Reviews

Firstly, witnessing thousands of people perished (including, one presumes, quite a few children among them), "Captain" Carter barely bats an eye. Yet, she gets all weepy and irrational about this one kid. To hell with playing a part in the battle against the most potent enemy the humanity ever faced; la doctora is instead going to basically kill herself so that this precious little girl does not spend the last three minutes of her life alone. I thought the military had some kind of psych-evaluation at the recruitment stage so as to weed out total lunatics from joining its ranks.

Apparently not.

But that's not even the most absurd part. Nay; here it is: The precious little girl doesn't die! That's right: After boring us for 40 minutes with what are meant to be emotive, poignant scenes about the sweet little girl's anguish, it all ends with her playing with a dog in a grassy field. She was missing just a butterfly net to complete the cliché. *barf* You have got to be SH!@@ING me

Yet another deus ex machina script where some 11th-hour nonsense changes the preceding 90% of the doom-and-gloom story into a "they all lived happily ever after" tripe. I have to say SG-1 really blindsided me here; I did - reasonably yet obviously foolishly - expect the kid to go KABOOM! Really anticlimactic.

I really enjoyed SG-1 until this episode. As someone else correctly noted: How can I take this series seriously ever again after this crap?! I so hope this was an aberration; otherwise I may as well can the remaining nine seasons.

Very disappointing.

Oh, and boring to boot.

Let us suspend disbelief as well as ignore some of the most elementary posits of physics and mechanics.

Let us even ignore the fact that in a disaster that irrevocably claimed hundreds of lives, what happens to a ragtag group of a half-dozen "survivors" is really not important or interesting, particularly if it involves the best part of the 100 minutes of the movie them crawling through ducts, pushing levers, and pulling hatches.

Though the picture bumped off a couple from the group along the way, I soon began wishing the others, too, would meet their maker in a hurry.

The kid and his momma, in particular, I found to be supremely annoying. The first time they got themselves in a spot of bother, watching others' rescue them was mildly entertaining. By the fifth time - with all the attendant screaming and wailing - I wished I was physically there to hold both their heads under water for a few minutes. Besides, I knew they would survive; no way would the producers have allowed the kid to die.

If they had? Now THAT would have made for a refreshing movie!

The underlying premise of the movie is engaging and intriguing. Even though I am not an aficionado of the romance genre, the supposed comedic angle would have made this a watchable and enjoyable picture were it not for a few problems.

1) The quickfire, shoot-from-the-hip, smartassy dialog is absurd. For most of the movie I had a feeling I was watching an outtake from the Gilmore Girls (the couple of episodes of which that I watched I found supremely annoying). (Actually, as I was writing this review, I checked the casts of the two, and it turns out that Molly had indeed "starred" in G.G.!) Producers/scriptwriters, here's a clue for you: NOBODY TALKS LIKE THAT IN REAL LIFE!!!

2) Characters routinely goof up but everything works out great. Missed an alarm or your crummy auto won't start? No problem. Just run through the beautiful morning city, pick (read: steal) a bunch of flowers from a public park, hop on a picturesque tram, and arrive at your destination smelling of apple pie. Meanwhile, most people in the real world would have to contend with inconsiderate drivers, get fined for vandalizing public property, wait a quarter hour for a tram, and at the end they'd be out of breath and reek of sweat for the rest of the day.

Or take Molly's college paper. The first time around she gets a C. She then has a "profound" (*rolls eyes*) roller-coaster experience with Gus, which causes an existential paradigm shift in her, and she scores an A+ on the redo. If ONLY college studies worked like that! Forget spending hours doing laborious and tedious research; just fix to get your heart broken then made whole again, and you're golden!

3) I can't believe the reviews here extolling the acting. The characters are one-dimensional and predictable. They oscillate between Prozac-like ecstasy/effervescence and defeat/disappointment/despondency.

4) Gus was supposed to be another Einstein? Yeah. Right. Because a guy in his, what, late 20s could have become more of an accomplished Einstein than Einstein himself was. And because a fallen Einstein is seemingly abandoned by all his former N.A.S.A. and other colleagues, friends, and acquaintances, bar literally his sister and one best friend. And because a fallen Einstein needs a messed-up college dropout to apprise him of the existence of revolutionary medical treatments to cure his condition.

