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| One of the dumbest movies of recent history. |
Hello, WORLD!!! Smokkee here. I got a chance to watch RED LIGHTS (B-), which should have opened here in Chicago last Friday (but oddly I haven't heard anything about it), at the beginning of the week before last and it has stayed with me every since but I can't figure out why for the life of me. I liked RED LIGHTS, for what it's worth, but I can't say there would be no hesistation on my part to recommend this movie. I've also seen TED, SAVAGES, and THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, all great movies I'd recommend without hesistation. I 'd recommend this RED LIGHT movie too, just a little more cautiously just because of the fact that I haven't stopped thinking about it. I loved it's plot, it's stars, but the pacing and the ending...
Now I'm jumping the gun. Let me give you a quick synopsis. Dr Margeret Matheson and her assistant/sidekick Dr Tom Buckley, played with obvious glee by Sigourney Weaver and Cillian Murphy respectively, are professional paranormal activity debunkers. You know, they go around exposing all psychics and ghost whispers, etc , as the frauds they are. The duo has done this to all these so-called phenoms they've ever encountered. Well, almost all. There is one in particular, a Simon Silva, played by Robert DeNiro, who disappeared after a TV appearance where Dr Matheson attacked him on air 30 years ago. He comes out of retirement for one last performance and if Dr Matheson and Buckley plan on proving him a fraud, they've only got this one last shot to do it.
OK. Once again, I liked it. I loved the three main characters, especially DeNiro's Silva although Weaver's Maggie seems to be having the most fun in this movie. What didn't I like? The end. The shock: I didn't see it coming. One of my keys for a great movie is either I don't see it coming or I see it coming but it comes in a way I've never seen before. Neither happens here. As soon as the credits rolled, I heard my fellow moviegoers go "What happened?","I don't get it.",etc. I know what happened. I got it when it happened. The thing was it didn't do anything for me. If you've seen Christopher Nolan's MEMENTO (like I suggest every other week), then you know what I'm talking about. I won't spoil it here but the end of that movie made you wanna watch it again to be sure you wasn't crazy. Ditto Nolan's least talked about big name movie, the under-appreciated THE PRESTIGE. That movie's ending wrought as many multiple endings as MEMENTO did.
Don't get me wrong. As I said, I liked this RED LIGHT movie. In general the endings of movies can make and break movies. This ending doesn't work, sorry, but it's not a deal breaker. Unlike the ending of THE USUAL SUSPECTS, for instance, which makes that movie that much better, this ending feels forced. TUS ending is unforced as well as completely implausible but still manages to work. Films are funny like that sometime. The plot twist also can make or break movies. If you remember watching THE SIXTH SENSE for the first time and was lucky enough to see it before people started blabbing the ending, then you know exactly what I'm talking about here. The movie was ho-hum through out until you arrived at the ending, which made you want to go back and watch the whole movie again just to see how you didn't see what the ending told you earlier. Upon the second and third viewings, you realize how good this movie really was.
With all that said, let's take a look at some of the other movie endings in recent cinema that left a bad taste in our mouths. Sometimes, like RED LIGHTS, these movies still work. Other times, well, not so much.
THE BOOK OF ELI (C): The premise of this 2010 movie was mouth watering to movie buffs. A samarai-type wanderer (Denzel Washington) is given the task of transporting a powerful book in by a mysterious voice he here's from one side of a apocalyptic United States to the other. The ending, if you didn't see it coming, should have been a mind blower. I for one, did not see the end coming and no, my mind was not blown away by it. It's not really a bad movie. Denzel is Denzel, Gary Oldman as the head baddie and Mila Kunis as a femme fatale both showed a lil acting chops here as well but for some reason, the plot twist of this movie did nothing for me whatsoever.
HIGH TENSION (F): Oooooh, this should have been good. A freaky serial killer is stalking to girls and 1 of their families in the woods. How do we know he's freaky? One of his victims is forced to give him some head... after he decapitates her. Should be classic at least, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. This is a 2003 snooze fest. The end? Don't get me started. I HATE when movies cheat, that is I hate when movie shows you one thing then switches what you saw at the end. That's not fair. Of course, this movie would have been see thru had it not but still... Not only does this movie not work, the ending insults our intelligence. I don't even consider this a movie bcause of that.
