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Reviews
Eagle Eye (2008)
This is what is wrong with modern cinema
This movie is what is wrong with modern cinema. This movie is an insult to the public's intelligence. This movie is crap. First off I'm going to spoil the hell out of this movie because if I succeed in anything here it is to convince you to watch anything else. Watch Madagascar 2 if you have to. I give the movie a free pass on all the fantastic assertions it makes about the capability of computers. This is a supposed high tech, futuristic, super duper secret computer... so anything is possible. HOWEVER: 1) Hollywood needs to get it through their thick skulled craniums that the inclusion a powerful artificial intelligence does not have to always be the big bad wolf... I get the poetic significance of the human spirit vs. the evil machine but it's been done hundreds of times by people far better. Even collectively the writers: John Glenn, Travis Wright, Hillary Seitz, and Dan McDermott are not a tenth of what Kubrick is. 2) If there were such a super computer capable of anything from phone calls, traffic lights, planes, trains, TVs and satellites it seems a little bit difficult to fathom why it would need to recruit two numb skulls to do its bidding. 3) We spend 2 hours watching these two unwittingly participate in an elaborate, explosive (yet oddly perfectly timed) storyline to ultimately fail. Apparently our super computer wasn't smart enough to launch a missile, crash a plane, or any number of far simpler plots to take out our government. In fact... even to take the given storyline for what it was, all that was needed was a necklace and a note to be played at the correct time. We sat through 2 hours to see that complicated circumstance manifest itself? 4) Secret Service shoot to kill, they do not wound or wing or pleasantly ask strange men with guns shooting up the state of the union to please put your gun down. They kill you. Why didn't they? Well that's what big bad evil computers do. People don't kill people, that's just silly. 5) How is it a super dooper future computer with unheard of technology and fabulous artificial intelligence is brought down by a pipe to the eyeball? The thing takes up a 4 story room and its eyeball is the weak spot? Why the hell didn't they just stab it in the eye to begin with?!? I'd give this farce less than one star but Flixter won't let me. I'll be waiting for Eagle Eye 2. A supercomputer writes it and saves us from having to sit through another collaborative effort of the 4 nitwits that gave us this movie.
Heroes (2006)
Flawed Series
While being at once the most engaging series I've watched it is also perhaps the most flawed. Storyline, consistency, and factual errors occur at a rather alarming rate. For the viewer that pays attention to such things you will likely be left questioning whether Tim Kring should even be paid for what he does. Unfortunately, the thirsty shouldn't complain about the water even if it is warm and dirty. In the absence of anything better the series gets a 5 out of 10.
The storyline gains some complexity in season 2 as the characters grow into their powers. This season more than the first is riddled with suspicious decisions and storyline gaps. We are not given explanation for these, so the unquestioning viewer may not be bothered for they trust it will be resolved at a later date.
Since I do not want to include a spoiler I will give examples in a separate post.
My nay saying aside, there is some gold still in the bucket. The powers and storyline are as exciting as the X-men comics and movies from which they borrow. The show achieves its own identity and even some poignant current events replayed for the fictional characters to deal with. My complaints are solely confined to Tim Kring's seemingly absent editorial process.