There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people […] ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice. And at the same time I have very seldom met anyone […] who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.
The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. […] Pride leads to every other vice
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
First of all, I’m going to say that if it wasn’t for Venom, I wouldn’t have even given Shazam (not including the exclamation point symbol) a chance. And I’ll get to that later.
Other than that, I was also encouraged to see this movie by other reviewers like appabend who said this was the best DC movie yet (post-Nolan Batman trilogy). This film was getting several positive reviews. I have to say, I was skeptical, especially after seeing the trailer without even cracking a smirk. However, considering I’ve been misled by trailers in the past which made a film look mediocre when it ended up being more than that (the main example that comes to mind is How to Train Your Dragon), and since another film managed to get my hopes up regarding superhero flicks (at least those outside of Disney+Marvel), I decided to give it a shot.
Well, the opening act certainly managed to get me interested. We see a kid, who is somewhat mistreated by his father and older brother, be rejected due to his inability to resist temptation when it comes to power. And he understandably throws a bit of a fit over this (he is just a little kid after all), and this inadvertently leads to an accident that cripples his father (who didn’t think much of him in the first place). It was a great emotionally investing moment, making me interested in seeing what would happen to the kid next.
Turns out that the film pulled a fast one on me. This kid wouldn’t be the lead protagonist. Rather, it’s the next less interesting incident involving a little kid; and this would end up being our lead protagonist. A kid who wants to find his mother after losing track of her at a fairground. And that ends up being his motivation for most of the film, to try and find his mother after losing track of her at a fairground, not once getting some common sense knocked into his head over those years that she just didn’t want him. Maybe she got dissuaded from aborting him after seeing Unplanned or something. Seriously, I was more interested in the first kid, wondering what was happening with him during this time. But, of course, it ends up being the kid with the more bland backstory (by comparison anyway) who winds up becoming the Shazam superhero.
Despite that, the film still managed to hold my interest. With the new foster home and parents filled with foster kids which exist purely to mark off “diversity” on the “How to Make an Inclusive PC Movie” checklist. The rise of the supervillain played by that one British actor who plays a villain in everything except Kingsman (Mark Strong). The discovering of the superpowers, what he’s capable of, how to use them, “great power great responsibility,” etc. It was all done well enough albeit not spectacularly.
The film was fine up until the finale. With the big epic fight. There’s an awful lot of running around and pussying out until the last moment. Even when the action does get going, it all goes on for far too long. I was getting bored and just waiting for this damn thing to end. The film-makers just don’t realize that, unless you’re doing an extended action finale with practical effects in a live action movie, or at least have some great martial artists doing something along the lines of The Raid 2, or Ip Man, it’s just not going to be all that interesting. That is, unless the action/fight sequences serve as a way to further the plot and characters. And in all fairness, the finale does do that; and it does take place conveniently at a carnival to thematically fit in with the kid losing his mother (ie family) at the carnival in the past, and discovers a new family at a similar place in the present. But the finale is still largely just filler special effects (like, at least 60% of the time, and that’s being generous). It needed some serious trimming.
Like how the kid on the left could trim a few pounds.
It could’ve worked too. They could’ve made that finale interesting. The potential there was so obvious I’m convinced they opted to drop it for the sake of throwing in some anti-Santa Clause jokes (probably because they didn’t want this movie associated with Christmas in the same way Die Hard and Lethal Weapon are; which is fine by me, because both those movies are better-made than this). There are these monsters that represent the 7 deadly sins (wrath, gluttony, envy, greed, lust, sloth, and pride [arguably the deadliest of all]). Why weren’t these 7 given time to showcase their distinct personalities? I don’t mean they needed character development or anything. We didn’t necessarily need to know their backstory or where they come from. But it would’ve been nice if they were more than just CG monsters running around trying to kill people. There’s nothing about them that makes them live up to their names. We don’t ever see Gluttony tempting the fat kid with a donut or something. We don’t ever see Lust turn into some hot chick and try to seduce one of them like a pedophile (the sex of the kid doesn’t matter, even girls these days want to get laid by hot chicks); or at least offer to get one of the kids to grow a pair of tits (chubby kid and the 17 year old college-bound girl don’t count, they both already have titties). We don’t see Wrath offer the superhero nerd power to impose his wrath on those who bullied him. We don’t see Greed offer wealth to any of these poor kids who could always use some spare change to purchase a couple material items. Hell, we don’t even have Sloth offer the protagonist sleeping pills or something. As for Pride, Jesus Christ, that one should be so fucking easy it’s not even worth giving an example (my review is better than yours; now humiliate yourself!). The best we get is the protagonist using Envy’s weakness to his advantage for one moment, and that’s about it.
Utilizing those characteristics could’ve easily justified a lengthy finale. But we don’t get that. Which reminds me, that’s also a problem I ended up having with the main villain. We don’t see much of an internal struggle within him. How the temptation from all these vices plays upon his personality and incidents from his past to make him into an evil man with no possibility of redemption. That arc pretty much ends with him taking care of his family issues permanently, and that’s it. He’s never haunted by his actions, or presented with the possibility of questioning/mourning his actions by the protagonist(s). So the last act ends up being weak, because it’s not strong enough on its own without those elements to justify the extra runtime.
Kazaam!
As for the theme of the film, it’s more about what one does when they are rejected by their original family, and what they do to settle with a new one. Family can go beyond bloodlines in some cases. It’s a decent enough theme, but it would’ve been nice if there was more bluntness with the contrast between the protagonist and the villain to highlight that aspect. For some more emotional ‘oomph.’ The best extended action sequence in the film is the first encounter between the villain and hero. Especially because it actually got me to laugh, particularly with the reference to Big. I was also laughing because of how deadpan Mark Strong’s delivery was this entire time. Despite how ridiculous all this was, with teddy bears being thrown at him, and running on the piano, he never dropped that dead-serious stare. I would love to know if he broke down laughing between takes.
All-in-all, the film is worth a watch, I guess. If you have nothing better to do. It didn’t work for me mainly due to a weak finale, and a number of minor irritations that built up over time that eventually got to me. Lost more faith in the possibility of the superhero genre working for me once again. Though now that I think about it, I was never all that into it to begin with. Only a few of these films ever worked for me. Like Captain America: Winter Soldier, a couple of the X-Men films, the 2nd Sam Raimi Spider-Man film, and…
I’m a black man, and this message is A-ok. Supremacy!
Rated: 3.5 / 5
Hence to say I didn’t see this one in theaters, something I now regret. I had lost interest in superhero flicks at this point. The trailer did intrigue me. But then there was the news that this was going to be an R-rated release, then they chickened out and made it PG-13. To quote Venom himself, “Pussy.” So I passed on it. But then I started hearing some good things about it, along with mixed messages regarding how good or bad it was. Not enough to get me into the cinemas. But it eventually made its way onto television. Plus I have a fellow board gamer who highly recommended it (whose taste in films and shows I question most of the time). Eventually, I gave in to my curiosity.
And surprise, this film ended up being pretty damn fun and more entertaining than I was expecting. Don’t get me wrong, this film isn’t perfect. It’s got plenty of plot holes in it, with questionable containment issues, the lack of a fallout from law enforcement once everyone went back to a regular life (mostly). Stuff like that. But the rest of the film compensated for all that.
We have ourselves an honest-to-God multidimensional character with strengths and faults. He had a decent job that he loved doing, a good fiance, and enough finances to keep his life stable. Then he winds up making a dick move and takes classified information behind his fiance’s back, for the sake of getting dirt on this corporate jerk. Well, the rich corporate jerk hits back, gets him fired, and his fiance leaves him once she learns he went behind her back like that. A combination of mistakes he made, and of powerful corrupted corporate overlords flexing their muscles. A real flawed protagonist, who isn’t exactly virtuous, but not a complete wimp either. Just a regular guy with regular flaws who succumbs to irregular temptations, who has pros and cons to his character. It was refreshing to see a protagonist who wasn’t a complete wimp who needed superpowers to be somebody (like Captain America, or Kick-Ass). It was also refreshing to see someone who wasn’t (nor becomes) a Gary Stu or Mary Sue, like Captain Marvel or Rey.
Just that aspect alone made me hold some appreciation for this film (though it does try to pull a climate change and overpopulation message in a half-assed manner). And once Tom Hardy gets the symbiote transferred to him, he does become considerably stronger, but not unstoppable. Unlike most of the other superheroes who practically have no weaknesses (or at least none that are easily exploited), this anti-hero actually has a couple. High-frequency sound waves, and fire. It’s perfectly possible for mere mortals to take him down if they come with the right resources and a solid game plan. And these are the types of things I want to see in superhero/super-anti-hero/supervillain flicks. I don’t want someone who’s unbeatable unless pitted against someone/something else that’s also unbeatable. I don’t want a film where they can absorb X amount of damage before succumbing to injury/death (where ‘X’ = whatever the fuck the screenwriters decide). I want guys/gals who are more than capable of facing a legit threat each movie without necessarily tossing in another overpowered alter-ego.
Plus there’s Venom’s attitude. His dialogue is terrific. Intentionally laugh-out-loud, and intimidating. A symbiote that feeds of off the major internal organs of humans (brains, lungs, pancreas, etc.). How he’ll just spout out something casually in the middle of a conversation like, “Let’s eat his brains.” I love it! Moments like that give this film a great comedy element.