(5) The cheap, trite muzak does nothing to elevate this picture. They really could have put some more effort into the musical score.

In fairness, the movie does not insult us with a happily-ever-after ending and does make it clear that if Gus and Molly's relationship - such as it is - is to survive, a lot of sacrifice would be needed. That is a commendable message. I just wish it could have been made without an hour and a half-long rigmarole plagued by the problems listed above.

So, yeah.

Meh.

Some have cast doubts on the verisimilitude of parts of this picture. Of course, those who impugn whether some events really happened or whether they happened the way they are depicted in the movie neither underwent the kind of training Navy S.E.A.Ls do nor did they ever find themselves in circumstances remotely approaching those of the four comrades. We do not know what punishment the human body is truly capable of withstanding until we are put to an extreme test, gods forbid.

All I can say is that, regardless of whether this movie is accurate 100%, 0% or anything in between, it brought me to tears. I can honestly not remember the last time a Hollywood movie did that.

Very moving, very poignant, very touching. For that alone, as well as for keeping me riveted for the whole of two hours (which is quite a feat given my cynical and jaded nature), it deserves unalloyed plaudits.

Deja vu indeed. Already seen. Over. And over. And over.

And over.

It was a pretty interesting flick until around the middle: the point at which the indomitable Denzel decides to go back in time. It had to happen though. I mean, without his going back in time, we'd have had a movie where he didn't French a broad, and that just simply wouldn't do!

So, notwithstanding a solid first half, how is this movie idiotic? Let me count the ways:

* Though sending living organisms through the "wormhole" had been tried before with disastrous, yea lethal, consequences, Denzel pulls it off with nary a cardiac arrest.

* Denzel then strolls out of the hospital a few hours after said cardiac arrest (I'd like to see the fittest of patients do that in real life!) and proceeds to perform high-speed driving stunts to boot.

* The obligatory damsel in distress had been kidnapped, blindfolded, had gasoline poured all over her, witnessed a massive close-proximity explosion and a gun battle. That would permanently traumatize to the point of delirium all but the most stoic and hardened of soldiers, never mind an innocent yuppie. Yet, literally 10-15 minutes later she's pulling a gun on Denzel, in total control of the situation, and then joins him in hatching up a daring and cunning plan.

* We get to see Denzel's chiseled torso. Yay.

* We get to witness a spark between Denzel and the damsel, set to schmaltzy muzak. (All the while, remember, the bomb is ticking away!) I guess it was meant to be a poignant "Aaaawww" moment, but it was so contrived and jaded that I just laughed. Such drek has the effect of lowering my impression of a movie by 20% right there. Here's a clue for ya, Hollywood: Real people don't fall in love while cleaning each other's gunshot wounds barely a half hour after they first meet. Take a few lessons from Bollywood about how to present a believable and moving romance.

* The terrorist's motivation is never really discovered or disclosed, nor are his cause and affiliations. Yet, he - a lone, homegrown, wolf - manages to drive an S.U.V. without license plates and with a bomb the size of a barrel onto a ferry with hundreds of military personnel on board. Yeah. Right.

* Upon realizing something was amiss with her beau's original plan, the heroine jumps onto the ferry from the shore. Nobody, apparently, detects that. One wonders why anyone bothers buying a ticket to go on a ferry if it's that easy to get on board for free.

* The terrorist DOES make her though, but - whaddaya know - does NOT kill her! Instead, he tapes her mouth and locks her in a car. In the driver's seat. *double facepalm*

* The terrorist does, however, kill without a how do you do at least a half dozen heavily-armed servicemen wearing flak jackets, in addition to a few guards.

* With bullets flying nineteen to a dozen on the lower deck, the seamen and other personnel crowd the upper decks, literally falling over themselves, to observe the spectacle.

* The heroine starts up the vehicle whose steering wheel she was conveniently placed behind, and at the pivotal moment drives into the terrorist.

* Several armed agents empty their magazines into the runaway vehicle with a massive bomb in it. But. Do. Not. Hit. The. Bomb.

