Review: Vanilla Sky (2001)

“The little things… there’s nothing bigger, is there?” 
– David

SYNOPSIS: A self-indulgent and vain publishing magnate finds his privileged life upended after a vehicular accident with a resentful lover. – via IMDB

I know that there are people with some issues with this film, but I found it to be a rather decent one, and I enjoyed it. Despite all the awful reviews, Vanilla Sky is not the wreck that it is made out to be. By no stretch of the imagination a piece of perfection, it is entertaining nonetheless. Tom Cruise was well suited for the role, and didn’t even really get on my nerves. I am not a fan of either Diaz or Cruz, though they were the leading ladies for this. I think that is the only thing that actually got to me, but overall not enough to detract from the journey that you undertook with David Aames. Diaz pulled this role off far better than most I have seen her in, and managed to give a solid spine and feel to her character.  I liked the way the story was presented and laid out, as well as how it progressed.  There were plenty of plot twists and turns, and kept it fresh and interesting throughout. The back and forth banter between Dr McCabe and David was interesting, as well as David dealing with the tragedy he has been visited with. He did not deal so well with it, and there are plenty of times that you can identify with him, and plenty of times that you can see as a spoiled brat he took things too far. An engaging movie to check out if you have not done so before, and one to watch with an open mind seeing as it was bashed more than it deserved.

Rapid Review: Rain Man (1988)

“What you have to understand is, four days ago he was only my brother in name. And this morning we had pancakes.”
– Charlie Babbitt 

SYNOPSIS: Selfish yuppie Charlie Babbitt’s father dies and leaves a fortune — to Raymond, the institutionalized savant brother that Charlie didn’t know he had. They set out on a cross-country journey of discovery. – via IMDB

You know, Tom Cruise get hated on way too much. I believe he is quite the crackpot in real life, but I think he is a pretty good actor, and to see him with Dustin Hoffman here was well worth it. Tom Cruise plays a real mean twit in Rain Man, a money hungry dweeb who is bitter that his father wrote him out of his will, and even angrier when he learns that he has an autistic brother he knew nothing about, and that Raymond is entitled to everything. Half the time you just want to slap Charlie for being an insufferable toolbag, and Raymond is highly amusing at the best of times. “Uh oh” became synonymous with something hilarious on the way, and “definitely” was also paired with laughter. However, as much fun as this movie is, there are flaws to it, too, which are often overlooked. They aren’t all glaring, and not all terrible, but some things just don’t work out as well as you would like. I am not a fan of the score, and the pacing was also a bit of an issue at the best of times. Some events were extremely unbelievable, too, which detracted from the movie for me in places. Something I did like a lot, however, was the accuracy that they went with in displaying Raymond’s autism spectrum disorder. SPOILER: I also like that there was no perfect, happy ending because that would have been so unrealistic and ruined the whole thing for me. I had quite a laugh while the brothers were in Vegas, very good! Anyhow, Rain Man is entertaining, contains quite a few decent performances and is enjoyable, though flawed.

Rapid Review: Edge Of Tomorrow (2014)

“Come find me when you wake up!”
– Rita Vrataski

SYNOPSIS: An alien race has hit the Earth in an unrelenting assault, unbeatable by any military unit in the world. Major William Cage (Cruise) is an officer who has never seen a day of combat when he is unceremoniously dropped into what amounts to a suicide mission. Killed within minutes, Cage now finds himself inexplicably thrown into a time loop-forcing him to live out the same brutal combat over and over, fighting and dying again…and again. But with each battle, Cage becomes able to engage the adversaries with increasing skill, alongside Special Forces warrior Rita Vrataski (Blunt). And, as Cage and Vrataski take the fight to the aliens, each repeated encounter gets them one step closer to defeating the enemy. – via IMDB

Let me just say this: this movie was infinitely better than the trailer I watched all those months ago suggested it would be. I actually had quite a bit of fun, and there was some humour sprinkled through this too (particularly looking at the first roll-under-the-truck scenario). Tom Cruise handles his material well, and takes Cage from some ridiculous television persona in a military outfit that has no idea what wearing that actually even means, and creates a character we actually start rooting for – after we’ve had a good cackle over his predicament a few times… and his ability to still feel his toes! Emily Blunt also gave a solid performance, and while I enjoy her work, I do not understand the raving about her all the time. She and Cruise work well together, and he is a great sport on being knocked on his ass quite a few times. Blunt portrayed a great character: she was strong, confident and capable, and she was nobody’s bitch. It was a refreshing change, and one I appreciated. I was not particularly a fan of the romance that cooked up between Cage and Rita, though it is a stock standard formula I expected from the action film. It was certainly handled better than most. I know that there is a lot of repeating going on in the movie, and it speaks volumes about the way it was dealt with in that it never actually gets old, and I appreciated that. Edge of Tomorrow was a bit of a different concept (for me, at any rate) and I actually thought it was entertaining, and a pretty good action flick. It manages to bring in a slightly deeper side, too, but that’s never really the most important of it. The effects were terrific, and this film oozed blockbuster, but definitely on the superior side of the spectrum. Doug Liman did a wonderful job directing this, bringing it all together, and maintaining a certain standard. The dialogue was fun, and the camerawork was very good, too. I wasn’t a huge fan of the sword that Rita hauled around – I just thought that it could have been way more awesome and brutal. As it is, it is not the worst weapon, it is just a bit chunkier and more bland than I would have liked. Edge of Tomorrow was clever, slick and above all, entertaining. I had a blast with this, and I was shocked by how much better it was than I expected it to be, definitely my surprise for the year (seeing as I had written it off).