Xoddie posted this. My reply to each of his or her paragraphs are in (Parenthesis):
"Why are people enamored by this movie? I don't get my kicks going onto message boards and bashing movies people enjoy but this one has me baffled; Let me explain...
(I wouldn't say enamored for myself, but I did enjoy it. I'd say the atmosphere of the film, it does IMO have a good somewhat cyberpunk/alt rock feel to it IMO)
For one I didn't find there to be anything particularly science fictiony about the movie...If the cerebral recorder machines would have just simply been elaborate video cameras that fit on a persons head, the story would not have changed at all. It just makes me feel like it was a total gimmick as it was used for nothing more than revealing plot details visually. There was a couple talks about dealing in pieces of people and all that but none of it had anything to do with the rest of the film. And the sort of post apocalyptic impression that it seems to be going for did nothing but confuse me. One minute I thought the world was supposed to be at the end times (or some science fiction cliche like that) and the next Lenny is getting his car repossessed; What I'm saying is I was never sure how far away if at all this world was supposed to be from our own.
(You're also ignoring that the setting is only 5 years in the future of when it was filmed. Would a film set in 2013 seem all that "Sci-Fi" if it was filmed in 2008? What is "sci-fi" about the film is that it's more of an alternate future where the racial tensions of the early 90's in LA like the Rodney King beating/arrest and then the beating of truck driver Reginald Denny escalated to greater and greater racial tension. There's also the fears that were starting to hit about the year 2000, the y2k computer crashes (that never happened) and so forth, in the mid 90's to 1999 there were some people whom were concerned with that. The the script played with those tropes. Or the tl;dr: It's sci-fi due to being a near future alternate history at least at the time of filming, not due to any fantastic technology, the SQUID recorder not withstanding)
For two the characters were either unbelievable or unlikable and most the time both. Lenny reveals himself to be a swindler and loser and I never got the feeling he did anything to overcome that even by films conclusion. He was occasionally funny but that's about the only likable thing about him. I think Ralph Fiennes is a great actor but a great actor can only do so much for a poorly written character.
(He was playing a 90's grunge version of a burned out cop gone bad. That and he does redeem himself to a degree by dropping his obsession with Faith and finally figuring out that a much more decent person, Mace cares about him. That and well, does Lenny Nero need to be a shiny happy person at the end? He had just figured out that maybe Faith wasn't worth it. To have him suddenly be all squeaky clean would be unbelivable. So I have to disagree, he wasn't poorly written if you can accept that him, and most or all of the characters are meant to be grungy and dark, not squeaky clean)
Faith is even worse. She doesn't seem to have any particular motive to act the way she does at the films conclusion not to mention her interactions with Lenny are a bit exhausting to say the least. How many "What do you want Lenny?" is enough to get the point that she's not into him anymore...I got it around the third time he busted in on her.
(Again he's obsessed with her and what they had. She isn't a likeable person, she's a user. Her motive is that she uses people to get what she wants. If her music career advanced past playing underground bars to playing large venues, I'm sure she would have dumped Philo for a large record label and not given him the time of day. She's pretty much a user, period. Again I think you're looking for "shiney happy" and well, no-one in this film is that.)
Lastly is the horrible pacing. Some scenes seemed to go on forever. I think the film literally gets to it's second hour before it even attempts to deal with its disjointed and convoluted plot. I'm down with a two and half hour film that needs two and half hours to tell its story...The Godfather needs two and half hours to tell it's story; Strange Days could have done it as ineffectively in one and half.
(It's been a while since I've seen this film, but pacing wasn't one of the things I remember disliking. I don't have much more to say so I'll just agree to disagree)
It just makes me want to vomit seeing people compare Strange Days to Blade Runner, a movie with a coherent plot that deals with the science fiction themes it introduces and who's setting is clear and picture perfect; Not to mention believable characters with clearly defined motives.
(I won't say it's as good as "Blade Runner", I do like that film more. But I do think both do show us their "world" and give us a feeling of what is happening in the "Strange Days Universe of 1999/2000" and the "Blade Runner Universe of 2019". Maybe look at it this way, if Lenny Nero was a former Blade Runner in 2019, he'd not only would have quit, but would be pushing drugs or working at a sleazy club as a bouncer or some sort. Deckard in the Strange Days 1999 setting would probably just be a private detective or trying to find a job that has nothing to do with being a cop, but not be all THAT sleazy (although IMO Deckard might be a heavy drinker, but that is another discussion)"
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