* Denzel dies. *bawl* But two minutes later another Denzel comes along. *whoop* The two ride off into the sunset... - or some such. *a tear*

Give me a fracking break.

And I don't mean "fracking."

The thing is, Denzel Washington is actually a good actor, and I like him a lot. He is one of the few able to deliver his lines in a way that sounds totally spontaneous, almost as if ad libbing. This guano was beneath him; if I was him, I'd keep it off my Resume.

As movies these days tend to go, this was not half-bad.

Let me say right off the bat that I don't like George Clooney too much. Many of his pictures tend to be about him rather than the plot. Or better put, he more or less IS the plot. He usually heroically, against all possible and impossible odds, saves the day, which is I find supremely irritating. Indeed, that is the pattern often followed by Hollywood when there's a big-shot "celebrity" starring.

So to hear Georgie intone in his deadpan trademark too-sexy-for-this-flick voice "I wanna fish; it's what I do" was beyond hysterical!

Anyway, I was not familiar with the background story, and thought right through the end that they were going to make it, for obvious reasons (the superhuman skipper in charge of the fishing vessel, of course!). I am deeply sorry about the fishermen who died that day, and even more so their families, but for the purposes of this picture, I have to confess to being glad about the corollary. I'm saturated to the brim with the schmaltzy, hyper-unrealistic happy-ending movies.

The underlying premise is really interesting, but the materialization is at a few points in the movie annoying to the point of being excruciating.

We have a soldier in the U.S.A.F. who finds himself in an inexplicable and highly perturbing situation. Yet, it is explained to him in no uncertain terms the critical nature of his mission. Hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of lives depend on him efficiently and methodically finding a bomber and possibly thwarting his/her nefarious designs.

Instead, the guy goes off-track on silly "side-missions" (finding out what had happened to his real self, or Frenching his leggy companion on the train), and engages in interminable dialogs with mission control.

Nevertheless, the beginning and especially the end are superbly done. It is poignant without being schmaltzy and cheap. This is the first movie in quite a while I can gladly recommend.

For those of us interested in quantum physics, watching this was a boon. For the rest, look up the Schroedinger's cat story; it will give you a new perspective on this picture.

I gave this picture one star. In truth, it's not THAT bad; it has enough redeeming features to get, say, 3/10. It's just that the annoying elements are irritating to such a degree as to totally disannul any bright points. What, out of interest, might those be? Well, the movie has some neat SFX. There are a handful of witty quips. Um... Yeah, that's about it.

What's wrong with it? (1) The ineffably TIRED HACKNEYED VAPID recipe of one "regular guy" using a series of brilliant, superhuman feats of body and mind to foil a sophisticated scheme dreamed up by highly-trained, determined pros. Oh, did I mention that the "regular guy" has a dysfunctional family? Why, nobody ever did THAT before! (2) The malefactors shoot up the entire White House. Scores of the best military and intelligence personnel on the entire planet are smoked in a matter of minutes by barely a dozen disaffected ex-commandos. Our "regular guy" though manages to get shot at by thousands of bullets and escape with nary a bruise; not only that, but he cracks wise along the way.

(3) The "regular guy" singlehandedly dispatches practically all the terrorists. Oh yeah, he thwarts -- singlehandedly, naturally -- the outbreak of World War Three as well. Really, I don't know why we bother having the entire U.S.A.F., DoD, special forces, intelligence agencies, etc. when all we need is someone like Agent Cale (one per city, or even one per state, should more than suffice!).

(3) The antagonists (whom, despite my fervent patriotism, I couldn't help but start rooting for barely 20 minutes into the movie) drop hundreds of people coldblooded precision; yet, El Presidente and the obligatory precocious-yet-vulnerable kid are kept alive forever for ZERO good reason except to be "heroically" saved by our "regular guy." I therefore nearly creamed my pants when El Presidente got shot. Just a flesh wound though; he survived. But of course. Talk about anticlimactic. Not only did he survive: After lying "dead" for ten minutes he got up unaided and made a quip, too.

