Change Your Image
uise
Reviews
War of the Worlds (2005)
technical amazing, disturbing if it's intent is to be a mirror of the society, otherwise for brainwashing
The film starts with the image of a disintegrated American family and ends with a reunified one. To get this result, 2 hours of non stop fighting against aliens were needed.
The aliens are using huge robots which walk pretty clumsy the earth, XIX - Jules Verne style, with snake like tubes which get people like a monster. In order to make them powerful, the humans use the classical machine guns like in a SF of the 60's. Only once we see fighters and helicopters. And they are useless due to a shield. So the cheap Troy horse trick is obvious, the hero after being abducted into the belly of the robot, places a hand grenade, and all the huge machinery suffers a magnetic shock. One merit of the movie is to see no oil explosion.
It's a movie from a different era, even if it starts in NY, I cannot remember seeing any minority. Only once, in countryside there is an Afro-American robbing a crashed airplane. Which is the opportunity of a hilarious moment when Tom Cruise asks the guy if he is a survivor, and 20 seconds later his tour comes to be asked the same question.
In an America wrecked by earthquakes stormed by Alien machine getting out of the ground, where the streets are filled by destroyed houses, people, wrecked cars, even airplanes, there is all the time a clear way for someone with a car. The car represents the freedom. And is amazing that our hero, and the army are the only working cars. Only once, the street is crammed by people, but they still are driving through. The people attack the car. Tom Cruise gets out, and only when he sees that someone would pick the car not leaving out his daughter, he takes out his gun. This is a second powerful symbol. Tom Cruise is a responsible family guardian, when he had left the house, he took his gun out of a cipher secured box. And now, only in an extreme situation, he threats the others to keep the distance. He is like an European hero of XIX with savages because it looks like there is nobody with a gun, in US at countryside ... good joke
In a such a dramatic situation, the statistic on interactions with the strangers of our hero is pretty bad, they are so few that I can describe all of them:
1. he discovers with the other people in the street the weird holes in the ground -> there is some common feeling, but then he runs by himself, like everyone else
2. he steals the car of a friend who repaired a car according to his advice
3. the tv crew shows him the news at a global level, but then they shut the door of the van in his nose
4. before taking the boat, he discovers an ex-girlfriend with her daughter, he doesn't help her to get on the boat
5. the only positive is when the Christian couple try to get his daughter out of the battlefield, when she is waiting alone for him
6. the crippy one is their lonely host who has food deposits for months, and the hero asks the host to talk to him never to his child
7. the second positive is the soldier who helps him to get out of the belly of the monster
8. the third positive is when the hero shows the birds on the head of the allien robot to a soldier who discovers from this the method to win against the alliens
These are all interactions! conclusions: the isolation of people, the only support is from the army and a little from the Church. This movie has so many clichees, and use so much makeup, that it might be a parody, a trick to deceive the censorship. If this is the case, bravo, if not ... it's very said for its public.
Million Dollar Baby (2004)
no logic for the climax.
the movie is missing the logic for the climax. in the final match she is hit from the back by her opponent. we see that she didn't win the match, so she was hit during the match. so why her experimented trainer, put the chair in the ring before the bell ? and in this case, we should see the guilt, not only a helpful and emphatic guy. the movie talks 90% of the time about the path of a champion, and almost nothing about the interior conflict after. it's a missed movie with a very good intrigue ( which comes only at the end). it is raised the problem of euthanasia, which is solved very quickly. before the climax there is the story of the stupid boxer who is beaten up buy his colleagues. it's irrelevant, has nothing to do with the main story
Le scaphandre et le papillon (2007)
very good first 10 minutes, bad use of a powerful theme
It was very well done the discovery of the state of the main character. The impressions were almost physical. But after a big change, in the intrigue, nothing happens. The director fails to create a main plot, is it that the guy publishes a book ? Bauby says that he is like Mr Noitier from Conte DE Monte Cristo. If you haven't read the book, Noitier is an old man who communicates with his niece by clinging the eye, so we could say he is not in a so abnormal state, and eye clinging communication is ancient. So no gain. But we could say that Bauby is young officer who went to prison on his wedding day, who learned a lot during his imprisonment which is a cocoon, to become a mighty count – a butterfly. In this movie we see a guy who succeeds to publish a book despite his severe handicap, and one week later he dies. The plot could have been "a superficial" editor for a glossy magazine has a severe accident, and he discovers the beauty of having a family, of friends, of enjoying the rays of sun. It is missing the evolution of the main character, he is a too much loving son, a very good father before the accident, after it he remains a skirt hunter. The diving suit could have been his cocoon and to become free afterwords, a butterfly.
Besides missing the big turning point, there are unfinished stories, for example Bauby is called by his mistress in the presence of his wife, who apologize postponing her visit, and she says that she wants to see him
this is a well-built moment, but after he tells her that he misses her each day, we don't hear anything about her.
The play of actors is decent, with the exception of Max Sidow, the father who cries all the time.