Best of all, a clear character arc happens not just with Tom Hardy’s character, but also with the symbiote Venom himself. Hardy goes from overzealous reporter, to run-down demoralized loser, to terrified man seemingly on the verge of losing his mind, to getting into his powers and gaining a more confident attitude, among other things. It’s one of those aspects that managed to make this lengthy car chase scene work in the middle of the film. Normally, I’d bitch about that sequence going for too long. But there are two elements to it that make the length work, aside from more practical effect work than I was expecting. 1.) To demonstrate some more of the extent of his powers. 2.) Hardy’s character arc that changes from, “Oh my God, I’m going to die!” during the first half of the chase, to “This is awesome!” during the second half. It fits in with his overall character arc.
I would point out more examples of what I loved about the film, but I’ll save those moments for those who haven’t seen the movie. But there is another worth pointing out just for the sake of contrast to the Shazam movie. The final fight. For starters, it wasn’t as long as that in Shazam. For another, it also expands upon what the symbiotes are capable of doing, how Venom isn’t the strongest symbiote out there. But there’s also the bond (metaphorically and literally) that forms between them. Plus, I have to admit, there’s a moment that looks pretty damn awesome where symbiote is fighting symbiote, and how they all start twisting and mixing together as they clash, while the hosts within are also trading blows with each other. It’s one of the more unique special effects I’ve seen in a while.
Plus a part of me also loves the idea that this film seems to be taking a jab at that mediocre 2017 film called Life, considering the name of the “evil” corporation is called Life Industries, and the film begins in a manner similar to how Life ended. Was also a bit surprised to see a Stan Lee cameo in this one (it also tugged at the heartstrings a bit, considering…).
All in all, I recommend this film. It’s the best Superhero flick I’ve seen since Batman v Superman. Now don’t get me wrong, that movie has problems that are worse than any found in this film (the biggest of which was the huge miscasting choice made to play Lex Luthor). But at least it is distinct enough to stand out from the other schlock that came out of a conveyor belt, and had decent enough (imperfect) characters with solid motivations.
I’m a white man, and this message is A-ok. Supremacy!
Hello, this is BT. I had the The Anomalous Host taken out in order to stop him from putting up anymore misogynistic cisgendered white nationalist fascist racist deplorable reviews. To help those of you who follow him get educated so that you know how hurtful and harmful his words are to people like me and those I associate with, I’m going to make the ultimate sacrifice for my sanity and go through this next film he was going to review, which doubtless would’ve caused people like me to kill ourselves (or cause people like him to come out and murder us and our kittens) because of the manner he would’ve contextualized his review. To avoid that, I’ll bring this film into the appropriate context for this day and age, which has made considerable progress since the patriarchal year of 2010.
From Paris With Love (2010)
Not liking this already, with the poster using the gun and the Eiffel Tower as a phallic symbol.
Rated: 0 / 5
Typical men. They act just like motherfucker Trump when it comes to political matters. Putting their personal entertainment interests first before the needs of the country, not that it would matter because white rulers are bound to fuck things up either way. They shouldn’t be playing fucking chess! And Trump shouldn’t be playing fucking golf either, not unless he intends to swallow golf balls and kill himself and do the world a favor!
And that quip about the French Senator banging both secretaries at the same time, that’s fucking degrading towards women! That’s why the muslims are taking over France now, so that shit like this stops so that muslim men will treat women with the respect they deserve!
At least this film admits that Americans to shady espionage shit overseas, even in countries like France. That’s probably the only intelligent thing about this film that lacks virtually any sort of intelligence. America is more guilty of international manipulation than any other country in the world, except for maybe Russia (they were decent when Stalin was around; not so much anymore). The problem is that it justifies this espionage shit by having stereotypical terrorists and gangsters, portrayed by Chinese, muslims, and women. That’s disrespectful towards countries that had great leaders like Mao who did more for his people than capitalism ever did. If anyone is the real terrorists, it’s the white male Americans. They’re the real drug dealers who like to blow up places.
Luc Besson film reference, about a film allegedly about an empowering female, but she’s really just being used at the whim of men throughout the entire runtime.
While the film will completely destroy this notion later on, it’s nice to see some beta-male with the potential of becoming pro-feminist. It’s clear by how she “manhandles” him into a chair (forgive me for not coming up with a better term, the patriarchy’s will has permeated through dictionaries through many generations, as also evident by Spike Lee’s Malcolm X indicated with how “black” is often used as a negative metaphor for everything, and never as a good/cool/hip thing; I’m sorry, I’m getting triggered just thinking about this shit) that he’s being setup as a male feminist. Considering John Travolta’s more feminist roles in films like Hairspray, you would think this is a good sign. Trust me, it isn’t.
“Whoah, wait a second. Isn’t it a part of French tradition that the women cooks while the guy watches tv.”
“Well, things have changed since the middle ages, you know?”
Exactly! Thank you for saying that and putting this toxic masculine dweeb in his place! It’s also nice to see her go against tradition, and be the one to take charge and ask the man to marry her.
“This motherfucker hates Americans so much even though we saved his country ass in not only 1 world war but 2, he still won’t let me through with my cans.”
It is at this point that this film goes downhill very fast, losing any (small) amount of goodwill it has built up to this point. John Travolta’s character is so toxic, so masculine, so offensive, so politically incorrect, so repulsive, that he’s a borderline icon to all these other toxic white male nationalist motherfuckers. Not to mention his full-blown representation of male testosterone with how he’s got no hair on his head, but has it in abundance everywhere below his head. This film should be banned just because of this despicable white trash character. He’s just… oh God, this is too triggering for me–
*takes deep meditative breath*
Hang on, I need to calm myself with estrogen pills downed with a soy latte.
Ok, I’m ready to continue.
…
I’m not sure I can do this. Let me just sum up what the rest of the film is basically about up until these two bleach-faced assholes decide to stop killing people for a few minutes and actually try eating a decent meal. They spend the rest of the film shooting and killing a bunch of Chinese dope dealers, because of course this fucking movie portrays them as such while portraying these despicable Americans as celestials, who have to save the day when the French are portrayed as pansies incapable of defending their own homeland from criminal foreigners. And even then that’s a lie, because the Chinese guy stated that he’s a 4th generation French guy, who at this point has more in relation with the French than he does the Chinese (even though he works for a Chinese gang in a Chinese restaurant). Amidst all this, Travolta manages to have sex with a hooker while on the job. All the while the “authority over the phone” figure is telling the protagonist, “Don’t think. Just follow his orders.” It’s shit like this that gives us mindless drones in the army. Thankfully my liberal arts curriculum allows me to know otherwise, and I’d encourage anyone else who passes high school to get a loan and learn from the same.
And that’s just the Chinese. Granted, they go after (what I presume to be) French terrorists too; but they are also Pakistani. So yeah, we got Middle Eastern racist stereotypes thrown in for good measure too. Then there’s little teenage drug dealers, and, as if this wasn’t racist enough, a couple black guys in the drug gang too. This film practically has it all when it comes to racist stereotypes. I don’t see how the hell The Anomalous Host can subject himself to shit like this. It’s no wonder he’s so brainwashed and deplorable. People like him need help. They need to be put in therapy, maybe like a re-education camp like the Vietnamese did to those assholes who fought against peaceful Uncle Ho.
And then there’s the whole degradation of women this movie contains.
“If you met Caroline, you’d feel a little different.”
“I’ve had my share of Carolines.”
“She’s no ordinary girl Wax.”
“They never are.”
It pushes this whole “bros over hoes” message that hasn’t been this prevalent since rap music videos during the 90s and early 2000s. Not to mention it also portrays them to be a bit similar to these toxic male assholes, doing their own form of espionage. That’s sexist and disrespectful and degrading towards women, especially muslim women. That’s bullshit!
Racist dirtbags beating up an innocent French Pakistani.
Plus it uses the whole ‘getting high on coke’ thing as an excuse to quadruple the number of fucking f-bombs this film wants to drop. Like it has some kind of “fuck” quota it’s gotta meet.
The whole film ends up being about Pakistani’s, who the film labels as terrorists. The film even goes against anti-stereotype arguments with these lines of dialogue:
“She’s Pakistani you stupid fuck, it doesn’t mean she’s a terrorist!”
And she does end up being a terrorist. You see, it’s negative portrayals like this that hurt the country of France more than these people ever could.
That is why this film should be banned. That’s why anyone who watches it should be imprisoned like those who distribute the New Zealand shooting video and the shooter’s manifesto. That’s why–
Wait. You’re still alive? What the fu–!
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***************************
Next time you try to have me “taken out,” try having your goons hired based on their merits and not on their diversity.
Anyway, sorry about that everyone, I’m back. Since Bitch Tits here has pretty much ruined the review I had planned for this film, I’ll condense my version of it a bit.
Real rating: 4 / 5
“What type of people did you kill today James?”
“The usual. Bad guys.”
“Bad guys? Baddest-assed suicide-vested cold-hearted Pakistani motherfuckers this side of Karachi!”
This movie is ridiculously entertaining. It’s arguably the last great anti-PC action-comedy that’s been around in the last decade. It’s got 2 Americans in France killing Chinese drug dealers and muslim terrorists. Seriously, when’s the last time (if any time) any action film went after those 2 birds with one stone? When’s the last time any American film (albeit with some French production) had fun at the expense of either one of those? Just that alone, in hindsight, makes this film worth watching.
But make no mistake, this film is a dumb film on-par with Michael Bay Transformers level of dumb. On the other hand, this film is very much self-aware of that fact. Once John Travolta shows up, it’s impossible not to feel the “give no shits” attitude this film has. It’s a film that just wants to provide a good dumb fun time, and it succeeds tremendously. The stereotypes, the effort made in the action sequences (sure there’s plenty of quick cuts, which weren’t all that bad by my standards; but damnit, they used squibs and a lot of non-CG special effects, and that’s more than appreciated in this day and age), the lines of dialogue; like these spoken after Travolta killed a bunch of Chinese guys:
“How many more of them do you think there are?”