INBREAKABLE (B-): Get ready for a trend, folks. This is the 1st of the M Night Shyamalan movies to make it to this list but it won't be the last. This one, from 2000, is actually not that bad not only compared to the rest of his films but to the rest of the films on this list. The premise: An everyman (Bruce Willis) is coming to terms with the fact that he may be invincible. He's informed of this by his brittle boned friend Elijah (a scary Samuel L Jackson). This movie was OK, the pacing was about as slow as RED LIGHTS though. The ending could have been much better. It shocked me but for the wrong reason. After all that slowly painful buildup, THIS was the best you could give me? Thanks but no thanks. Interesting note: this was M Night's second movie after the hugely successly THE SIXTH SENSE. I was soooo waiting on this movie and I hated that it wasn't as good as I thought it would be. Even worse, every movie made after this was a step further away from must see cinema. This was the beginning of the end. He did redeem himself with the excellent DEVILS but he only produced that; maybe that explains why it was so good.
SIGNS (C+): Former priest Mel Gibson is a single dad and Joaquin Phoenix is his former minor league baseball playing brother who start having those weird crop circles pop up in their family own farm in this thriller from 2002. The twist is...there is no twist. Crop circles? Where have I heard that from. If I could only remember where I've heard that before maybe that would be a spoiler. You know where you heard it from. Add this predictable ending to a sidestory that could double as a sleeping aide for insomniacs about the guy (M Night in a cameo appearance, something he did in all of his movies until they really started to suck) who caused the auto accident that caused the death of Gibson's character Gramham Hess' wife. While it does tie in to the ending, it was a totally snoozefest; the fact that the ending depended on the subplot probably had a lot to do with it feeling like a let down. Nevertheless, this is still probably M Night's 3rd best movie. In spite of the weak ending and the slow pacing, it manages to entertain. The best parts are the very few moments of actual terror that this thriller delivers.
THE VILLAGE (D-): M Night's 3rd movie to make this list is probably just as good as HIGH TENSION. Yeah, I said it. The titlular village in this 2004 thriller is surrounded by a woods that has some menacing creatures in it that prevents villagers from leaving. The twist is actually pretty good here. The thing is by the time you find out what the twist is, you probably won't care or are asleep. This movie's pacing is equivalent to counting sheep. Would be M Night's worse but alas, he kept making movies. Joaquin Phoenix, Sigourney Weaver, Adrien Brody, & William Hurt are all totally wasted here. Only person who seems any good here is Bryce Dallas Howard and that's only probably because has made a career on wasting herself in worse vehicles.
THE HAPPENING (F): For some strange reason, people all over in a New York town are committing suicides and a band of survivors try not to follow the masses' example in this 2008 snoozefest. Mark Wahlberg & Zooey Deschanel are giving it the best they can to both survive the epidemic and keep this movie a float. They manage to pull off one. The twist here is about probably the most boring twist I've seen, if you even wanna call it a twist. There's a horror movie that came out a few years back based on a surprisingly good novel that had almost this exact same premise. That movie sucked and the reason it sucked is there is no way you can make a movie with this type of 'killer' and make it interesting. At least that's what I think the problem was. Either or, neither of these movies works in any sense.
THE NUMBER 23 (D-): If you've seen this 2007 Jim Carrey snoozefest, you're an insomniac. Unfornately, I don't require a lot of sleep so yeah, I've watched it in it's entirety. I don't know why. The whole premise is timid dogcatcher Walter (Carrey) finds a book about the #23 that not only stirs up old memories and cause him to question his own sanity, but sends him on the dumbest investigative quest I've ever seen. Complete waste of time. If you didn't know who the killer was here, you're as lost a cause as those of us who actually liked this movie. Like HIGH/HAUTE TENSION avoid this movie like the plague.
HANCOCK (C+): Expecting a new type of superhero movie, I was excited when I went to see this 2008 Will Smith vehicle. It did exceed my expectations but not by much. The only thing that I really did not like about this movie is the plot twist, which doesn't even come at the end. If this movie was divided into three acts the twist would be found more toward the end of the second act. And guess what? Blah? It does take away or add to this movie. I was expecting...to be honest, IDK what I was expecting but I do know I didn't get it. The end was as boring as the twist was. I can't say I hated this movie like I hated 23 or HIGH TENSION. Actually I still like this movie but it could have been way better and hopefully, the inevitable sequel is what I expect it to be, if I even expect anything.
WAY OF THE GUN (B-): WOTG is my favorite movie on this list. The ending sucks big time. The plot is all over the place and you may need a score card to keep track of the characters, the double crosses and the double double crosses. Why do I like this movie? Because I know what it was aiming at and I admire it's audacity in that regards. It's aim is to be a modern retelling of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, with Benicio Del Toro and Ryan Phillippe as the pair of modern day outlaws in this 2000 movie. The twist at the end isn't the worst I've seen but after the fireworks this movie offers, it's more than a little anticlimatic to say the least. Totally could have been left off. If the original Butch/Sundance movie had the perfect ending, this should have totally had the same ending. It did, then the twist came and that's why it doesn't get an A for it's effort.
