Change Your Image
Karlos-3
Reviews
Batman Begins (2005)
Batman Begins, FINALLY!
This is THE Batman movie. Everything before it was a waste of time and everything after it will have a lot to live up for.
Of the previous four Batman movies, the only one that comes close is the first. This movie basically rewrites the whole franchise and it rewrites it the way it SHOULD have been written the first time.
Basiclaly, this movie captures the spirit of Batman like no other movie. Exceptional acting by all parties certainly helps, but the key strength of this movie is the writing and directing.
The story is very well written (though I found the bit about training with some secret Ninja society a bit weird for Batman, I guess they wanted to explain his excellent martial skills). The story starts slowly and nicely to introduce you to the personality of Brude Wayne, but it is not cheesy or over simplified. The biggest Achilles-heel of modern Comic book adaptations (like Spiderman, Hulk, Daredevil) is that, with the exception of X-Men, they are written with 12-13 year-olds in mind. The dialog is watered down and many of the details are ignored and sacrificed for high-octane computer generated action scenes. This movie does the right thing, it tells a solid good story knowing that it will be loved by grown-ups and kids as well. The movie has no shortage of cool gadgetry and nice action scenes mind you.
The directing is where the movie gets a 10. The movie succeeds in capturing the spirit of Batman comics. Batman is always there, always watching, brooding, creeping. The creepy, chilling sense of some of the comics, the scary moments, the deadly efficiency of the Dark Knight is in full display. The hallucinations induced by the doctor in the movie will scare you pretty good while the clever sarcasm of Alfred will bring a smile to your face.
The outfit is probably the best similarity to Batman ever, the supporting cast (especially Michael Caine) offer a wonderful refreshment throughout the dark (and rather far-fetched) plot that unfolds. And of course, the main dish, Christian Bale is amazing. He does the best Bruce Wayne/Batman combo ever.
Madagascar (2005)
Recipe for laughter or boredom..
I am, quite frankly, sick and tired of DreamWorks' recipe for all their movies. It's like Antz and Shark Tale and Shrek 2 and Madagazcar all came out of some robotic movie writing machine. (Shrek 1 was notably an exception.) Here's the recipe: You get a bunch of Hollywood stars, depict them into goofy cartoon characters, wrap some lame (ridiculously repeated) story and then add a lot of funky dance songs (all past hits, don't think of anything yourself). And you count on the star power of the voice actors and the funny graphics and hip tunes to gather viewers. Because once viewers see the film, they will remember nothing else but a few funny lines and a few funky tunes.
Madagascar is no different. It is wonderfully animated, very colorful and well acted. Ben Stiller does the best job then Chris Rock seems bored at times and the other two are sub par. But beyond that, the movie makers want you to laugh and ignore the details. Don't worry about how or who or why. Just keep laughing to one liners and funny situations and ignore the fact that the story is non-existent.
Here is the difference: You watch the Incredibles and you are completely engrossed in the characters, you know Mr.Incredible is a proud hero yet typical suburban dad, you see Syndrome as the diabolical wack-o. You don't even think about the actors voicing the characters. But in AntZ, you are supposed to see Woddy Allen and Sylvester Stallone. In Shark Tale you are supposed to feel Will Smith is the main character. In Madagascar, you see Chris Rock and Ben Stiller.
The brightest spot in the movie is the diabolical team of penguins. They were a true joy and about the only creative stroke in the whole movie.
Dreamworks has much to learn from Pixar. The most important thing being, they need to be creative, not repetitive. there is no ONE recipe to make movies, they have to give each movie its own spirit and creative touch.
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
Excellent follow up.. With a little cheese..
I don't get why this movie got so much criticism. It is a very good sequel to the first part.
Granted, a lot of the coolness of the first movie is no longer as surprising or cool, but still the movie is very solid in every aspect.
The movie follows a solid story, and if anyone actually focused on the dialogs between Neo and the Oracle and the "Architect" they would find the story is solid and heading in a very pleasant direction. The plot is strong and the scripting is wonderful. It goes without saying that the action scenes are superb, though after a while you begin to get that feeling of watching the Terminator movies.. All the scenes until the last one are not going to surprize you because you already know that neither the bad guy nor the good guy are going to die.
The movie does have two drawbacks.. The first is Keanu Reeves.. The man just should not act. But he is a penalty that all three movies will endure. The one thing that this series has going for it is that the main character has to look cool and carry a stern face around most of the time, something Reeves does with excellence. His love scene with Carrie-Ann Moss is nothing short of dreadful, she might as well have been having sex with her laptop. There is no chemistry between Reeves and Moss, and it is not Moss' fault, there is no chemsitry between Reeves and anything in that movie, except his sunglasses.
The other drawback is the cheese.. The people who are "outside the matrix" who are living in the real world, wear weird robes and dance to African drums in the "temple" and have wild collective parties and are basically copied from a mixture of sci-fi/fantasy sources. There is no denying that those people are refugees who should be having it tough, but the image that the writers and directors created.. It just makes you want to take the blue pill and go live back in the computer generated fantasy.