“Last census, about a billion.”
How can you not laugh at something like that? Well, I guess if you’re oversensitive regarding jokes like that, I could see your point. It’s a shitty point that ruins everyone else’s day, but I see it.
The high point of the film’s ludicrous nature has to be during the car chase. Travolta glances at his handgun, shakes his head, and says, “This isn’t going to stop him. Do you have anything better?” Because of course you couldn’t just shoot the muslim guy through the window, or take out one of the tires. No, that would be too easy for a finale like this. So then he gets a giant fucking bazooka that just so happens to be in that vehicle. At that point, I just had to laugh. It’s so over-the-top and ridiculous that it’s great.
Highly recommended.
PS: Hopefully that’s the last we will have heard from Bitch Tits.
You know, I tend to get sick of the fact that the only films I’m willing to drag myself to the theaters for nowadays are either Clint Eastwood films, Mel Gibson films, and these glorified Hallmark Christian films. Because, for starters, Eastwood and Gibson films are too few and far between, and Eastwood looks to be on the verge of croaking while Gibson looks to be assassinated by Israeli special forces at any moment. And 99% of all Hallmark-like films suck (except for Miracles From Heaven, which surprised the hell out of me). And I expected this to be, at best, another Gosnell-like flick whose heart is in the right place, but the talent isn’t (mainly due to the music and/or the dialogue). Because believe me, when I say I want these movies to be good, I really fucking mean it. But Hollywood has gobbled up all the real talent, and brainwashed them into delivering messages that tend to either ignore or preach the opposite message.
So what I’m saying is, I’m currently still willing to shell out cash for films like these while they remain bare-able to sit through just for the sake of principle. But there may come a day where I just can’t do it anymore. Because ultimately, I want quality films, not this sort of thing that belongs in a direct-to-video bin but manages to get a theatrical release because of the significance of its message.
Goddamnit…
So, with that being said, I guess it’s an insult to call this film a glorified Hallmark movie because apparently this film is unworthy of being advertised on the Hallmark channel, and the Lifetime channel, and other channels owned by A&E, Discovery, and Disney (of course). And all I can think is, “Ok, seriously? The same cocksucking channels that give us those shitty Christmas films like Gift of the Magi, The Case for Christmas, When Angels Come to Town, Defending Santa, Have a Little Faith (they should take their own fucking advice), Ms. Scrooge, and Mr. St. Nick. Seriously? Unplanned is the film where they draw the quality line on? Christ, no wonder the films on those channels fucking suck. They wouldn’t know a good film if Jesus shoved it up their corporate-controlled asses while saying, “Here, you’ll probably enjoy taking this up the ass about as much as Mr. Corporate Devil Cockmeister fists you on occasion. You see why we didn’t tolerate buttfucking homos in the Old Testament now?”” Those were my thoughts exactly. But hey, at least Mike Lindell of My Pillow fame (because babies are made from pillowing) donated $1 million to help with independent advertising for the film.
“Feel like having an abortion? Try having one on My Pillow! My pillows are so soft, smooth, relaxing, and effective, they’ll soak up any and all blood and baby parts that come spurting out of your vagina! Guaranteed or your money back!”
… *sigh* …
“I love your pillow. It’s a great pillow, tremendous. It soaks up all those piss-stains.”
Guess I gotta get to the actual movie at some point don’t I? At least if I intend to make this an actual review?
First off I gotta say, unlike with Gosnell, I didn’t do much research into the events of this film prior to seeing it, so I can’t make many statements regarding how accurate or inaccurate the events in the film are. It was basically a spur-of-the-moment thing to see this film when I found it was was coming out the next day. So, I guess you could say me going to see this film was (puts on sunglasses), unplanned.
But I can safely say that the protagonist looks nothing like her real life counterpart, not unless she wanted to put a few dozen pounds onto her weight; and her face.
Reality on the right, fiction on the left.
So the film starts out basically as I expected. Scripted dialogue.
“Well, isn’t all dialogue in film technically scripted?”
“Yeah, but it’s not supposed to fucking feel like it’s scripted! Their words are supposed to sound natural!”
That’s the thing I hate the most about these Christian films. They tend to be made by preachers who are so preachy they don’t even bother putting in effort to drop the pretense of dialogue written by preachers. To be fair, some lesbian films like The Incredible True Adventure of Two Girls in Love suffer from the same issue (minus being written by religious preachers), but this primarily dominates films from production companies like Pure Flix (the one that made this movie). Or certain pro-military films like Act of Valor. But I hate it, no matter what kind of movie it’s in.
So with that form of negative expectation checked off, guess what the next one is that gets fulfilled? That’s right, shitty music. This movie has plenty of that when it would’ve been better just being silent during certain scenes (might also have helped with the budget, if that was ever a concern).
So within the first few minutes, this film has already checked two items off the “Things I fucking hate in film” list. More “scripted” dialogue follows, typical directing, average acting…
… then all of a sudden the film hits you with a gut-punch of a moment that will make you sick to your stomach. I have to admit, considering how toned down that Gosnell film was given the nature of the subject matter, and the fact that this film was made by a Christian company, I was not expecting the disturbing moment that comes up during the film’s introduction. It made me squirm, and that is not easy to do. You see a pregnant woman patient, you see the ultrasound of the baby, and you see this tube get inserted into there near the baby, who kicks away at it and tries to stay away from it. And then a switch flips, and the tube becomes a vacuum cleaner, and you see blood getting sucked though the tubes, and eventually you see the baby getting sucked through too, getting crushed from limbs to skull. And you see much of it sprayed into this clear container.
I mean, holy fuck. I’ve seen some violent/disturbing moments in film before. But this one really got to me.
And then something else that hits relatively high (but not as high) on the “disturbing” meter happens soon after. When the protagonist takes these pills that are supposed to induce abortion on a chemical level, making her bleed the baby parts out. And then the agonizing pain that follows, all the blood that seeps out, and the little unrecognizable mini-chunks of baby that come out.
At that point, despite how much they may have bitched about it, I found the R rating the film received to be appropriate. For a production company that prides itself on Christian values and being family-friendly, this is not a family friendly film. Not so long as it has those sequences in it. But without those sequences, this film would lose any impact it wished to have on the audience. Those 2 sequences are the key moments to making this film work.
While that does sound like a pro, it ends up being a con. Not because the movie shouldn’t have included those sequences. Like I said, those sequences are the main selling point of this entire film. The problem is that the first vacuum sequence occurs way too early. The film blows its load within the first 10 minutes. All because the movie wanted to do a, “This is what is going to happen, but let’s jump 6+ years into the past to see how she got there,” type of introduction. A film like this would’ve benefited greatly from just sticking with a chronological order. I mean, it’s already got that abortion pill sequence to let audiences know how rough this thing can get, and that could only be done early on in the film. But the vacuum sequence, the penultimate sequence that serves as the game-changer for our protagonist and the main turning point in the movie that all the other bits of violence and horror was building up to; they put that at the very beginning? And they thought this was a good idea? Well on the one hand, that would give people a chance to gag and puke before they consumed too much popcorn and soda. On the other hand, it’s a dumb decision that messes with the flow of the film.
Hence to say, once you get past those two disturbing sequences, the rest of the film is a cakewalk. If you can endure the forced dialogue. As the film went on, I eventually got absorbed into it. I’m not sure if it’s because the dialogue improved as the film went on, or if I just got used to the “scripted” nature of it the same way you get used to the scripted nature of a professional wrestling match. Either way, it didn’t bother me as much.
I also wasn’t initially a fan of the whole “tell don’t show” method of narration that occurred through a good portion of the runtime, especially during the first act. But by the middle and last act, it actually felt proper.
I was also surprised to see both myself and the protagonist getting used to the environment and working at a Planned Parenthood clinic, with the co-worker comradery, general day-to-day life at the clinic, etc. And while that was nice and all (I guess), I did wish the film would show more of life away from that subject matter for our protagonist. I mean, most films tend to at least not make everything all about the subject matter initially. Everything tended to revolve around “baby this,” “pregnancy that,” “abortion here,” “anti-abortion there.” For fuck’s sake, can’t we get to know these characters outside of their work? Like have them go to a baseball game and discuss, I don’t know, anything besides babies, patients, and Jesus. You see what I mean about preachers being the script writers?
In any case, the film gets its message across effectively. It has a nice anti-climactic court room scene (there aren’t enough of those done as well as this movie managed, which is another thing that surprised me) to basically end things on. It’ll make you hate Planned Parenthood and abortion in general. And… yeah.
While Gosnell made a strong case against late-term abortion (which seems futile considering post-birth abortion seems to be a thing now, you demented fucks), this film tends to be against abortion altogether, at least for those 8 weeks into pregnancy and beyond. And there’s one other film coming out soon to complete this “trilogy” of pro-life films titled Roe v. Wade. And to be honest, judging from the trailer alone, it looks really fucking bad. I’m not looking forward to it, in spite of its historical message.
Anyway, all in all, Unplanned is a film I consider to be slightly superior to Gosnell, and I can give it a partial recommendation, assuming you know what you’re in for. If nothing else, you could probably walk out after the first 10 minutes if you don’t think you can stand the rest. Because, really, they put the most significant moments of the film in the first act.
The whole film is designed to be a feminine knee to the groin to us men who still have a pair of balls. From pre-production to post-production to the film’s release and post-release, the cast and production company, plus various half-assed review sites, have done nothing but taunt us. And speaking of taunting us and having half an ass, Brie Larson fits that description perfectly. She wants less white men around about as much as she wants to have less of an ass. Her and everyone else involved are completely aware of the fact that men love asses they can bounce a quarter off of, so what better way to put the joke on us by providing a lead with an ass where that’s physically impossible. In fact, her ass defies the laws of physics. It’s not only an ass incapable of bouncing, it does the opposite. So if some poor schmuk decides he’s lucky enough to get laid by her, when he tries to penetrate/pound that ass hard enough to prove that it’s bounce-able, he will instead get sucked right into it, and then get shit out from the front end.