(4) Speaking of which, the tone and appearance of "the president" are extremely evocative of Obama. I don't know why they bothered conjuring up the name "President Sawyer." I also don't get how come they released the picture after the 2012 presidential election. Obama couldn't have *paid* to have such flagrant propaganda churned out by Hollywood at his behest. Oh, and not only is "the president" depicted as a multifaceted, multitalented super-Obama, but the movie is laden with cheap political potshots at the military, the "right wing," the Republicans, Speaker Boehner-equivalent, the advocates of military action against Iran, etc., etc.

(5) The pathetic, eye-rolling ad misericordiam invoked every ten minutes. No, by Jupiter, we WON'T bomb the White House because of the 60-odd hostages' lives in there, even if it means millions of people dying as a direct result. Yeah, LET'S convince Obama -- I mean, Sawyer -- to launch the nukes aimed at tens of millions of Iranians by putting a gun to the cutie-patootie girlie-twirlie's head. (Naturally, the scene is not played out because, deus ex machina, the "regular guy" creates a diversion.) (6) The amount of deus ex machina is just astonishing, even for the level of asininity this excuse for a movie scrapes. Just when you dare to begin hoping the "bad guys" are about to drop one of the annoying protagonists, something happens to sidetrack them.

(7) What was supposed to be one of the most poignant scenes, to wit, the cutie-patootie girlie-twirlie running outside the White House and maniacally waving the Presidential Standard, easily wins THE most groan-inducing scene award. And for a movie chock full of such scenes, that's some accomplishment! (8) The liberties taken by the producers concerning the Constitutional procedure are stupefying. Presidents are sworn in, sworn out, installed, toppled as if it was the Tonight Show! (9) Coup d'etat; I mean, coup de grace: The closing scene. President's helo. Six people. Three African-Americans. One strong, confident, high-flying woman in a power-suit. One early-teen cutie-patootie girlie-twirlie who -- despite all the carnage she just witnessed -- show not a hint of P.T.S.D. And one "regular guy" :) *sigh* I mean, what to say... This is just so f**king laughable and pathetic and silly and ludicrous and jaded and idiotic as to defy any analysis.

When we get a Stallone or Schwarzenegger (or even Will Smith or Tom Cruise) picture, we know what we're in for. Forget suspending disbelief; we suspend all higher brain functions.

This movie though aspires to something more serious, something more cerebral. It fails abysmally.

I wasted two hours of my life and I lost two dozen I.Q. points.

Forget waterboarding. If we want to make Gitmo terrorists talk, play them this movie on a loop. A couple of times should be enough to make even the hardest of them crack.

The plot is interesting. Some complain about the development being too slow, but I found it to be all right.

So, on those points, this is a good show: Watchable and intriguing.

What irks me a lot is the message subtly being disseminated throughout. Moslems are not at all bad people. Look at the main protagonist: He converted and now prays daily -- together with all the ablutions and incantations -- but he's a loyal soldier and a steadfast American patriot. How freaking sweet. And the imam: He clearly knows something about the ticking-timebomb terrorist and his mosque was used by the same to evade capture by the police, but he is continually said to be a "good man," and is begged to divulge information rather than have his six shipped off to Gitmo. The arch-terrorist himself is a doting family man. Seriously? So, let me guess: All these supposed "moderate Moslems" we keep hearing so much about haven't been able to convince us that they're nothing to be feared from, so now we need "Homeland" to give that piece of propaganda a shot? Pathetic.

Oh, and a C.I.A. agent decides to schtup a terrorist suspect?! And then, in an isolated location, she confesses her suspicions to him!?! Speaking of which, I do not care for the sex scenes. Now, I'm no puritan by any means and have no objection to supposed nudity and violence on T.V., but what, exactly, is gained from shots of people bumping uglies?!? Honestly, if that is how C.I.A. agents operate, then the American people should be very, very afraid.

...I'd rather have 90 minutes of great movie and 13 minutes of a disappointing conclusion than vice-versa.

The introduction and body of the movie are fantastic, full of drama, suspense, and a continuous emotional roller-coaster.

As many, I wasn't happy with the ending. But, then, how was it ever going to end anyway? The protagonist could either have met his death or he'd have been sentenced to multiple, consecutive life sentences. He was never going to be released, that's for sure. So, given those choices, the first wasn't such a bad one.

