thesantanafan

The film misleads you in several ways into thinking that it is to be a movie about driving. Instead, what you get is Gosling driving a little, then getting out and bashing people's heads in(and not in the cool way). You spend the entire duration of the movie waiting for a climax that never comes. The film is very well crafted, but it sacrifices the potential to be enjoyed to make a creative statement that could really only be appreciated in retrospect. A funner movie that better fit its title would have been far more preferable, when the film ends it comes off as disappointing and incomplete. It's obviously that it finds influence in Taxi Driver and aims to be a close parallel to it, a mark that it admittedly hits. The mistake of this film was it's decision to deliberately mislead you into expecting something action packed, or at least with more driving.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I won't lie, I was expecting a great movie when I went to see this. It was terrible. The thing is, it's easy to trick americans into liking a movie with an original premise and neat special effects, not to mention the documentary filming style which made viewers feel intelligent. This movie is like the product of an intelligent person writing down a good idea, and giving it to mentally challenged filmmakers. Everyone seems to overlooked the annoying flaws of this movie: The behavior, the dialogue, the use of the line "I'm not leaving without you" and various other cliches that you wouldn't expect to find in such an "original" film. There were dozens of moments of annoying stupidity that I kept trying to ignore. And there is no real excuse for all the discomfort in the movie. I usually forgive films for being stupid because they are still enjoyable. This movie had little to enjoy (except for when the robot shoots a man with a dead pig, I got a good laugh out of that) . Just the fact that it was original, the fact that it had allegories to apartheid and racism, and the fact that it was filmed like a documentary seems to have everybody won over. But I can't forgive all the stupid dialogue and behavior. I could just see through every silly second. For example; the love for cat food = Random aspect that makes the aliens seem more real. There was a lot of cheap little ways they tried to make the aliens seem more real. But right from the beginning, I couldn't help but see through them, and if I was less observant and more gullible I probably would have enjoyed the movie. I could write a book about all the things wrong with this movie, but I should not write so much in a movie review. I just can't be concise with this subject. I just want to end with this fact: I walked into that theater expecting a great movie. As the movie went on, I was struggling to convince myself that I was watching a great movie. I couldn't do it. Later I went to see Avatar, expecting a bad movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it, because it was honest and it's silliness was forgivable. James Cameron understands that its more important for a film to be enjoyable then it is for it to make a statement by being different.