And he won’t survive the ordeal because her pussy will fuck you up. Her pussy shreds her underwear to the point that it’s in style like it was at Victoria’s Secret. So don’t believe Scarface what Scarface says. When a cop points to the scar on his face and asks, “Where’d you get the beauty scar tough guy? Eating pussy?” The answer should most definitely be yes. Samuel Jackson had to find that out the hard way, except the pussy ended up shredding his eye out rather than his cheek. Not to mention her pussy has a void all its own as well, that’s why tentacles and shit come out of it. That pussy spent too much time in Japan, maybe even too much time around Takashi Miike; it will also want to rape guys with those things so that they know how it feels.
But, of course, what makes a superhero special isn’t necessarily the powers they have gained or were given. It’s not necessarily the skills they’ve acquired. It’s not necessarily the experience they have. Hell no. It’s about what sex they are, or what sex they decide to define themselves as, and what sex they want to have sex with. Because that’s an achievement based on merit which makes the world proud to view them as a savior. Consider what would be so special about a gay guy, and what would make his merits stand out on his resume.
“‘We are proud of our gay son.’ I so I was saying, ‘That’s an odd thing to be proud of.’ Because, it’s not an achievement, you know. It’s not something you work all your life to be gay or anything like that. […] These 50-60 year old men are actually bragging at work like, ‘Hey Bill, uh, my kid, we’re proud of him, Johnny. He had graduated from Harvard, first in his class. Now he’s articling over at Harvard law firm and uh… oh and he loves cock! He can’t get enough cock in his mouth, his ass. I got a picture of the boy here sucking another man’s cock that I wanna show you.'”
It’s the same case with women. It doesn’t matter their merits, it just matters that they’re their. And if they love pussy, all the better, it will make them fit in with the men. Next thing you know being in shape won’t be a requirement either, because we can’t shame the fat-asses from joining, especially those Latina chicks. We gotta get them early before their ass fat spreads to the rest of their body. We need an army build on diversity damnit! Merit doesn’t matter anymore!
“So, are you finished?”
Nope, I’m just getting started baby. All those rant paragraphs before are just me getting warmed up before I tackle this movie. And I’m not going to tackle this one sober. Time to get all fucked up.
“Wait, so you’re going to get blasted at a movie theater?”
While that is certainly a possibility, there are 2 problems with that.
1.) The alcoholic beverages are more overpriced at the theaters that sell them than they are at a fucking bar.
2.) I’d rather not give Disney my fucking money for this film, especially when both those working within the company, and the stars of Marvel films in general, tend to hate people like me; even when we’re being reasonable. So if they’re not going to be reasonable with me, then I’m not going to be reasonable with them.
So if I’m not going to pay for it via some streaming service or at a theater, then what am I going to do?
…
“Thar she blows maytee! And she is blowin’ hard! Hand me a battle of the Caribbean Rum Jim, I’m going to need it before tackling this mighty beast. After we’re done, the drinks are on me and we’ll go chasing wenches in circle like we used to be able to do at some fantasy place in Disneyland.”
Official movie poster.
Rated: I’ll tell you later
“The motherfucker who makes your fries at McDonald’s puts more effort into his job than this writing team put into this abortion of a script!”
— Weaponized Nerd Rage
So, the tribute to Stan Lee is nice. Something they should absolutely do again for Endgame. You know, to provide a proper closing. To mark the end of an age. To remind us all of the good times Marvel used to have. Especially since he probably died of a heart attack after watching this movie and seeing how much his legacy has been, and is going to be, desecrated.
Speaking of which, looks like the fucking apocalypse is already upon us. The film opens with darkness and ash and explosions and rubble flying all over the place. The feminists have won and are taking over. We need fucking Jean Luc Picard to travel back in time with the Enterprise again to stop all this. Back to the 90s, quick, before Michael J. Fox develops Parkinson’s!
She has blue blood on her hands. Oh my God, she killed the Smurfs. Huh. Maybe I’m going to enjoy this movie after all.
Oh, it was just a dream. Hopefully that nightmare will never come to pass.
Capital of the Kree civilization. Normally I’d say this doesn’t look half bad, except that every futuristic planet, whether human or alien, has been looking the same ever since Blade Runner. The only difference is whether they want to shoot it in the daytime or at night.
Kree sounds nice. It’s one letter away from being “free.” Just like “Hero” is one later away from being “Her,” which is also one letter away from being “He.” Muahahahah! You ladies can’t escape from us lads! You’ll always be building off of our backs!
“Do you know what times it is?”
“Can’t sleep.”
It’s the fucking daytime! Well, then again, maybe this is more like Alaska. It’s an alien planet. For all we know, it has 2 suns, maybe 3. Doesn’t seem to have stopped this “alien” planet from being populated with humans apparently.
“Wanna fight?”
Careful lady. We all know how that turned out when Ryan Gosling asked that question (in the film that Stranger Things totally didn’t steal the music from).
In all fairness, the fight scene wasn’t half bad. Showcasing how, uh, screw it, I’m just going to call her Brie for now. Showcasing how Brie isn’t at the top of her game yet because she gets too emotional at times. You know, like how people are going to get triggered at this review. “I can’t beat him fairly. Unleash superpower weapon, haaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!” Superpower being bitch and moan and whine and cry until moderators/corporations/politicians/authority gives them what they want. Speaking of which, guess she has to go see “Supreme Intelligence.” Which means she’ll have to go to puppet land and talk to Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
“What is the point of giving me *these* [gesturing her fists] if you don’t want me to use them.”
Try asking Bruce Lee about the art of fighting without fighting.
“Stop using *this* [points at the heart] and start using *this* [points to the head]. I want you to be the best version of yourself.”
I like this guy. He has great advice for mental focus in fighting. Here’s hoping he doesn’t turn into the villain later.
So the “Supreme Intelligence” can take any form, and takes for for each person who meets Supreme Intelligence (Jesus Christ, can’t they give it a name with fewer fucking syllables?). And it takes the form of a woman in her 60s. Her message is going to be, “So kids, vote for Democrats and people like Hillary during the next election season. If men give you shit, protest by rubbing period blood on your face and running around naked and shouting. Because no man in the world will want to fuck with you ever again once you start doing that. And they will so take you seriously.”
“It’s all blank. My life.”
And your face.
“Put your people’s needs before your own. We’ve given you a great gift. […] Master yourself. What was given can be easily taken away.”
Ok, this is setting up for something. Either Brie is going to go berserk and force them to take the power away from her (ala Thor), or the Kree and Supreme Intelligence (I’m just going to call it SI, and don’t fucking confuse that with the Spanish language!) are going to turn out to be the bad guys (like “The Dude” in Iron Man).
Hey! It’s Korath! That one guy no one really gives a shit about from Guardians of the Galaxy! Can’t wait to hear his backstory that no one cares about.
Ok, I have to admit. So far, despite my petty bitching, the first 8 minutes actually isn’t all that bad. I’m just taking bets for how long it will take before the movie fucks it all up.
Wait. So your going in to locate your spy, and then leave? What, no exchange of information? No rescue operation? Or are they just leaving out that bit of information? Eh, screw it. I’ll just wait and see what happens.
“Nothing compromises the security of this mission,” he says while looking at Brie. Jee, I wonder if she’s going to compromise the security of the mission.
Hexagon shields. You know, if they were really that advanced, they’d be using triangle shields.
Phahahahahah! Hahahahahah! Ok, I heard they were doing callbacks to the 90s with this film. But a fucking mohawk for their hair/helmet/armor style? Seriously? You haven’t even time traveled yet! Then again, maybe this is their way of saying the 80s and 90s had awesome hair styles. To which I will say… you’re goddamn right they did!
Ooooooooooh. The enemy can shape-shift. And here I started thinking they were just being portrayed as being misunderstood beings who want peace.
Great. Brie thinks she’s ready for the military; next thing you know, she gets taken out and captured.
Whoop. Timeline jump! Now we’re on Earth. Guess the aliens are starting to brainwash her. They must be brainwashing her, because she walking all proud and smug and full of herself while in uniform. You’re in an Army uniform (or Airforce, whatever), not in an MMA outfit. If you want to act as smug as Ronda Rousey, at least do that much.
“My ass looks better than yours. Damn right, it’s better than yours!”
“Where’s your head at?”
“In the clouds. Where’s yours?”
“In Wakanda.”
Though all jokes aside, let us take a moment of silence for the air force pilot/consultant who gave the cast and crew pointers about real-life F-16 pilots/fighters, and then died in an F-16 crash. Normally I’d say “Semper-fi,” but that’s a marine thing. Guess I’ll go with, “Aces High.”
“Gotta show these boys how we do it.”
… I’ll let that slide. Just fun banter between the girls.
Holy shit! She’s going to fly and crash into a circus tent!
Wait, what? A flashback within a flashback? Ok, you know what? Fuck you movie.
“You’re going too fast! You need to go slow!”
Says the “boy.” Oh God. I’m sensing a pattern here. A fighting instructor who tells her to keep her emotions in check. An “intelligence” telling her to more or less do the same. And some random kid in a race cart telling her not to push herself. There’s 2 possibilities, though just bringing this up is completely fucking rhetorical, especially when considering we’re dealing with a Disney flick. Either she really is outta control and too much of a daredevil for her own good and needs to reign herself in (getting captured by the aliens seems to indicate as much), or the men and the boys are holding her back too much, and she needs to let loose and show them how it’s done. Because having a bit of restraint is always a bad thing. Says the guy who’s making a drunken rant about a movie with alleged feminist propaganda.
