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Reviews
Gone Girl (2014)
A terrible rendition of a good book
After reading the book, I am sorely disappointed with this movie. It left and changed so many events, which left a very poorly told story.
In the book, we start off with a good view of Nick, we follow him around, so of course know he didn't commit the crime. Later the book leaves the reader confused, thinking, 'maybe he did do it?' We aren't getting the full story here. Instead we are left short transitions, where the movie pretty much tells us we have to feel a certain way. Nick doesn't seem apologetic at all, he smiles weirdly, not because of a possible complex upbringing (maybe he didn't do it), but are we getting the full story (maybe he did do it). In the movie he just looks like a jerk. He obviously did it. This was a result of the many omissions left out for the movie.
Nick's relationship with his dad was an important aspect left completely out. Instead of learning Nick's backstory, his childhood, the way he was raised, the reason why he doesn't want to act a certain way, but where his upbringing still influenced him heavily. We only see in the movie that his dad once got out of the care facility randomly.
We also miss the many things explained in the book that make Amy tick. In the movie we are told she plans things perfectly, but we get an unrealistic situation; a partly burned, diary in the front of an easily opened heater, planted as evidence; this is opposite of the novel, where Amy hides it in the old complex furnace, something Nick would have never been able to do, because he's not very handy. Meanwhile she changed the passcode so that Nick would be recorded as getting into the house at some point. Nick instead starts playing games with Amy. He figures she is framing him eventually, and he starts playing mind games back. He does interviews where he plays to her heartstrings. Things that were well thought out in the book aren't in the movie.
In the novel we learn a lot about Amy at first, eventually to have our entire world shaken more. Amy isn't really Amy. Her diary was a flat out lie, but the Amy that we know really is just one of a series of characters played throughout her lifetime.
But the most disappointing thing left out, was the weird and awkward feeling left at the end of the novel.
The movie undermines the relation that the reader/viewer thought Nick and Amy had at first, how going through the anniversary search made Nick really, truly, fall back in love, and as the reader followed Nick around, we were certain he didn't do it. He fell in love like the old days written in Amy's diary. Meanwhile, despite Amy framing him, hating him for all he's worth, Amy starts to fall back in love again. She falls in love so much, and realizes that with Nick, even though she was playing a part, she was free to be whoever she wanted to be. This was opposite of her situation she found herself in. She finally decides to go back.
Most disappointingly though is the overall theme the reader can get from the book. At the end of the novel the reader felt weird-- Amy knew Nick so well, that she was able to frame him perfectly because he played into her hands. Meanwhile, Nick seems like the only one that was able to play Amy's game. He did it so well, that he actually brought her back. In the end it strangely feels like they are truly meant for each other; in the most crazy way possible. That feeling was majorly lacking at the end of the movie.
Colombiana (2011)
How can people like this movie? The action wasn't even that good.
**Spoiler alert** (If you could call it that).
I didn't expect this movie to be a very artistic and moving film at all, I expected it to be an action movie, possibly along the lines of Leon or Taken. Sadly it was even a terrible action movie.
The plot wasn't terrible, but only because there was almost no plot to begin with. I would normally say spoiler alert, except I can't because the plot is already spoiled. The main character is a girl who's parents get murdered and she goes to America and becomes an assassin. We essentially have no understanding on why her parents were killed other than her parents were in a shady business with the antagonist, and it has something to deal with information on disks that is somehow relevant to the U.S. government or something. These points are about 30 seconds of the movie in total. She obviously attempts to exact her revenge a few years later yet the antagonist has protection from the CIA for some reason unexplained. She assassinates people and eventually is able to threaten enough people to find her parents killer. Meanwhile her love interest knows absolutely nothing about her, (she literally just appears at his apartment and they have never gone out on a date) and he's apparently in love with her. At least something like Taken has a little plot; Liam Neeson's daughter is taken for slave trade and he must go around chasing clues of corruption.
Aside from the plot, or lack thereof this movie was still bad. We are left so many times tilting our head to the side and thinking "Really?? Really???!?" This includes almost the entire movie. Such things include her not being seen while hanging from a maybe inch wide pole right on the side of a building when the police look almost directly at her, to scenes where her uncle opens fire near a school district, police show up in 15 seconds, and police don't even come after him while he remains just standing there. This also includes a kill where she stabs someone with the top of pistol into what appears to be the right clavicle (collarbone). I'm assuming it was supposed to be his neck, but it definitely didn't look like they even tried to make this look realistic. Oh, and it's impossible to leave out the body morphological software which is able to match her photo (randomly, it wasn't even information added to the casefile at all) to a very unconvincing surveillance video. Please waste your time with another action movie. Go watch Die Hard again for the 1,000 time before you see this, you'll be much happier.