Reviews

First off, Brad Pitt is ill-suited for the role. This movie consists of about 40% extreme close-ups of his character. And all I could see was a handsome 55-year-old trying to look 35. That does not equal a 45 year old (which is about what the character's age is supposed to be). He's supposed to be an astronaut who buries himself in his job, but he looks like an older guy absolutely obsessed with his appearance. There are more physically-appropriate actors out there. Brad's entering a Real Housewives phase in his appearance - he may want to lay-off the botox and hair dye for awhile.

The movie itself is slow, moody art-house sci-fi, like Solaris and others. It's just not deep enough for that. It does however, move along at a decent clip, and never feels boring despite its pace. Probably because it's action scenes are well-executed.

In the end however, it's not only kind of shallow, it's kind of dumb. The space antenna is dumb (satellites work just fine for this stuff). There is earth-like gravity on the moon and mars. you don't report panicky pilots who nearly crash a rocket because..., you park your rocket miles away from the space station instead of just going under the rings. you don't face consequences for disobeying orders, killing three astronauts, because you completed a mission they would have probably completed themselves just fine. you allow yourself to get surprised and killed by a psycho baboon. you hire live tyler to do nothing.

like I said, it's actually ok as a mediocre Sunday Afternoon space movie, but it thinks it's smart and it's so not.

There needs to be a moratorium on American horror movies being made in Europe. I love European horror movies - they're really kicking our butts right now with that stuff. But American movies, made over there? ugh. What ends up happening is almost all secondary roles are filled by random Euro actors, speaking English with weird Euro accents. This movie may be the worst example of this - but also check out the Blade and Underworld series for examples of what I call Over-Eurofication. Nothing against our brothers and sisters overseas, though.

Also, don't bother making a horror movie without attempting to make a likable lead. Filmmakers, it's hard to empathize with pretty little petite women. Men resent them for not going out with us, and women dislike them because they are so outrageously skinny. Instead, how about an attractive, but more normal sized man or woman? The Hostel movies make a similar mistake by forcing us to root for a bunch of frat Boy-types - and no one, but no one, likes them. The reason Judd Apatow movies do well, and the only reason, is that people generally like shlubby, decent guys. They are nonthreatening, so we are not threatened. Keep it in mind.

Another thing, don't attempt a full-length movie with 2 pages of script, unless you're some kind of genius artiste. This movie had a 10 minute setup, the obligatory 5 minute goth rave (see blade et al), and then 70 minutes of a tunnel chase. I've seen it before: it's called Quake, and it's better with rocket launchers.

And the twist ending? OMG (and I am loathe to use that term). The whole point of the movie is a prank? The payoff after the twist is somewhat satisfying, watching the pixie-ish heroine lay waste to her annoying b***h sister and her euro-trash minions.

And Pink? Girl actually can act - and is perfect as the Worst Woman in the World - she can sing too! Though it's not my kind of music. This is not my kind of movie.

===Contains Spoilers== I have always enjoyed the con-man genre, my personal favorite being "House of Games". As I began watching this I was quite taken with it. Then it struck me, bam! For me it happened right when he was giving his "daughter" access to his fortune. "Oh," I thought to myself, "This is a con-the-con-man movie!" Eh. I was hoping and praying that they would do something interesting with it. Or at least make it believable. It wasn't. In order for the con of Nick Cage to work, all of the following conditions had to be met:

1) Mr. Cage could never call his ex-wife

2) Mr Cage had to ask the fake doctor to call his ex-wife for him.

3) Cage would entrust is fortune to his "daughter" so quickly

4) Mr Cage would give the secret code to his fake doctor.

5) Cage, a master con artist, could never suspect anything fishy.

That's a lot of pieces to fall into place for a con. I would have just staged a phony kidnapping of the girl after it appeared he cared for her.

The worst, though, was the feel-good ending completely tacked on.

