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| Source: IMP Awards |
What an unfortunate
failure of a movie. This was really trying to address some very current, very
important themes, and had some great ideas about the threat we pose to
ourselves and how to deal with it, the future of humanity etc. but also
universal themes of kindness and community. This is why it was a real shame
that this movie took over 1 hour to develop a story!! Even though I watched at
1.2 speed, after 20 minutes I was bored to death as a story failed to
materialise. I kept thinking the most exciting thing to happen would be if
birds got into the protected dome of Leisureland. I was seconds away from
switching it off, skipping through the remaining time, but luckily, I caught
the turning point when the plot got interesting. The Vietnamese character was
incredible. First of all, FANTASTIC acting. Second of all, I know Asians who
are a little bit like that so I’m guessing the characterisation was not that
far off the mark. I admired her unwavering devotion to the community and the
people around her, even in the face of her own personal misery. Her no-nonsense
approach is something that Western people could use instead of politely talking
in circles using politically correct terms and going absolutely nowhere. The
romance was a bit too much and not really believable, though. Matt Damon did
the job he was paid for, but the script let him down. I know he can do better,
but he economised and just gave the movie as much as absolutely necessary. I’ve
never really seen Christoph Walz in anything (wait. I saw Water for Elephants),
but he was a bit of an oddball character. Thinking about it, they did have some
pretty comical characterisations for all kinds of nationalities, making the
Norwegians into a nature-loving hippie people, the Serbian into an
opportunistic low-life and the Asians and Hispanics into lower-class working
people. I get that this was probably due to the movie trying to caricaturise
modern-day society and the way the world works, but I can see why some people
might find it offensive.
Anyway, the visuals were surprisingly good. I liked that they used lenses with
a very shallow depth of field to communicate the small scale to the viewer.
Still, it was hard to suspend my disbelief as physics works completely
differently at that scale...
So, they do get 2/5 for turning it around in the second half and making it a
half-way decent film, after all.
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