And then she crashes and burns and dies!!!! Ahahahahahah! Ok, I take it back. I think this movie is leaning towards the former.
“What the hell are you thinkin’? You don’t belong out here!”
— Brie’s dad?
Uhhh…
Another timeline transition to army camp, where she’s climbed atop a rope and intends to jump to the next rope.
*guy laughter* “You’re not strong enough!”
She tries to jump to the next rope, fails, then falls.
“They’ll never let you fly.”
Grrrrrr…
“You’re a decent pilot, but you’re too emotional.”
Ok, I know I’m getting ahead of the movie here, but this guy is full of shit. “Too emotional” is not a trait Brie’s face possesses.
You know, all this jumping around with the timeline, and showing the orange-haired pussy. You’d think the film would take its own motherfucking advice and fucking “Focus.”
Holy shit. She turned into Samus Aran! Seriously, the way that “gun” thing attached to her hand looks (and speaking of female protagonists of the past who kick ass).
A Skrull screeches at her, she screeshes back. ROFL!
But honestly, I’m tired of these action sequences Marvel comes out with. All of them are assisted of CG, none of them compare to actual honest to God martial arts sequences made by Asians that Disney attempts a hollow recreation of (let alone the fight scene from Only God Forgives). They peaked with Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Everything else went downhill from there. It’s just monotonous at this point. If you’re going to have a fight sequence, either try to make it really fucking good, or just make the damn thing character-focused. One of the best pointless fight sequences ever is in The Girl From Naked Eye. One of the best character-driven fight sequences is Luke vs. Vader in The Empire Strikes Back.
I’m only 20 minutes into this movie. I’m getting worried about my ability to keep going at the rate I’m consuming alcohol. Maybe doing 20 push-ups will help.
*20 push-ups later*
Focused again. Let’s see you judgemental motherfuckers try doing 20 push-ups while shit-faced. I bet half of you reading this couldn’t do it while sober. “Well why don’t you try making us look bad by doing 50 push-ups you pansy ass?” Because I’m not in the military like Brie, much less the airforce! I don’t have pecs you can bounce cherry’s off of and have women from all over the world salivate over like Dwayne Johnson does!
If a woman’s tits can do that, I would love to fucking see it! Seriously, please, send me a link to an image where that happens.
Holy shit. She is using those things like Samus Aran. What the fuck Disney? Why don’t you try making a Metroid movie? Please! With all this pro-feminism stuff you’re shove down our cocksucking throats, and with the amount of power-grabbing you’ve been doing in the film industry, that should be easy pickings for you.
Ok, I see where this is going. She’s learning about how strong she really is when she lets loose and just goes all out with her powers (of feminism). She can hold her own, take out a bunch of aliens fuck up their ship, and then hijack it (or at least attempt to). Guess all the “men” and “boys” were wrong about her after all. Next thing you know, Doctor Ruth will be telling her how she can dominate men sexually.
Heheh, and she blasts the computer monitor showing a man giving her advice.
Whoah, wait, what the fuck? So a Skrull blasts one of the controller parts to the escape pod she’s operating, and she still somehow manages to use it to escape the ship? And he taunts her before she hijacks it after that? Well now I feel like shaking my head back and forth violently just because I’m pissed and not because of the fucking booze.
Looks like the ship is blowing up too. Whatever.
Now you see, this is why I’m not really into these superhero films anymore, not since Civil War. These fucking people, these fucking plots. There isn’t any real stakes to the action sequences that go on for 90% of the time. Why should we be worried about the protagonist when they’re faced against a dozen enemies that can physically assault them, when they’re capable of re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere? Why should be be concerned about the protagonists when they get blasted by some lazer beam (whether from a weapon or from someone’s hands, or eyes, or ass, or crotch, or tits), when their sparring partner shrugs that off during a training session? Why should we ever give a rat’s ass about the action sequences when we are incapable of knowing what their limits are, let alone when they are pushing those alleged limits? I just don’t really give a shit anymore about the superhero franchise because of this stuff. It’s also why Batman is my favorite of the bunch (yeah, I know he’s not Marvel, but so the hell what?). At least he’s relatable. At least we know he’s human like the rest of us, and is thus susceptible to the same kind of harm we face everyday, Hollywood actions scenes where they take three times the amount of damage any normal in-shape person would be capable of sustaining aside. It would help if we could at least be shown the superhero’s limitations. Fuck, I need to watch One Punch Man at some point.
Ah yes, the Blockbuster video crash. She’s the reason why they went Bankrupt, and now have to make their last stand in Oregon! Why couldn’t she crash into an adult toy shop and long on a giant fucking dildo? That’s the only thing that would want to penetrate her flat ass.
Pfft. She sees someone, and her first reaction is to blast it (but it’s a poster). Way to show how inconsequential letting loose your powers/emotions can be.
“Veers to Starforce command, do you copy?”
“This is Buzz Lightyear, I read you loud and clear. Help me become real!”
Let the 90s nostalgia fly! In all honesty, I was a Blockbuster person in the day (even if I had to deal with shitty DVDs and VHS tapes that customers somehow managed to scratch/fuck up; what the fuck kind of lessons in responsibility were those asshats taught?), but I was never really into RadioShack. Do think it would make for an interesting location for a zombie apocalypse film though. Now with that said, I’d like to see her kick the ever-loving-shit out of Bill Cliton, and then have the power rangers gang-bang her (that includes the yellow ranger, and whoever else was a female ranger), and then have Stone Cold Steve Austin give her a stunner, and then proceed to pour concrete into her pansy escape pod while giving it the birdy. And then let’s see how well she stands up against moon shoes, skateboards, roller blades, pokemon, animaniacs, , and Super Saiyans! While she’s in the hospital, she can watch Daria to recover emotionally.
And now the Beach Girls are coming after her.
Wait, what the fuck? The Kree are 24 hours away from Earth, after doing a fucking mission on a planet where she was captured and then crashed onto Earth a few hours later!?!?!? ‘Dis is what, as they say in the 90s, bullshit! And the whole collect call for galactic communication is bullshit too.
“Have you ever been to CB53?”
“Once. It’s a real shithole.”
Considering how the aliens tend to always land in either California, or New York, or Washington DC, I tend to agree. Now just imagine if they landed in Mexico, or China, or somewhere in Africa or the Middle East.
“Witness says she was dressed for lazer tag.”
And if there were more kids playing lazer tag today compared to the 90s, there’s a decent chance there would be less fatasses running around. You can say what you want about lazer tag being cheesy and made for infants, us motherfuckers who know what real lazer tag is like know that you have to be in as much shape for that shit as you would for paintball! Run! Jump over the barricade, turn 180 degrees, and shoot the motherfucker chasing you, assuming you don’t get your digital brains blown out by the guy who was after you! On a personal note, that shit was more fun than this movie.
You know, I have to admit. As much as I expect to dislike this movie, that Stan Lee cameo does tug at the heartstrings.
So I was ok with the fight sequence on the train (just “ok” with it, not considering it as good or bad), up until the point where after she break free of the 3 guys who were holding her back (why they would attempt to restrain her after seeing the backflips granny could do, I wouldn’t know, I’d be sitting back and eating my popcorn watching the event unfold if I was on that train at that point). But the moment after that, when she’s pursuing the alien and picking up the crystal, everyone seems way too fucking casual at that point. You’d think everyone would be wide-eyed and in shock. I mean, it’s the fucking 90s for Christ’s sake. Films like this haven’t been invented yet, even if that generation would be salivating over the idea of a film where some young broad would kick the shit out of an grandma. That’s like every 90s teenager’s wet dream, next to getting married to The Little Mermaid and banging Sharon Stone.
“I’m still at the Blockbuster.”
Now wait a goddamn minute. When the fuck did the Skrull manage to pull off that infiltration technique without anyone noticing? Amidst all the police and SHIELD agents? That’s just stupid, just like Rotten Tomatoes deleting 40k+ reviews.
Hey Jackson, shouldn’t you be calling in a top secret team for Area 51 or something to cover up this alien activity? Or do you want Mulder and Scully to show up and blow the case wide open?
“Nice scuba suit. Lighten up honey, got a smile for me?”
Yeheheheh. Hehe. Hehe. Ehe-shaddup movie.
She just stole the jacket off that mannequin and exposed its tits! She’s fucking sexist!
“How’s your eye.”
“It’s fine.”
Yeah, a fake-out over Nick Fury lost his eye. Nice try movie. We all know from Winter Soldier that he lost his eye because he trusted someone too much. Someone is going to stab him in the back to cause him to lose his eye. And this shouldn’t be the movie to make that happen. Should be some espionage flick, preferably with Black Widow.
This is fucking stupid! There’s no fucking way the buttfucking Skrulls could’ve infiltrated SHIELD personnel this quickly without being noticed! What the fuck kind of an operation are they running here? Just because this takes place in the 90s doesn’t mean they can get away with 90s film logic. This isn’t a fucking Andy Sidaris film, which I would be watching instead of this, especially if I wanted to see a nice girl with a great ass.
Uh, where is Brie going on that motorcycle? How would she know where to go? Is she just driving around for the fuck of it like Easy Rider? Explain movie! Explain!!!
Flashbacks at a bar, including on a Street Fighter II machine. Captain Marvel is so Mary Sue, she’ll whip anyone’s ass at Street Fighter II. We’ll see what Sirin has to say about that (that’s an in-joke reference only the most hardcore of gamers would get).