Signs (2002)
Very Good movie, intellectual and thrilling..
Signs is a very good movie. I think it is the midpoint between Sixth Sense and Unbreakable as far as M.Night Shyamalan is concerned. In Sixth Sense.. The movie was greatly successful because of its thrilling story, while unbreakable had more of an intellectual debate that frustrated some seekers of thrill.. Signs is in between.. Signs is thrilling, but in the same time, Shyamalan proposes an intellectual dialog about faith, luck and pre-destination. Do things just happen or is there a plan? It's a respectable dialog though he obviously favors one side over the other.
Signs is the story of a priest. Rev. Graham Hess who loses faith in his religion when his wife dies horribly in a freak accident. One that he failed to understand or accept and caused to completely reject the idea that there is any kind of guiding force guiding this world. Graham lives in a farm in a small town with two little kids and his brother who moved in after his failure in making a career in baseball.
This small fragile family is immediately thrust into the events of an Alien invasion. Unlike war of the worlds and most other alien movies, this movie is not really about the aliens. This is why focusing on how and why the aliens came and how and why the aliens left is a waste of time. The movie is using this incredible event (an alien invasion) to show how this small broken family is dealing with a crisis. How the faith of the family is tested in this dilemma.
Almost all the aspects of "sci-fi" and thrill in the movie can be found in other movies, but it's Shyamalar's ability to collect all these features in his movie and making them FIT. They fit perfectly. There isn't a scene when you laugh instead of being scared, I looked around the movie theatre as I watched the movie.. And when an anticipated scary moment was coming (someone is opening a door or looking through a hole) people stopped chewing their pop corn.. This is the sign of a true thrilling movie. When you don't feel that the scenes are standard clichés but actual parts of the story.
As far as acting goes.. All the actors did a superb job led by Gibson. Phoenix is great and the four family members portray anguish, joy and fear with excellence. Shyamalan himself does a small role and he is a dreadful actor. Not only that, but I felt his appearance was a poor choice and broke the story a bit. Shyamalan looks Indian as it is his heritage. And it seemed very out of place to see a person of Indian origin in a supposedly very small town south of Philly. It's like casting a Native American actor to play a role in a movie about 15th century Scottland.. Makes no sense.
The sound and music are very good, nothing original, but they do a good job of creeping you up.
Finally, as far as Shyamalan's intellectual part of the movie.. It will fall to the individual's beliefs. Personally of course, I liked the ending because it chimed in with my beliefs, but I did feel that he made the ending too blunt and open.. He could have done it in more subtle ways.
Hollow Man (2000)
A colossal wasted effort..
This is the kind of movie that leaves you with one impression.. Story writing IS what movie making is about.
Incredible visual effects.. Very good acting, especially from Shue. Everything is perfect.. Except.. The story is just poor and so, everything fails.
Picture this, if you had the power to be invisible.. What would you do? Well, our mad scientist here (played by Kevin Bacon) could think of no other thing to do but fondle and rape women.. This is all his supposedly "genius" mind could think of. Does he try to gain extra power? No. He doesn't even bother research a way to get back to being visible. The guy is basically a sex crazed maniac.
Add to that, the lab atmosphere, you have all these young guys.. Throwing around jokes like they were in a bar.. If it wasn't for all the white coats and equipment, you would think this is a bad imitation of "Cheers." Very shallow and poor personalities and very little care is put into making you think these guys are anything but lambs for the Hollow Man's wolf.
Even as a thriller, the movie falls way short because most of the "thrilling" scenes are written out so poorly and are full of illogical behaviors by the actors that are just screaming "this is just a stupid thing I have to do so that the Hollow man can find me alone and kill me."
If you read the actual book, while the Scientist (Cane) goes after women, there is a lot of mental manipulation and disturbing thought that goes into his character. In the movie, Cane is just the sick guy who goes to a crowded marketplace to rub his body in women and get off on it. Just sad.
Spider-Man (2002)
Great visual adaptation, but the spirit is lost..
This movie is probably the BEST visual adaptation of a comic hero. No movie before has every captured a comic hero as closely (from a visual stand point) as this movie has captured Spiderman.
The moment Spidey sets out slinging his webs and swinging from building to building, you will get flashbacks from the comics you read when you were young. The interaction between the computer generated spidey, the special effects and the Spiderman played by Tobey is pretty slick.
Still, I think the movie failed to capture Spiderman's most important attribute, which is not his web slinging or wall crawling or heightened senses.. It's actually his sense of humour.
The attribute that set Spiderman apart from all comic hero's was his constant sarcasm.. Those little bubbles above his head where he would make fun of himself after a bad landing or make fun of Dr.Doom after something he says. This whole aspect of Spidey's character is totally lost in the movie and that is a big blow to any adaptation of Spiderman's comics.
The script was not the work of legends, there are many cheesy parts in the movie (especially a whole scene which is totally uncalled for where Spidey saves Marie-Jane from rapists).
Acting is done rather well in the movie, Tobey does a great job as the nerd, Dunst is not needed for her role, it is greatly beneath her acting skills and she is too nice to be MJ, but she does pretty well and then there is Willem Dafoe whom I thought was awesome.