*** I'm sad to say The Blair Witch Project did not scare me at all. And I really wanted to be scared too. Part of the problem for me was that I couldn't get past a couple of very basic errors in the film. If I did, I too could have been dragged into their world and had the bejeezus scared out of me like so many others. Don't get me wrong, this is a very unique and effective film. There is strong work by the actors, with only occasional groan-inducing over-acting. And the pacing, setting, and art direction were more than adequate. I just had some major problems getting "into" the film because of a couple of huge logic problems I'll describe below (may be considered very slight spoilers).

For one, it just seemed impossible to get that lost in the woods (in MD anyway). To walk for days and days without seeing train tracks or an old road or a fence (of a farm or something). It is hinted that supernatural forces are keeping them in the woods. They even had a couple of "How to survive in the woods" books. Surely they would say to follow one those streams, or climb a tree on the top of the hill. Not much of a film if they got un-lost maybe, but technically they walked about 40 hours and found nothing??!! maybe in Alaska or Wyoming, but certainly not 60 miles outside DC. I think a bit more creativity on the writing staff was warranted. A slight injury to one of the party, or cut the adventure back a day or two. I've been lost in the woods - you walk till you hit the water then you follow the shore. you don't criss cross it a billion times like an idiot.

Also, the constant filming. They made attempts to explain why ( "It's all I have left." - apparently her will to film was stronger than her will to survive - quite a feat indeed). They filmed even when running for their lives. Again, without the constant filming you get no story, but maybe there was another way out.

So there you have it: I'm one of those people who has a bit more trouble suspending disbelief than others. So if you can suspend your disbelief, say goodbye to bejeezus, because it's going to be scared out of ya. But if you're like me, it'll be an interesting and unique film, not without merit, but without scares.

I liked this movie quite a bit for a little over an hour. And along came the "twist". I knew it was coming and had a good idea what it was, but when it came my heart sank. It just all seemed wrong. Forced, too obvious. They had been cultivating a mood rather successfully for the previous hour and POOF - gone in a bunch of silly virtual cliches.

SPOILER AHEAD:

The biggest problem for me: The if-you-die-in-the-simulation-the-simulated-person-takes-over-for-you twist. If I programmed the simulation I'd have squashed that bug before letting people use it. And why would that same rule apply to the simulation-within-a-simulation.

I'm glad it's not true with Nintendo, because if while playing Mario, he fell into a lava pit. I would be Mario and not myself. hmmm. Makes you think. not really. two stars (four star beginning no-star ending)

I think Mr. Hitchcock concentrated a bit too much on his experiments and too little on actual scares. The choice to have no musical score was daring, but the inclusion of subtle musical cues would have only benefited the often flat suspense scenes. The choice to have the movie end before real resolution did not I feel have the desired effect. I understand what he was trying to do, but it felt more like they ran out of money or time and said, "Why don't we just end it here." And the other guy says, "Works for me. Bye."

The other really annoying thing is that Tippi Hedron's character behaves in such an incredibly foolish manner near the end of the movie (spoilers until the end of this paragraph). A. Why did she refuse to wake up Mitch, who'd been the absolute hero of the whole scenario and saved her butt a couple of times already, before going up the stairs. B. Is her reaction upon seeing the birds in the attic realistic? She manages to lock ***herself*** in the room with the birds. Pretty lame. You can't chalk it up to shock because she'd been attacked by birds about 7 times that day already. She should have been bird-savvy by then. C. It's impossible to believe she had no chance to open the door behind her. Impossible. One more thing. D. I would have left that wacky maniac-bird infested town long before they went back to the house. And E. Why did so many people consciously choose to go outside when the birds attacked. I'll stop here, but I could continue right through ZZ.

All these gripes aside, it's still a decent movie. The acting is pretty good. And Hitchcock as usual gave us some 3 (or 2.5) dimensional characters to latch onto and a decent story before bringing the maniac birds on the scene. It always helps when you care about the characters. (note to modern genre directors: characters and story are what drive films, not special effects and cheap thrills. Put together a movie with strong characters, strong story, then add the cheap thrills and effects; now you have good movie.) And the attacking bird scenes were pretty effective and not as cheesey as you might think for a movie made in the early sixties.

Two and a half stars (out of four).

Take care, Mike