A bar with air force photos? Ok, now this film is being way too fucking coincidental. Just like in The Force Awakens, where they’re all like, “Hey look, let’s pilot the Millennium Falcon!” *8 minutes later* “Hey look, there’s Hand Solo and Chewy to take the Falcon back!” Damn you Disney and you lazy plot contrivances!
WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!?!? How the fuck did fucking Jules track fucking Brie to that fucking bar? Even for a fucking superhero film this is pushing the state of disbelief too far. How the fuck did he pull that off? Did he get into communication with Picard and say something like, “Energize me motherfucker!” and then just teleport to the fucking bar that they fucking knew she would fucking be at even though fucking technology didn’t develop fucking tracking devices that fucking far in the fucking 90s?
“Grunge is a good look for you.”
Grunge is a good look for anyone. Especially with how shitty music is today. Go back to the 90s when music actually mattered, like with Nirvana and Alice in Chains.
“I was never one to believe in aliens. But I can’t un-see that. Especially when their dicks are bigger than mine.”
“This is gonna get a little awkward, but I gotta ask.”
“Yes, I looked at it.”
“Can’t be too careful.”
“Ok, fine. I thought about sucking it too.”
Jesus Christ! What the fuck is going on!? Fury decides to immediately spill his guts (metaphorically), put his trust in her, and then take this alien bitch to a top secret base? Would’ve been more interesting if SHIELD ambushed her and took her there by force, and then Fury got to know her by interrogating her on the way there or something. Hell, I can’t imagine him being so trusting after being a Cold War spy. This film is bullshit.
“Lightspeed? Can’t admit that’s the craziest thing I’ve heard today.”
Yeah, until you hear about the Enterpise’s warp speed. I’m sorry; this fucking film makes it too goddamn tempting to resist make Star Trek and Star Wars jokes. They’re practically writing themselves. Weaponized Nerd Rage was wrong about this film, this movie is 100% riff-able.
Brie Larson isn’t worthy of wearing a NIN shirt. She should be wearing a fucking Heart shirt, at best. She’s not worthy of sporting grunge rock.
“Impressive.”
“Oh. You should see what I can do with a paper clip.”
The potential for that line, especially in the context of espionage and stuff kept from the eyes of the public. Operation Paperclips anyone?
You know, Brie, there’s less evidence of a break-in if you let Fury use his tape trick to open a door as opposed to blowing the fucking thing open. On the other hand, I guess enough time has passed in this film to where you just had to blow something.
You know, at some point, you just have to take a step back and ask yourself just what the fuck these people are doing. Seriously. What is going on here? How did we get from tracking down Skrulls on the planet, to going to a top secret base and looking at classified documents? I don’t get it. Asking about flight plans, the writing style of some individual. Can we just have Cthulhu show up to bring the whole thing full circle or something? Why the hell are these people here and why the fuck are they going through secret documents! What the fuck does that have to do with the Skrulls? Why the fuck should Brie even give a shit? Guess she doesn’t, which is why she looks bored half the time. Goddamnit, you’re making me want to watch a different movie. And that orange pussy isn’t tempting me to stick around. Seriously, what the fuck kind of a top secret facility is this where security cameras aren’t around to make sure the areas are clear (Terminator 2 certainly had them at an insane asylum for Sarah Conner, another chick more badass in the 90s than Brie is in the 2010s)? What the fuck kind of a top secret facility has animals just wandering around? Security guards would be using that orange pussy for practice. Donald Trump would be paying a visit to that security by now and grabbing that pussy, especially since it matches the color of his hair.
“You ok?”
She’s fine! Her wooden face expression hasn’t fucking changed at all since you entered the fucking room, much less the facility!
Regular hero, superhero, the face expression stays the same.
WHAT THE FLYING FUCK!?!?!? She’s communicating to her space/alien superiors using a fucking phone from the fucking top secret military base!? How the fuck is security not on top of this?
“It’s a Marvel superhero movie. It’s not supposed to be taken seriously.”
Oh blow me! You don’t use that excuse on Batman vs. Superman, let alone Justice League, or a Michael Bay flick! And to all you fat tranny bitches with died hair, that’s not a literal invitation to blow me. Learn about metaphors in Creative Writing 101 when your not sucking off your professor in Liberal Arts class.
Seriously, this Kree infiltration is bullshit. Don’t the screenwriters know anything about buildup? Tension-building? Like letting the audience know that the Skrulls (that sounds like a 70s gangbanger) have been on Earth for a while, and have infiltrated the government on several levels or something? ‘Cause as far as I can tell, we’re to believe that these illegal aliens landed and infiltrated 1, maybe 2 days ago tops. Yeah, there’s that bit about some cunt-fingering Skrull who has been there long enough to write in a book that was confiscated by a top secret agency, but we’re not exactly getting a smooth introduction into this whole thing.
“But this was made for Marvel fanboys, and fangirls, and fanneutrals.”
The hell it was! This film retcons more shit in the Marvel comic universe than Iron Man 3 did! And the fanneutrals can kiss Bender’s shiny metal ass!
Mar-vel? Ah. Ahahahahah. Ahahah. Ahahahahahahahahah! Ok, when does the plumber or milkman show up, and when does the porn start? The plot is at that level at this point. You mine as well as start calling someone Peaches, Tess Tingler, Butt Eiful, and Lick Bait.
How you get me to watch an Ant Man movie.
It’s very fucking apparent at this point that the Kree are full of shit. If they build this up to some, “What a twist!” moment, I swear to God, I’m going to choke a fucking chicken after drop-kicking a pussy- … -cat through the ceiling.
Ok, I guess this flew over my head earlier because it’s so stupid. And because I’m drunk. Brie’s character name is Vers. Not well versed in acting is she? You see how fucking easy this film is making things for me? It’s making it too easy! I’m only 50 minutes into this thing, and I’ve spent over 3 fucking hours trying to get through this thing! I should be watching fucking Blankman!
Brbrbrbrb!!! And they didn’t see her come out that door on the stairway!? You know what, fuck it. I’m going to try not to care. The film’s shit has already hit the fan at this point, so I mine as well as stop worrying about the dingle-berries.
Security guards disappearing until conveniently showing up later during action sequences.
I take it back. As much as the potential would be great to have Fury’s eye blown out during a Black Widow movie, it’s possible to have some Skrull do it who is impersonating one of his close associates.
“Do you know how to fly this thing?”
[…]
“Yes.”
Piss off.
And they fly through a hanger where the doors to the landing bay are wide open, at a top secret military facility. … Go fuck yourself, with a cactus.
The fucking pussy cat is on the fucking plane too!? Jesus Christ, that does it. I need something else to watch. This is driving me nuts. Wait, scratch that. I don’t need something else to watch. I need something else to read. Fuck Marvel and fuck DC. Save me Patriotika! Show them how a real superwoman with a great bust and a great ass can really kick ass, without the plot contrivances.
6 years ago? Maybe she was a Russian who Tom Cruise blasted out of the sky during the 80s. Makes about as much sense as the rest of this shit.
Hey! Vers (aka Brie Larson) can smile! Fuck this movie for shaming men otherwise for asking her to do so earlier in the film! Her acting and emotions are still forced though. It’s like she’s uncomfortable when she has to emote, and is more comfortable when she’s not giving a shit.
Was that the main baddie from Thor: The Dark World? I thought it was widely accepted that he was one of, if not the, weakest villains in the MCU? Guess Disney really does know their audience.
Nick Fury is a glorified lap dog in this movie.
Well, Vers uses her powers to heat up a tea kettle. Nice to see that women are returning to the kitchen. Now if only she would take that fucking NIN shirt off. For one thing, she doesn’t deserve to wear it. For another, hey, be nice to give us some fan service. No? Well that’s fine, other fans did it for us. Rule 34 and all.
What? Were you expecting me to push the envelope after the last image? Get used to disappointments, like I have.
Phahah! I love how the editing works with her conversation with her black friend. How she’s shown to be chuckling and smiling one moment as a, “The good old times,” one moment, only to see her “bored out of her mind” face expression 2 cuts later. “This is bullshit, I did not hit her. I did naught. … Oh hi Mark.”
He’s an alien who kidnapped her and brainwashed her to the ways of his world before returning her to Earth. It all makes sense now!
Is her black friend looking at her lines at various points during this conversation?
Where’s the fucking orange pussy at? Shouldn’t the little girl be playing with it right now?
Ok, I don’t know if that moment with the Skrull drinking soda out of a cup was supposed to be funny or not, but it managed to get me laughing.
Shame on this movie for not making a, “The cat’s out of the bag,” joke. It would’ve been stupid, but at least it wouldn’t be insulting my intelligence with trying to convince me that this is a smart movie. It’s fucking dumb. You mine as well as make fucking dumb jokes.
How would the Skrull be able to locate, steal, and bring about this CD with the audio recording? It’s… um… I don’t even… fuck it.
And she survives that crash? Without being knocked unconscious? But that’s… yay feminism!
“You’re blood. It’s blue.”
“Yeah, well, how’s my hair?”
I have a feeling I’ll be getting back to that line of logic.
Heheheheheh. Mar-Vel. An old alien lady who is dying and gives her final death speech to some woman whom she hopes will carry on the legacy after she is gone. Yep, seems like a good metaphor for Marvel studios today. We already have old hags fucking up the Star Wars legacy. Marvel is next on the chopping block.
Yep. The Skrulls turn out to be the good guys. The Kree turn out to be the villains. Like how “her” isn’t really a “hero.” Doop-dee-doo.
“Everything that I knew as a lie!”
So I guess you could say, *puts on sunglasses*, that you’ve been red pilled. Yeahhhhhhhh!!!
