full conclusion: Why wasn't the frog allowed to discover that they all had an egoistic angle, a motive, in the proceedings? Why didn't they play on the obvious Keyser Soze angle of the rabbit? Oh Well, these movies still has to be for kids, I guess. Still, it's a satisfying movie on most accounts - spot the Harold Faltermeyer-soundtrack spoof when the wolf goes undercover (and for the record: I loved the squirrel).
Regards, Lars.
Flightplan (2005)
Is this the most convoluted plot ever?
I think we have some sort of record. The steps needed for the criminals in this movie to succeed are:
1) Jodie deciding to go to the states on the same airplane as her dead husbands coffin. 2) An accomplice at the check-in who deletes any record of the daughters ticket. 3) that jodie chooses to be the first onboard - otherwise some of the other families with children might notice the child when she boards. 4) That the flight attendant doesn't notice the child when they board. 5) That the child stays hidden for three hours of flight. 6) That Jodie decides to sleep in the back of the plane with her child, so the kidnappers can whisk her away in the troll. Had Jodie and the child stayed in their seats, the kidnapping would have been impossible.
Improbable as this seems, the plot holes's just getting started. Now we need Jodie not just going amok, but escaping to do another feat: Remember how an airport security guy, at the beginning of the movie, tells Jodie she needs to lock the casket (with a code) for security reasons? (apparently, in this alternate reality, any coffin can get by airport security because 'coffins aren't x-rayed'). It seems the criminal actually needs to get hold of and move the explosives hidden in the coffin so he can blow up the child in the front of the plane (to cover the fact that she was onboard, i guess). So now the scheme of the criminals hinges on: 1) Jodie goes to the bathroom, crawls up a trap door, shortcircuits the lights, uses the confusion to get to the basement, opens the coffin, keeps the lid up and lets her self be caught.
I didn't understand this at first, thinking that the writers couldn't be that idiotic, but why else set up the idea of a digitally locked casket? She, it seems, has to open it! And when this setup is complete, the criminal only has to convince the captain that this crazy mother is a terrorist whos suddenly gotten hold of a detonator for a bomb.
I think the writing is, in many ways, intriguing. I fail to remember any movie with a plot quite so convoluted. Please respond if you can think of any.
Yours truly, Lars