lucky me. i didn't have to pay to see a sucky movie.
a (soon-to-be former) coworker gave me two free passes to see a pre-screening of MI3, so court and i went. i probably wouldn't have gone once it came out, but if the price is right (e.g., $0), then i'm game. i tried to go with an open mind too; i may be nauseated by tom cruise's antics (to put it mildly) by now, but hey--every film deserves a fair shake, right?
yeah, not so much. the best performance in the cast was given, no surprise here, by Philip Seymour Hoffman. *insert applause here.* the rest of the cast was pretty okay, except that laurence fishburn has not aged gracefully. ouch. oh and jonathyn rhyss-meyers? :) anyway, there was lots of blowing up and shooting and and jumping over/off of ridiculous gaping holes or treacherously high buildings. oh and there was the helicopter dogfight.
&*!&@^#!)*&@#^!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! as the daughter of a helicopter pilot, it was particularly hard for me to suspend my disbelief on that one, especially since it focused on the good guy huey (the kind my dad flew for over 20 years) and the bad guy apache (armed to the teeth, and actually my dad knows how to fly its cousin, the cobra). three things: first, a huey canNOT pitch and roll like that at the portrayed speeds and stay airborne. it's plain physics. second (and related), flying through the windmill blades is just plain stupid because, again, hueys do not have the kind of speed to make that kind of timing and maneuvering. last, in real life, an apache would DESTROY a huey. every daughter of a pilot knows this. the huey is outmatched by the apache in basically every respect--maneuverability, speed, and firepower. the huey is made heavier by more people aboard (although it was flying with its doors off--smart! no, that really is done. that was a good touch.), and the apache would *almost* be equalized by adding a butt-load of fire power, way more than the "one missle left!" shouted by the really hot pilot/jonathan rhyss-meyers. the apache didn't use its machine guns which could have ripped the fuselage apart and thus downed the huey in no time flat. or, it could have used its various weapons to take out the tail rotor, again sending our hero(s) to meet his/their doom. to a girl raised in the aviation world, this was simply unacceptable.
oh, and as far as the hero(s) part, i get the idea that there is a definitely protagonist with his scooby gang. no biggie. it's been done. what i do object to is the fact that this was a tom cruise tom cruise tom cruise tom cruise tom cruise tom cruise tom cruise tom cruise movie. i guess that's what you can do when you star in the same movie that you're co-producing. in nearly every scene, our *hero* is either running, jumping or having his eyeballs pop out of their sockets. our *hero* ethan hunt turns into tom cruise, and sadly, MI3 simply becomes another tom cruise vehicle. barf.
oh and fyi--this plot has been done before. spy tries to quit super secret life of saving the world, family/friend/lover gets kidnapped by bad guy/evil organization, he has to help said villains in order to rescue said villains even though everybody KNOWS that said villains are planning to kill everybody anyway, but he still manages to rescue said loved ones, and he eventually triumphs through spectacular feats of daring-do. BORING. try coming up with something intellectually inviting next time. not that i was expecting that, but still.
this message will self-destruct in five seconds.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Oh nuts. Well there goes that weekend.
You know I'm waiting for the year of 24 where Jack Bauer says, "Ummm, look this is the 4th time you've asked me to do this! NO! You're on your own!" Hangs up the phone and goes back to sleep. Then he stays home all day. I think three hours of that year should show Jack watching daytime soaps during the day.
Popcorn fare stuff. I wouldn't have expected anything else. It will still make a sizeable amount of cash here and hefty sum in the foreign markets as well. That's the nice thing about a movie with a superstar and lots of killing, explosions, etc ... not much to translate.
Ok, you've got to get me a ride in a helicopter. That would be awesome.
kim, i'm lucky b/c, since my dad was in the military, he took my brother and me all over the base, etc. we got to climb all over the different kinds of helicopters. also (this was especially awesome), my dad was in charge of the night vision school and the flight simulators. wearing the goggles was damn cool. EVEN BETTER, we did the huey and cobra simulators, each about $1mil. and $5mil. hydraulic video games. freakin AWESOME. but that's the closest i ever got to flying.
Is Tommy Lee Jones your dad? Cause this sounds like part of the plot of Firebirds
I can verify that Mr. Beatty is, in fact, *not* Tommy Lee Jones in disguise.
However, he *is*, almost as much of a badass. ;)
Post a Comment