Her acting here after being red-pilled. It’s like Brie’s acting ability somehow gets worse as the movie goes on.
Refugees. People viewed as villains who are simply misunderstood like Maleficent. They’re really the good guys. A message told in the presence of women and black people. Like in reality. Dumb-de-dum-dumb. Now that we’ve got that bit of subliminal messaging out of the way…
Yeah, consider what kind of example you’ll set for your daughter. Help out a superhero who doesn’t need any help at the risk of leaving your daughter without a mother. It’s not enough that we’ve already got the “single mother” cliche going on here.
Brbrbrb! Where’d she get the superhero costume? Fuck it, nevermind.
Fuck off. The neon light suit was great!
“How do I look?”
Not as good as this:
You know, I’m pretty sure things would’ve worked out better if no Skrull stayed behind disguised as Superbitch to let Mr. Bruce Lee know that “she knows.” I’m thinking a better alternative was to scatter and let Mr. Villain search just a few hours more before the oh so convenient finale.
When blasting that ship off into space, shouldn’t the orange pussy be up against the back of the ship like last time?
Eye-roll moment of refugee family being on plot device ship. I thought you motherfuckers already dealt with the whole refugee metaphor in Thor: Ragnarok? Well, guess they gotta milk that message like they do the franchises they own.
Seriously? They’re playing the Nirvana song everyone’s heard in the Supreme Intelligence scene? How about you go a little more niche and play some fucking “Meat Puppets – Backwater” or something?
Alright already! Jesus! Stop bashing us over the head with the refugee theme! Oh those poor innocent illegal immigrants who in no way contribute to the crime statistics! Get fucked.
And the whole thing of, “She’s powerless to do anything about it.” Come on. Get it over with already so she can Mary Sue this shit. I’ve been bored with this move for an hour now.
And there it is. Finally. Going all Mary Sue. The cat too. So I can watch the rest of this care-free, until I drop it into the blue.
So somehow, their weaponry can’t destroy an Earth vessel. Mhmm.
Yadi-yada-fucking-yada. Earth ship and Earth pilot can outmaneuver and destroy an experienced top class alien ship and alien pilot..
Oh come on. Seriously? She just wiped out a space fleet. You expect there to be any tension in this final mono-y-mono showdown? Ah, but they decide not to have that mono-y-mono fight. Because they know she’s overpowered enough. And because she probably knows she’s not skilled enough without her powers to beat him. Ain’t that typical. On the other hand, it would’ve been more insulting if they did show it that way.
Yeah yeah yeah, refugee home feeling stuff. And Fury loses his eye over a pussy. By trusting someone too much in Winter Soldier, he meant trusting pussy too much. Put too much trust in the pussy, you’ll become partially blind to reason. Makes sense to me. Just get this film over with.
I have to admit, Samuel Jackson seems to be acting out of character when it comes to portraying Nick Fury in this film. I’m not kidding, this is not the Nick Fury I’ve seen in ALL of the previous Marvel films, from Iron Man and onwards. They toned down his seriousness more than they toned down Scarface in the edited for television version.
And thank fuck that’s over with.
It’s really hard to give a shit about this movie. It’s boring, and at times annoying. The only point in time when it had anything of interest to it was during the first 15 minutes, and that’s about it. I don’t get what people see in this movie to make it a box office hit. Plot contrivances, plot holes, betraying some of what was setup earlier in the franchise (and I’m sure there are Marvel fans who actually give a shit about this franchise who can tear this film a new one far better than I when it comes to contradictions and whatnot), and no tension whatsoever during the finale. This film may not have killed the franchise, but it certainly put the nail on the coffin. Maybe even hammered it in a small tap. If Endgame doesn’t hammer that nail down even further, the film after that certainly will.
Otherwise, like I said, I stopped really giving a shit ever since Civil War. I don’t have a dog in this fight other than rooting for the franchise’s downfall, and Disney’s destruction (or at least near-destruction until they change their ways). Just for the sake of getting more decent films (on average) back into theaters. Well, if this film, and the franchise, is so eager to capitalize on great stuff from the 90s and earlier, I say it’s only fair that I do the same, and continue watching films and shows from a better era. TV shows of today may be good for now, but even their downward spiral is beginning. It’s been happening ever since the last season of Game of Thrones. It’s all going to come crashing down like the gaming crash of the 80s. And I’m going to be stocking up in preparation for it.
So, in a nutshell, this film is dull. Pass.
Rated: 1.5 pussy farts / 5
PS: Guess how long it took Letterboxd to take this review down? I’ll give you a hint: it took less than 24 hours.
This review appears to be shadow-banned on letterboxd, so I’m porting it over here. Originally reviewed October 4, 2016.
“For example one teacher said that she felt that Darren Wilson wasn’t wrong, that she felt that he should’ve shot him.”
“And that’s what she said?”
“Yeah.”
“Verbatim?”
“Yeah.”
“What was the first thing y’all said in regards to how she felt?”
“My exact words were, ‘Man did you hear what she just said? She must be crazy.’ Those were my exact words. Like, when she said it, I couldn’t believe it like, i- it all saw makin’ me feel like, makin’ me wanna stay more distant from those teachers. Like, we can’t really relate so, how can you sit there and talk to me, like, I don’t understand.”
“If they catch us, we don’t know what could happen. We could be the next Mike Brown, for real. They wonder why we just take off running. It’s not that we doin’ anything bad, we scared to be around them. If they see young black kids, trouble, that’s what they think right off the bat, trouble.”
“Black folk are seen and thought to be innately criminal. Innately terrifying. More powerful, more strong, beastly. Which is why you can have a recording of Darren Wilson referencing Mike Brown as something other than human, as an ‘it’. And if that perception is guiding our engagements with folk, the biggest problem is not about the use of weapons alone, as in physical weapons, but as in the ideological weapons we need to rage war against.”
So I went in this documentary expecting to get pissed off. At the bias. Because if there’s anything I’ve learned about the Black Lives Matter movement over the past several months, it’s that the cases of police brutality they base the foundations of their cause on are horseshit. Case in point, Michael Brown. It doesn’t take long to debunk the whole, “He was an angel who did no wrong to the officer or to anybody,” theory. A video here, a video there, and you realize that the officer was in fact within his legal and logical rights to shoot that guy. But no matter. Once it made headlines by the biased sack of shit news media that chose to spin the story in the most racially-motivated way possible (as they continue to do to this day), the riots began.
Justice for Brown. Hands up, don’t shoot (a situation that didn’t happen at all, so even that is built upon a lie). So let’s also loot and burn down some buildings while we’re at it. The court house? The police station? No, that’s too dangerous, let’s take out the easy targets.
The riots were bullshit, and anyone who loots stores that had nothing to do with the events are sacks of shit, I don’t care if they’re crackers or niggers.
And of course the documentary didn’t cover any of that. Because the poor suffering black community has to be held in a shining light. It’s bullshit manipulation.
That being said, the documentary did go into a direction of understanding that I wasn’t expecting. Because the black community in Ferguson was (is) poor, the black community in Ferguson was (is) suffering. But it’s not because police are discriminately killing black people left and right because their racist emotions got the better of them. Oh no, it’s more logical than that, though no less anger-inducing. The city of Ferguson (and a portion of the city of St. Louis from what I understand) initially had a housing plan that developed in the 60s. Long story short, it fell through, and the city began doing horribly financially. And what’s the best way to generate income for the city if there is a sector of Missouri that isn’t offering a source of income due to failed businesses and minimum wage housing where the black community lives paycheck to paycheck (how and why the housing plan initially failed is left out of the documentary)? By ticketing the shit out of them. Get police to patrol areas and target low-wage earners for citations and ticketing, at which point they will go to court, where they can’t afford a lawyer, and they will most likely plead guilty to it, and they will be stuck having to pay off the fine, which is anything but cheap for them. Add onto that fact that there are more tickets that citizens living in the city, and you’ve got yourself a very bad state of affairs. But it got the city the money income it was looking for to keep itself going. And to make sure the process got more effective, they would hire more and more police officers.
“You need so many police officers that you start getting to a point where the quality of those police officers I think is being compromised, to say the least.”
This explains perfectly why there is such disdain between the black community and the police force. So why isn’t this in the news more often? Because it targets the higher ups? Top officials? Well if there’s any good that came out of this, it’s that ever since the riots and protests, despite how misdirected they were, something happened as a result of this.
“On March 4 [2015], the U.S. Department of Justice issued a scathing report of the Ferguson Police Department. It confirmed that officers violated constitutional rights by disproportionately targeting African-Americans and exploiting them as sources of revenue.”
As a result, the mayor and the police chief and a few others stepped down from their positions. Now one can only hope that progress will be made. But to be honest, I’m not entirely sure how. What is an honest and legal alternative mean for the city to generate income and not go bankrupt? Is progress being made towards such a goal? I don’t know. I’m not an expert on the subject, and I just don’t know. What I do know is that, if there’s to be protesting, it would go a lot better if they picked their spots and methods for protesting more logically. Such as in front of the court house where they are given their fines to pay, or in front of the police station where the cops are at who hand out these tickets, or at the mayor’s office.
There is an injustice being done in similar towns with similar black communities, but this isn’t a nationwide epidemic as far as racism is concerned. Believe me, if they could pull this off on a white community, or dare I say a mixed community, they would. And they do. Because I’ve lived in and been to such communities. It’s nothing new for the police force to seek out giving tickets to citizens, because that generates their paycheck and is what keeps the courts going and generates revenue for the city. There needs to be a better way than that. This is something to focus on, on a city by city basis. So why can’t something like that be the focus of the media as opposed to this racially/viewership-motivated cherry-picking those fuckers do?