DIABOLIQUE (D-)/ THE VANISHING (D-): These two movies have something in common with WOTG: they are remakes of some damn good movies that more than likely you've never seen unless you're truly into films. These remakes are more blatant, copying scene after scene almost indentically to their sources. What's crazier about 1996 Sharon Stone powered DIABOLIQUE is that it comes from a movie that has one of the greatest twist endings of all time, 1955's French masterpiece LES DIABOLIQUES. The wife and the mistress (Sharon Stone) of a school master (Chazz Palminteri) plot to kill him. When they go through with it, that's when the insanity really starts. Story identical to the original, scene's identical, but why doesn't it work here? Among other things pacing character developement, lighting. Everything that wasn't wrong in the original is fixed here, with disasterous results. Never is this a good thing. Not to mention the original's best scene, which added to the twist, is expertly mauled here .
The original THE VANISHING, a Dutch-French 1988 offering about the boyfriend of a missing woman and his efforts to find her, had a helluva twist ending that made the film as powerful as possible. Americanization surprisingly keeps that ending then burns us when it adds a TV afterschool special-type happy ending (sorta) that totally slaps the viewers in the face, especially if you've viewed the original. Kiefer Sutherland is desperate boyfriend in the remake. Besides the obvious upbeat ending change this movie slowed the pace of the original to a crawl. The twist in the original is the end. The twist here gets watered down like a circus elephant. If you must see these too movies, brave the subtitles of the originals. And be prepared to be scared. Oh, and thank me when you get a chance. You're gonna love them.
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| I liked this movie in spite of the blah ending. |
OK. Once again, I liked it. I loved the three main characters, especially DeNiro's Silva although Weaver's Maggie seems to be having the most fun in this movie. What didn't I like? The end. The shock: I didn't see it coming. One of my keys for a great movie is either I don't see it coming or I see it coming but it comes in a way I've never seen before. Neither happens here. As soon as the credits rolled, I heard my fellow moviegoers go "What happened?","I don't get it.",etc. I know what happened. I got it when it happened. The thing was it didn't do anything for me. If you've seen Christopher Nolan's MEMENTO (like I suggest every other week), then you know what I'm talking about. I won't spoil it here but the end of that movie made you wanna watch it again to be sure you wasn't crazy. Ditto Nolan's least talked about big name movie, the under-appreciated THE PRESTIGE. That movie's ending wrought as many multiple endings as MEMENTO did.
Don't get me wrong. As I said, I liked this RED LIGHT movie. In general the endings of movies can make and break movies. This ending doesn't work, sorry, but it's not a deal breaker. Unlike the ending of THE USUAL SUSPECTS, for instance, which makes that movie that much better, this ending feels forced. TUS ending is unforced as well as completely implausible but still manages to work. Films are funny like that sometime. The plot twist also can make or break movies. If you remember watching THE SIXTH SENSE for the first time and was lucky enough to see it before people started blabbing the ending, then you know exactly what I'm talking about here. The movie was ho-hum through out until you arrived at the ending, which made you want to go back and watch the whole movie again just to see how you didn't see what the ending told you earlier. Upon the second and third viewings, you realize how good this movie really was.
With all that said, let's take a look at some of the other movie endings in recent cinema that left a bad taste in our mouths. Sometimes, like RED LIGHTS, these movies still work. Other times, well, not so much.
THE BOOK OF ELI (C): The premise of this 2010 movie was mouth watering to movie buffs. A samarai-type wanderer (Denzel Washington) is given the task of transporting a powerful book in by a mysterious voice he here's from one side of a apocalyptic United States to the other. The ending, if you didn't see it coming, should have been a mind blower. I for one, did not see the end coming and no, my mind was not blown away by it. It's not really a bad movie. Denzel is Denzel, Gary Oldman as the head baddie and Mila Kunis as a femme fatale both showed a lil acting chops here as well but for some reason, the plot twist of this movie did nothing for me whatsoever. 
INBREAKABLE (B-): Get ready for a trend, folks. This is the 1st of the M Night Shyamalan movies to make it to this list but it won't be the last. This one, from 2000, is actually not that bad not only compared to the rest of his films but to the rest of the films on this list. The premise: An everyman (Bruce Willis) is coming to terms with the fact that he may be invincible. He's informed of this by his brittle boned friend Elijah (a scary Samuel L Jackson). This movie was OK, the pacing was about as slow as RED LIGHTS though. The ending could have been much better. It shocked me but for the wrong reason. After all that slowly painful buildup, THIS was the best you could give me? Thanks but no thanks. Interesting note: this was M Night's second movie after the hugely successly THE SIXTH SENSE. I was soooo waiting on this movie and I hated that it wasn't as good as I thought it would be. Even worse, every movie made after this was a step further away from must see cinema. This was the beginning of the end. He did redeem himself with the excellent DEVILS but he only produced that; maybe that explains why it was so good.