More disappointing is that the protagonist is turned into the "bad guy" toward the end, even though I personally didn't buy it. He may have gotten a bit carried away with his attempt to blow up the mayoral conference, but I'd say his heart was in the right place.

In any event, the movie, including the finale, got us all talking. Isn't that a hallmark of a good picture?

When I say "boring," I don't mean the story. The story is actually very interesting, as that whole period of our history is anyway.

No, "boring" is for the production. The blood, the gore, the sex... It's mildly curious (entertaining, even?) the first couple of times stuff like that is shown but then it gets tedious and predictable. As others have stated here: It's GRATUITOUS. I never really knew what the concept of "gratuitous" meant in practice, but THIS, is it! Now, I'm no prude. I don't swoon at the idea or sight of blood, guts, decapitations, etc. on television or in video games, nor do I think they should be banned or even regulated all that strictly.

It's just that having what-looks-like gallons of blood splashed across the screen every five minutes or having 3-4 soft-sex scenes per episode does not contribute to, aid, or benefit the show in any way. It doesn't make it more realistic; it doesn't make it more entertaining (unless you're a cocooned 12-year-old seeing "violence" for the first time); it doesn't make the viewer feel more involved or sympathetic. It appears that such scenes are there only to shock the prissy old grannies who still care about violence on T.V. It's like: "Hey, look at us, we've got blood galore and sex galore on a show about a historical topic. We're real f!@#ing pioneers!!" Give me a break.

And what's with the British accents?!? Has Hollywood's supply of talent and wannabe talent dried up? Or is it that, for some reason, a show cannot possibly be "historical" unless the actors speak in an English that's spoken by a tiny fraction of global English speakers?

This movie is tendentious in the extreme. Its anti-government, anti-establishment credo permeates just about every scene. Rachel Armstrong is portrayed as a victimized hero, and those trying to get her to talk are bullies. They're anti-democratic brutes whose principal aim is to shield an overbearing government from accountability and public scrutiny.

I'm all for upholding the Constitution. I cherish the First Amendment as the encapsulation of our values, and indeed as what ought to be the foremost aspiration of the human race. It's what America is all about; it's what humanity's future is (hopefully) all about.

Nor am I fan of secretive governments. I firmly believe in a government of the people, by the people, for the people; open, transparent, approachable.

However, not everybody in the world sees it that way. There are some who given half a chance would like to overthrow our country and our values. That makes it necessary to have secrets, and secret government agencies, and secret government operators, and secret government officers. Jeopardizing that secrecy imperils real people: Agents, their families, and ultimately the country. Some things -- the barest minimum -- HAVE to be secret, and those who violate that secrecy have to be made to regret it.

In this movie, however, this dilemma is not even the main point. Rather, it's something much more trivial: This movie is about lionizing obstinacy and selfishness. Armstrong's goal is not to expose corruption (as was the case with, say, the Watergate scandal). No; she's after a good story. That's her principal concern. And if anyone has any doubts about her morality, such doubts are ably dispelled in the last scene where her primary source is finally shown: She had cynically used an innocent kid.

Only well into her incarceration experience does her egocentric motivation metamorphosize into the defense of a -- fairly laudable -- principle, namely, that revealing her clandestine source would dissuade other potential sources from ever divulging their information. Of course, no distinction is made between a source with information about criminal acts vs. a source trying to do something patently against the law (revealing secret agents' identities, for instance). It jives well with the overall shallowness and agenda of the movie.

Thus, if the question was about the quality or nature of the message this picture so brashly assays to send, I'd give it a 0 / 10.

Moreover, not just is the main issue presented simplistically; the characters are, too. They all to one lack nuance: A character is either a sinister, menacing government agent or apparatchik, or an independent-minded, stick-it-to-the-man revolutionary. Van Doren is the only character with a modicum of complexity, which is probably why she gets bumped off barely halfway through. Oh, and her assassin is some schmuck nobody, without a particularly strong reason or rationale.

One thing I'll give the movie: It IS thought-provoking, and for that and that alone it deserves some degree of plaudits.