Michael Brown, Black Lives Matter, Hand up Don’t shoot, those are built on lies. The anger built from mistreatment by the police and the city government is not. Can we find some common ground here?
(I can’t stop loving you.)
I’ve made up my mind, to live in memory of the lonesome times.
(I can’t stop wanting you.)
It’s useless to say. So I’ll just live my life of dreams of yesterday.
— Ray Charles
Rated: 3 / 5
This film has an interesting way with music, and it works. It may not be traditional to play a Ray Charles song the moment when everything is blowing up as is bound to happen in an anime, but it pulls it off. It’s just too bad I didn’t feel the anime was strong enough to match up with the lyrics.
It starts out with red lines making intersections among a black screen. A target? Paths crossing? Or just a simple opening credits stylistic choice? Who know? More importantly, it starts black and white, and grainy, before emerging as a bountiful amount of yellow/gold lights, brightening up the dark. The film stays this well lit up until the coup, where the snow starts to fall and the colors become more and more muted, until near the end, encapsulating the film’s arc. As any film art 101 student would know, this indicates that life is good, then it’s not, but then it will get good again. But I find such a conclusion questionable for this film.
The main reason I went and watched Fritz Lang’s Metropolis was to prep myself for this version of it. This movie is not a shot for shot remake in the slightest. In fact, ziggurat and futuristic utopia with underground workers and some Christian metaphors aside, these are very different films. Sure there’s a robot girl created for different purposes among the 2 parties involved, but she behaves differently than in the 1920s Metropolis. The Supreme Being, as she’s called, is the 2 girls made one from the older film, both the demented robotic version, and the good version. She starts out good and innocent, and angelic as bluntly shown at one point, mainly due to her ignorance and lack of knowledge, and hair growing solar powers. But as she goes on and gains more and more knowledge about herself and those around her, she eventually transforms, quite suddenly actually, when some internal part of her (the heart part I believe) activates. Then she becomes an enemy to all of mankind, including Astro Boy.
The theme from the first film is that the mind and the hands need the heart as a mediator. Well, that’s not the theme from this film, though it does put some emphasis on the heart. If I understand correctly, when the heart activates, what’s really going on is that it’s shutting down. She no longer has a heart or emotions, just as her creator eventually desired. The repercussions are disastrous, because a Supreme Being without a heart will reign down destruction. One could say that she learned to be this way because of the violence she’s seen, but really, when you think about it, it just ends up being due to programming, which takes away from the film.
In fact, the finale is when things start to fall apart. Of course they designed the ziggurat to become an uncontrollable time bomb when a robot they had designed for it decides to take control. Of course there aren’t any backup security measures. Of course the tower would start to do things unexpected by the very people who built it. All this wiring and circuitry shit just comes out of the blue because, fuck it, anime’s need a big bombastic over the top finale. Things just happen manically because the script says so from that point, not to mention our two protagonists are the only ones to somehow survive the destruction of the ziggurat.
So, yeah, I found things that I disliked this time around, after haven’t having seen this movie for many years.
Like more films of today, the question and theme is on artificial intelligence. Can a machine think for itself? Can a machine love? Are machines better than humans? You know, all that bullshit, a theme that I’m not a big fan of. It’s not as universal as the themes found in the Fritz Lang original.
All that aside, the animations are largely fantastic, even if some of the CGI meshing doesn’t, you know, mesh all that well or look all that good compared to the 2D style. Many of the camera views aren’t close ups, they are pulled back to give a large view of areas of the city, allowing for a massive amount of detail to be captured in many frames. Close-ups are used sparingly, and largely saved for brief moments. Another difference between this film and the old silent picture is that there are less details shown about how this society functions, technology-wise. I mean, there are the robots, and the robot firemen, robot firehoses, robot garbage collectors, robot detectives, robot everything. As one character states, the machines will replace man and take all their jobs one day (which is a guarantee if the political cocksuckers keep attempting to raise minimum wage to the point where having and maintaining machines is cheaper than having human workers; sorry, tangent).
There are sectors of people who are for machines and their rights, and those who don’t believe machines have any, so they resort to violence against the machines, destroying them (some in the coup, others for security reasons). The film makes sure we are supposed to feel sad when machines are killed off. Killing off a machine that places some animal symbol in a spotlight. Killing off another that is up on some advertisement mannequin. And guess what? No explanation is given as to why those dumbass machines were there in the first place, which makes the film feel manipulative as hell. “Oh the poor machines, why do they have to kill them? Boohoohoo!” You know what, fuck the machines. There are only 3 to care about in the entire movie, who’s reasons for acting in such a way as to be killed off make sense and the context is understandable and more clear. The rest of them can burn in robot hell for all I care.
What makes me sad is that now I can’t enjoy this movie as much as I used to. And there’s plenty to admire about this film. Great animation, decent plot, interesting music, good characters. The first 3/4ths of the film are solid enough before the “the less fucks we give for the sake of the action, the better” finale, except for a few things:
* The mad doctor who created Supreme Being Tima. Not much motivation as to why he’s wants to run away with her, or what his real intentions of creating her are if not for Duke Red. There’s a brief moment when we first see him that gives a potential reason that links back to the original film. He’s glancing at an old picture of Duke Red’s daughter. But that’s all we get. You know, considering that this is a Japanese film, and that the Japanese aren’t know for being subtle when it comes to film, you would think they’d clear that up somehow. But they don’t, so I’m just assuming this is a nod to the mad doctor character from the silent film, and settling for a character with less dimensions to him.
* Some robots that die to make the viewer feel sympathetic about it, when the average viewer probably wouldn’t give a flying monkey shit about them.
So, what could’ve been done better then? Well, the above two points could’ve been easily resolved with more footage and an expansion upon the subjects. But the finale, well, why not link things back to what happened midway through the film? Duke Red creating the ziggurat with the intention not to make the city/nation more grand and beautiful, but also as a way to gain power and threaten the world with the power of the ziggurat, which can shoot lazers at the sun and cause the sun’s radiation (the sun’s rays) to hit the Earth and mess up the robots (not to mention the citizens themselves if the radiation was bad enough). Is it so difficult to have crazy blonde Tima just hijack control of the lazer and threaten to use it to destroy humanity or something? Or just control all the robots in the city and eventually the world (it does that already, but they need more More MORE!)? Build upon what you’ve laid the groundwork for movie! You can’t just pull shit out of the blue for the hell of it. We’ve already got Takashi Miike for that.
The main characters, Kenichi and Tima, their relationship with one another isn’t all that well developed, so when the turning point of the story happens, the emotional impact isn’t as great as is needed (not to mention that Tima’s turn happens a bit too drastically with no hint that it would happen in that way).
This film has some heart to it, but not enough. I rewatched this with the intention of enjoying it again, but I can’t enjoy it like I used to. Unless there’s something I’m missing, or some other way of looking at the film that I haven’t comprehended. Still, all in all, it is a beautiful looking film. The CGI may not mesh perfectly, but it’s the next best thing compared to Memories. Three stars is the best I can give it, and 1/2 of those stars is due to sympathy.
I expected this documentary to be more of a one-sided “make peace, not war” film which showed how muslims are becoming unjustly discriminated against and imprisoned for being potential jihadists, but are really just nice people.
To my surprise, that’s not what this is.
This takes a hard look at both sides. The film mainly focuses on one incident where this guy gets arrested and charged and sentenced for 4 counts of conspiracy, an American born and raised muslim. It focuses on the family members, mainly the sister and occasionally the mother, who are saddened by this and say that there is no way he would ever do such a thing, etc. I expected the film to mostly compose of that, until it showed the other side, one of the officials discussing how he and others were tracking this guy, what led them to eventually arrest and charge him, why they did so, their history with cases like this, and so on. It becomes a very muddled grey area, where you can’t be sure if this guy was as innocent as his family claims, or not.
But the film doesn’t just focus on that small scale. Throughout the runtime, it goes bigger, talking about how people become jihadists, how they become terrorists, incidents involving terror attacks (mainly the Boston marathon bombing and the Fort Hood attack), the culture and atmosphere of the environments such events lead to, etc. It even mentions the English speaking magazines written by whosoever that talk about how one can become a terrorist, make bombs, how to attack, etc. How a bad economy makes opportunities more rife for citizens to become terrorists.
But most importantly of all, the film even offers a solution to the problem (not some solution that’s going to guarantee jihadist attacks never happen again, there’s no such thing as a 100% guaranteed solution, terror attacks have always happened since the beginning of civilization). That teachers and families must not be afraid to confront and discuss this issue with their children. Because one way or another, children will get curious enough to go online and look this stuff up and come to their own conclusions. Better to discuss it early on, at the right age, when they can be educated on why it’s bad and so on. Because one of the reasons some people go on to become terrorists, bad economy aside, is because it’s a subject considered too taboo for school and families. That’s bullshit, and that’s the wrong stance to take. It should be discussed, it should be talked about, there should be discussions about it.
The finale of the film couldn’t have been done any better. It all comes to a head when the CIA official, who talked about the why and how of arresting that potential terrorist guy, gets in the same room as that guy’s family, his sister and mother. They talk about the whole incident. Was it wrong? What should they have done? If they could go back would they change anything? Role reversal? Etc. It’s a fantastic thought provoking sequence that has no clear easy answers to it. It’s worth sitting through the entire film just to get to that moment it’s been building up to.
That being said, they could’ve trimmed a couple minutes off the runtime during some portions. But as is, it’s actually a fairly good documentary. It’s not as one-sided as you might think, takes a look at several sides (including the side of a muslim teacher who discusses the importance of the cultural learning and the consequences of not making the hard subjects talking points), and is something that I honestly think should be considered for viewing in modern culture classes.
