The worst movie of the past year *Spoilers*
I can somewhat understand when people say this movie was inspiring or it had a good message. The only problem for me was that I could not focus on the message, due to the pile of crap that covered it. Let me list my grievances...
Script - totally fake for most of the movie, 1 example = the line where his friends say something along the lines of "jesus, what the heck. jesus." It was just clumsy.
Acting - props to nick nolte for acting like a rock which can spit out proverbial messages...real deep. I suppose I can't critique that, because he didnt try to do anything inspiring in the first place. Then there's the lead character (I can't recall his name). That's another story all together. When he gets angry, he reminds me of a prepubescent teenage boy throwing a tantrum. Count how many times his voice cracks...it made me laugh.
Plot - Is it possible to have a cliched cliche? Because this movie took everything out of every cheesy feel-good sports movie and somehow managed to make that even more cheesy and cliched. Cocky athlete thinks he has the world in his palm...he meets with a tragic accident...he rises to glory after finding his inner being and proving himself to everyone (even though all that matters is his own belief)
Seriously, that's a plot? Oh, and there's really no twist or anything that will make you think. I suppose some may claim the accident was a twist, but could you seriously not see that coming? And, Socrates randomly popping in and out of the kid's life? Was that supposed to be mystical, because it just felt creepy to me.
Socrates - he deserves a separate category. Did he say anything that wasn't copied straight out of Chicken Soup for the Soul...or something along those lines. I fully understand he was meant to be inspirational, but was the extent of his soliloquies really necessary? Not to sound too cocky, but I predicted the lesson about the journey and the destination, verbatim.
Pacing - wow this one's just self-explanatory. I tried to fall asleep, because my brain was on fire from the stupidity of the movie, but the loud orchestral sounds kept me awake. I could probably have taken a nap and woken up without missing a meaningful scene. The pace switched from super fast, "intense" scenes (i.e. 1st person bike-riding scenes) to mind numbing slow scenes (i.e. any scene with dialogue)
Directing and Camerawork - was there any? I didn't notice any artistically created scenes or anything that was actually pretty to look at. The few fantasy scenes (i.e. dream scenes) were soooo melodramatic and disgustingly fake, that they made me laugh.
Two things I didn't dislike - It may have been the worst movie I've seen for a long time, but at least it made me laugh. Also, the music wasn't noticeably bad. It at least didn't stand out to me.
Those are some of my largest criticisms, but I'm sure that if I sat down and thought about it, I could come up with plenty more. Please don't criticize me for wasting my time with this post, cuz I'm at work and bored out of my mind anyways =) Please dont critique my grammar and spelling cuz I didnt proofread.
Also, I know that this was based off a book, and it was inspirational. I could care less. This was a waste of everyone's time and the theater's money (my tickets were free. I'm guessing this is the only way they could get people in to this movie). I can't imagine how much studio money was wasted on this movie. If I want to be inspired, I will read the book and never, ever watch this movie again.
I guess I had to see the crap to really appreciate good movies which I've seen. Something like "One must see the moon before he can appreciate the beauty of a spring flower"
O Socrates....