video review : Contact

video review : Contact

Like observing deep space via satellite, waiting for some sign of intelligent life, this movie is boring for a long time. About a third of its two-and-a-half hours goes by before the catch of the plot finally beams in and things start to get interesting.

Based on a Carl Sagan sci-fi novel, Contact propels itself with a wonderous concept, brilliant visual effects and mind-bending philosophical undertones, but the story, bogged down by extraneous love themes, doesn’t reach good fast enough.

my rating : 3 of 5

1997

video review : Flight

video review : Flight

This Flight peaks with a crash-landing. It happens at the 25-minute mark. The plot descends into an extended epilogue from there. It’s not as much about the airplane as it is about the pilot, nicknamed Whip. It was his technical know-how that saved 96 of the 102 “souls” on board, but, as far as The NTBS and a blood test are concerned, it could be his alcoholism that endangered their lives in the first place.

Robert Zemeckis cues the dramatic mood music, scored by Alan Silvestri, and lets the story coast. What Whip, played by a somber if not sober Denzel Washington does at the end is an automatic nominee for stupidest movie character decisions. It seems highly unlikely that a real-life pilot in his position would do such a thing on the grounds of mere morality. I’m with him and the movie up until that point.

my rating : 4 of 5

2012

video review : Cast Away

video review : Cast Away

There’s a great movie in Cast Away. The time in which a Fed Ex worker named Chuck Noland is stranded on an island, most of the movie, is a triumph in movie-making. It puts a single actor on what appears to be a single set for a long time with no real dialogue, other characters to interact with or cuts back to the normal world, and manages to stay both captivating and believable the whole time.

Well, there’s one thing that isn’t very believable. It has to do with a Fed Ex package; one of the few man-made items Chuck Noland has at his disposal. There’s also a volleyball, ice skates and not much else. This is a tale of survival in the truest sense. What almost ruins the experience is the epilogue, which lasts for too long and seems irrelevant in comparison to everything that came before it.

my rating : 4 of 5

2000