Reviews

Before I begin, I should clarify. I am not giving it three stars because I think it's overrated, but because I genuinely believe that on a scale from Lord of The Rings to Garbage Pail Kids, this movie falls closer to Garbage Pail. And yes I have seen both.

To give this movie praise where it's deserved, the movie is high budget with no technological set backs. I can also appreciate the originality of the story. I hate it, but I have never seen anything quite like it before. Also no actor did a bad job. I like Brad Pitt reasonably well, and I love Helena Bonham Carter. The characters they portray are awful, but I do like the actors. The cinematography is sometimes okay. That pretty much wraps up everything positive I have to say about the movie, now lets get to the more interesting part.

It's about an insomniac who struggles to find his place in life before he starts joining community groups with various ailments that he pretends to have. My first issue, why does he pretend to have problems? If you go to a community group and say, "I don't have this issue, but I'm here to support all of you." are people going to start throwing things and force you to leave? As we jump into the movie, the problems of this guy are presented, and he is so close to resolving them instantaneously. However he starts to lose it, when he discovers, a woman named Marla who is faking it just like him. Does this guy realize his ugly reflection in the mirror when he witnesses someone doing the same thing? Nope, but he still can't stand her for 'reasons', and proposes that the two of them split up groups so they don't have to see each other.

The movie then switches gears when our narrator meets a fascinating stranger on an airplane. Tyler is ultra reckless and has a very uncivil approach to life. When the narrator arrives at his home, he comes to find out that his apartment caught fire, and asks to move in with Tyler. Tyler agrees, but before the narrator moves in, Tyler asks him to punch him as hard as he can. This leads to a pretty intense fight, even though they're friends now, they enjoy a hard fight. This leads a bunch of passers by to join in the fight. They all have so much fun with it that they decide to start a fight club. What??? I realize that I'm pretty pacifistic, but don't you fight when you hate someone??? Even if you enjoy beating the crap out of someone, don't you regret dealing with the scratches and scars??? I realize that some things just aren't for me, but I can't understand why it's fun to beat up your friends.

As the movie continues, the narrator crosses paths with Marla again. Tyler and Marla basically lose their pants immediately after meeting. Then we get to one of the most annoying scenes I have ever seen. We hear Tyler and Marla moaning in a super dragged out scene that lasts five minutes, while the narrator who still can't stand her, struggles to find a quiet place on the other side of the hall, or downstairs, or in the furthest corner in the basement. I think this scene is supposed to be comedic, but I find it just as annoying as our narrator. I guess I can understand how this might be funny for a twelve year old, while I'm on it, I should just say this entire comedy-drama is not funny.

As the movie progresses, the Fight Club gets bigger, more intense, and more dangerous. Also the characters go from bad people, of the earth. They begin to provoke fights with people outside the club. When the narrator is about to be fired from his job for good reasons, the narrator starts threatening his boss. When the turmoil with his boss gets worse the narrator beats himself up, and blames his injuries on his uninjured boss.

Eventually we come to a point where our narrator struggles to find Tyler, so he starts digging up a ton of airplane tickets, and comes to find out that Tyler has traveled all around America, and started fight clubs in every major city. At this point, I had been waiting for two hours for karma to catch up with these people, or for somebody to get a redemption arc, but instead the movie decides to give us a good contender for the worst plot twist ever made. It turns out that our narrator has split personality disorder, and Tyler doesn't really exist!

So let me get this straight, When Tyler, and the narrator got into a fight in the beginning, which grabbed the attention, of numerous people on the street, it was really just the narrator beating himself up? When Tyler and Carla have sex, and the narrator is struggling to get away from the noise, it's really just the narrator having sex with Carla and making up crap about what the other him is doing? And the narrator totally blanked on many months, if not years of his life that he would spend traveling from city to city, starting up Fight Clubs throughout America?

Well that's what the movie is running with, so I guess I'm supposed to run with it. Every movie that I have seen with a twist relies on an oversight on the viewers part. It adds clarity to things that didn't make sense before. This twist however, makes the entire movie make far less sense. And instead of providing clarity, I feel lied to. You know all that stuff that happened before this twist, a ton of it didn't really happen, we appreciate your understanding for our gaps in logic, yours truly, 20th Century Fox.

I hear all the time in movies like this that you need to watch it a second time and notice all the hints you missed the first time. I only saw this movie once, and I'm not seeing it again, but looking back at the hints, the two of them bought the same exact suit case, and they both have insomnia issues. Well don't I feel like an idiot for thinking that coincidences happen, obviously I should have realized that it's far more likely that this character really doesn't exist, what great foreshadowing. The only thing I take away from that, is that the writers looked over the script a second time before making this movie. Am I supposed to be impressed? This plot twist literally makes just as much sense as Han Solo being a figment of Luke Skywalker's imagination. In fact every movie that involves two or more characters could have done the same twist. What a great way to ruin all your favorite movies.

Anyways the narrator realizes that he's a victim of the dumbest twist in cinema, and the movie becomes a struggle of him ridding himself of his inner Tyler. The narrator and Tyler get into another fight when the narrator tries to stop a bomb that Tyler planted. Of course this fight is just the narrator beating himself up again. The narrator eventually realizes the only way to kill Tyler is to kill himself. So he turns his own gun to his head, and fires killing Tyler, but as luck would have it sparing the parts of his brain that made him the no name narrator that I can't stand.

As I'm writing this, Fight Club is the 11th best movie on IMDb, and in a list of 250 movies this isn't falling off anytime soon. What the hell? The Shawshank Redemption is rated number one. While I think it's only okay, it does have some excellent moments, and I can understand why it would be rated number one. I cannot understand why this movie is so highly rated. I really can't understand how this could get mediocre ratings, it's just bad. Every character is unlikeable, and unpleasant. This leads to the entire movie being unpleasant. When the movie decides to give it's unpleasantness a break, it reverts to sheer stupidity. By the end of the movie, the narrator is in a worse spot then where he began. Also this being one of the greatest movies ever, I fear that people who over analyze it will get the message, 'If I'm having mental issues, then I should shoot myself in the head, then maybe I'll feel better.' I do not endorse this movie to anybody whatsoever.