Luke727's Journal: Movies

Sucker Punch, Source Code, and The Adjustment Bureau.

Sucker Punch was an interesting movie. Very similar feel (visually) to 300, though a totally different story. It wasn't particularly my cup of tea, but I still found it enjoyable. My one minor quibble would be that I felt it was somewhat sexually exploitative of the actresses. Totally unrelated to the content of the movie is the terrible presentation on the rental edition of the DVD. There are 15 minutes of coming attractions which are "unskippable". You can fast forward through them, but you can't use the menu and you can't skip over them. Words cannot describe just how much that shit pisses me off.

Source Code was also an interesting movie. Spoiler alerts. Essentially the deal is that this military project can have someone relive the last 8 minutes of another person's life in a parallel reality. So this guy is sent back to a train bombing to try to find more information about the bomber who plans to make another major strike. Much of the movie is spent on multiple replays through the scenario, which is somewhat repetitive but also necessary to accustom the viewer to the scenario. Turns out the guy reliving time was "killed" (physically) in action, though he still has enough brain activity to serve in this new capacity. Brings up some interesting moral dilemmas which I felt weren't quite explored enough. I love me some Vera Farmiga, but I felt her talents were not put to good use. Kind of feel the same way about Michelle Monaghan; the nature of her character didn't really allow a lot of exploration.

Finally we have The Adjustment Bureau. I really liked the underlying premise of the movie - a powerful organization of people who undetectably nudge us in the right direction when we deviate from the plan. So this guy has a chance encounter with this girl and fate is supposed to keep them apart. Fate falls asleep on the job and they meet again, irrevocably strengthening their connection. The rest of the movie is spent on his struggles to accept the plan or pursue his heart (aw). Ultimately I felt the ending was just too sappy for me; every now and then the bad guys have to win to keep us honest, and this would have been a good movie for that IMHO.

Source Code

[Shadow Wrought]

What bothered me about Source code is that the entire construct of the train and it's surroundings was created through mapping the brains of those present, or something along those lines IIRC. So, since the actual terrorist was not there for them to glean the information from, there was no way for him to see the van or anything in it, let alone the actual terrorist to have a conversation with.

I saw it in theatres and I remember really enjoying the fact that it was something different and original, but it bothered me that it didn't follow its own logic. I would've rather have him find the guy sooner, but then have to push past the barrier and have that what created the parallel universe, or whatever you want to call that different timeline.

But, all in all, very enjoyable. If it wasn't so new, different, and well done I probably wouldn't have held it to the higher standard, come to think of it...