SIGNS (C+): Former priest Mel Gibson is a single dad and Joaquin Phoenix is his former minor league baseball playing brother who start having those weird crop circles pop up in their family own farm in this thriller from 2002. The twist is...there is no twist. Crop circles? Where have I heard that from. If I could only remember where I've heard that before maybe that would be a spoiler. You know where you heard it from. Add this predictable ending to a sidestory that could double as a sleeping aide for insomniacs about the guy (M Night in a cameo appearance, something he did in all of his movies until they really started to suck) who caused the auto accident that caused the death of Gibson's character Gramham Hess' wife. While it does tie in to the ending, it was a totally snoozefest; the fact that the ending depended on the subplot probably had a lot to do with it feeling like a let down. Nevertheless, this is still probably M Night's 3rd best movie. In spite of the weak ending and the slow pacing, it manages to entertain. The best parts are the very few moments of actual terror that this thriller delivers.
THE HAPPENING (F): For some strange reason, people all over in a New York town are committing suicides and a band of survivors try not to follow the masses' example in this 2008 snoozefest. Mark Wahlberg & Zooey Deschanel are giving it the best they can to both survive the epidemic and keep this movie a float. They manage to pull off one. The twist here is about probably the most boring twist I've seen, if you even wanna call it a twist. There's a horror movie that came out a few years back based on a surprisingly good novel that had almost this exact same premise. That movie sucked and the reason it sucked is there is no way you can make a movie with this type of 'killer' and make it interesting. At least that's what I think the problem was. Either or, neither of these movies works in any sense.
THE NUMBER 23 (D-): If you've seen this 2007 Jim Carrey snoozefest, you're an insomniac. Unfornately, I don't require a lot of sleep so yeah, I've watched it in it's entirety. I don't know why. The whole premise is timid dogcatcher Walter (Carrey) finds a book about the #23 that not only stirs up old memories and cause him to question his own sanity, but sends him on the dumbest investigative quest I've ever seen. Complete waste of time. If you didn't know who the killer was here, you're as lost a cause as those of us who actually liked this movie. Like HIGH/HAUTE TENSION avoid this movie like the plague.
HANCOCK (C+): Expecting a new type of superhero movie, I was excited when I went to see this 2008 Will Smith vehicle. It did exceed my expectations but not by much. The only thing that I really did not like about this movie is the plot twist, which doesn't even come at the end. If this movie was divided into three acts the twist would be found more toward the end of the second act. And guess what? Blah? It does take away or add to this movie. I was expecting...to be honest, IDK what I was expecting but I do know I didn't get it. The end was as boring as the twist was. I can't say I hated this movie like I hated 23 or HIGH TENSION. Actually I still like this movie but it could have been way better and hopefully, the inevitable sequel is what I expect it to be, if I even expect anything. 
WAY OF THE GUN (B-): WOTG is my favorite movie on this list. The ending sucks big time. The plot is all over the place and you may need a score card to keep track of the characters, the double crosses and the double double crosses. Why do I like this movie? Because I know what it was aiming at and I admire it's audacity in that regards. It's aim is to be a modern retelling of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, with Benicio Del Toro and Ryan Phillippe as the pair of modern day outlaws in this 2000 movie. The twist at the end isn't the worst I've seen but after the fireworks this movie offers, it's more than a little anticlimatic to say the least. Totally could have been left off. If the original Butch/Sundance movie had the perfect ending, this should have totally had the same ending. It did, then the twist came and that's why it doesn't get an A for it's effort.DIABOLIQUE (D-)/ THE VANISHING (D-): These two movies have something in common with WOTG: they are remakes of some damn good movies that more than likely you've never seen unless you're truly into films. These remakes are more blatant, copying scene after scene almost indentically to their sources. What's crazier about 1996 Sharon Stone powered DIABOLIQUE is that it comes from a movie that has one of the greatest twist endings of all time, 1955's French masterpiece LES DIABOLIQUES. The wife and the mistress (Sharon Stone) of a school master (Chazz Palminteri) plot to kill him. When they go through with it, that's when the insanity really starts. Story identical to the original, scene's identical, but why doesn't it work here? Among other things pacing character developement, lighting. Everything that wasn't wrong in the original is fixed here, with disasterous results. Never is this a good thing. Not to mention the original's best scene, which added to the twist, is expertly mauled here . 
