I don't have a problem with a movie like True Lies. It's outlandish. It's over the top. It's ludicrous. San Andreas is all those things as well. The difference is, True Lies is almost a spoof. San Andreas is trying to be an action drama, yet is less believable than the spoof.
Don't filmmakers use consultants or subject-matter experts? Did no one ask anyone who knows anything about... well.. ANYTHING to consult for this movie? During an opening scene, our hero helicopter pilot performs a 'tip the hat' maneuver to get the chopper into a narrow canyon and perform a rescue. How did they get out of the canyon?
Our hero activates an 'autopilot' and leaves the controls of the helicopter to rescue our heroine. There ARE helicopters with a form of autopilot, but not THAT helicopter.
In several instances, our heroes carry on a conversation in a Huey helicopter as though they were sitting in an idling Maybach. Our heroine, from a rooftop amid collapsing buildings, even yells at our hero who is inside a very noisy helicopter and behind a closed door... and he hears her.
Our hero performs CPR on a drowning victim and performs rescue breathing before clearing the lungs of water.... on a moving boat.
There's too much CGI. In our opening scene, a hapless victim's car goes over a cliff. Did the drive a real car over a cliff? Did they even drive a model car over a model cliff? Oh no. They created the scene through CGI with obvious non-physical results. It's pretty lame.
Michael Bay has ruined movie-making. Now, every director seems to think that a great action scenes need to look like it was filmed as though the cameraman was on a pogo stick... on roller skates.... riding a tilt-w-whirl. There's a fantastic scene in the film Old Boy in which Old Boy fights off several attackers in a hallway. One camera. One long, long take. No shaky-cam. No whip pans. No flash cuts. The scene is brilliant, effective, almost haunting. Take notes, directors. The viewer needs a point of reference to see what's going on. If you tie a camera to a string and swing it around your head, the result isn't a great action scene. Yet, it seems that's what DP's in films like this do.
Arnold Schwarzenegger knocking out Dobermans Stooge-Style? Yeah. I bought it. San Andreas? I kept thinking, "Fakey!"
Don't filmmakers use consultants or subject-matter experts? Did no one ask anyone who knows anything about... well.. ANYTHING to consult for this movie? During an opening scene, our hero helicopter pilot performs a 'tip the hat' maneuver to get the chopper into a narrow canyon and perform a rescue. How did they get out of the canyon?
Our hero activates an 'autopilot' and leaves the controls of the helicopter to rescue our heroine. There ARE helicopters with a form of autopilot, but not THAT helicopter.
In several instances, our heroes carry on a conversation in a Huey helicopter as though they were sitting in an idling Maybach. Our heroine, from a rooftop amid collapsing buildings, even yells at our hero who is inside a very noisy helicopter and behind a closed door... and he hears her.
Our hero performs CPR on a drowning victim and performs rescue breathing before clearing the lungs of water.... on a moving boat.
There's too much CGI. In our opening scene, a hapless victim's car goes over a cliff. Did the drive a real car over a cliff? Did they even drive a model car over a model cliff? Oh no. They created the scene through CGI with obvious non-physical results. It's pretty lame.
Michael Bay has ruined movie-making. Now, every director seems to think that a great action scenes need to look like it was filmed as though the cameraman was on a pogo stick... on roller skates.... riding a tilt-w-whirl. There's a fantastic scene in the film Old Boy in which Old Boy fights off several attackers in a hallway. One camera. One long, long take. No shaky-cam. No whip pans. No flash cuts. The scene is brilliant, effective, almost haunting. Take notes, directors. The viewer needs a point of reference to see what's going on. If you tie a camera to a string and swing it around your head, the result isn't a great action scene. Yet, it seems that's what DP's in films like this do.
Arnold Schwarzenegger knocking out Dobermans Stooge-Style? Yeah. I bought it. San Andreas? I kept thinking, "Fakey!"
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