Highlander (1986)
Brilliant action/adventure movie with a beautiful story..
This movie was a rare gem in its time. At a time when Indiana Jones and the Terminator defined what actions movies were all about. When Stallone, Arnold and Mad Max were the "average" hero.. This movie brought a completely different (and wonderful) side to the genre.
The story is that of a set of "immortals".. People who dwell among us who cannot be killed by normal means (except by one way.. to behead them.) Like the vampires in most literature, those immortals are basically two sets.. Those who try to go on and those who are possessed by this "gift" and seek to abuse its use.
The hero of the movie is the anti-Arnold/Rambo/MadMax.. He is a sad man.. Not bulging with muscles and he has no clever punch lines. He's a normal man with sad expressions on his face that fit the idea that he is a man who has endured an eternity.. ALONE. This is the overpowering theme of the movie. In a way, it makes you think.. How dreadful would it be if I could live forever.
The hero starts out as a Scottish warrior in the 14th/15th century.. He survives what should have been a deadly blow in battle.. Which causes his tribe to cast him out. From then on.. He journeys around the world going from place to place and time to time (and persona to persona) until we see him in our present day life.
During his travels he meets with Sean Connery who is another immortal. Sean teaches Lambert a few lessons about life and about his new gift. The scene when Lambert's first wife is dying at a very old age while he is still young (with Queen's song "Who wants to live forever" in the background) is a very touching one.
The sword battles and the scenery (in the ancient times) is just splendid, and the whole movie overall is a great one.
Under Suspicion (2000)
This is a heavy dose in magnificent acting.
This film is simply an overdose in magnificent acting by two of the greatest "veteran" actors of modern times.
Hackman and Freeman play each other to a tie. They both perfect their roles. Jane does a nice job as Freeman's assistant but Bellucci is simply sad. Watching her stare with blank stares at everyone else in the movie makes you feel sad because she was obviously chosen for her looks and not for an acting talent that matches anything Hackman and Morgan have. In a way, this is good, her lines are limited and her confrontations with Hackman are few. She has a couple of long scenes with Freeman where he desperately tries to get some life into her character, but she is no help.
I didn't think the directing of the movie was bad, on the contrary, I felt it was very good. It is a bit gimmicky for a movie of this type. Too many toys and gadgets to play with these days that the director simply had to cut and paste all over the place. But I thought his idea of PORTRAYING Morgan Freemen within the recollections of Hackman and Bellucci was brilliant. And it DOES gain more significance when the ending is revealed. I personally enjoyed this move very much. but overall, I though he used gimmicks and weird shot angles too much. I do not think he hurt the delivery.
I would advise anyone who has a passion for a well-written, well-acted story to watch this movie. The ending also has a nice twist to it.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Wonderful movie.. Best adaptation of the fantasy world of D&D EVER.
This is just a perfect movie.. As a film, the directing, acting, the score, the scenery.. Everything is great. The story is a timeless one and the script is perfect.
For someone who has not read Tolkien's novel or someone who overall doesn't care about the D&D specifics, the movie is a marvelous adventure with great excitement and a wonderful "human" side to the story. It is a refreshing break from the shallow adventure movies of today which are basically collections of one neat 3-D computer generated effect after another. Much of the suspense and excitement of the movie is generated by good old fashioned action movie making. You are held to your seat with a wide stare in your eyes as the party fights an ogre simply because the damage is real, the agony is real and from the flow of the story, you KNOW that it is not beyond the writer to let on the members of the party die, so when the Ogre swings his club at one of the members, you find yourself wanting him to duck or dodge the blow. This is exactly what a good action movie should do. But if you sit there, all too sure of the outcome of the conflict, then an action sequence has failed.
Now, for those who DO know the story by Tolkien and who are familiar with the world of D&D.. The movie offers an added HUGE bonus. Perfect adaptation. I only have one complaint that I will list in the end, but the way the story is adapted is simply wonderful.
For starters, a GREAT deal of effort is put into making the world a REAL D&D world. Halflings are almost half as tall as humans. Elfs are fine and tall and agile, Dwarfs are shorts and grumpy. Elves talk in Elven language when talking to each other. A small detail, but meaningful. A dwarven city perfectly matches the concepts of D&D about dwarven cities.. The HUGE and massive architectures. The Elven cities also match the image that is held in the minds of D&D fans.
The culture of most of the D&D world is also depicted well. Elves despise dwarfs and look down on humans, Dwarfs naturally despise Elves. Orcs attack in HORDES. A demon (especially a Balrog) is not a monster that you pull a sword or a bow on, you have to be a GRAND hero to take on such a beast, this is why when the party encountered one, the only advice they had was RUN!!
Still, for the sake of perfection, I have one small remark.. Orcs were made to look scary. Which is fine, but the makeup made them look more like undead than orcs. There is a certain, stupidity and goofiness to Orcs that is missing.. Perhaps this was not a purpose for the director, but I personally thought their makeup was more of horror movie bad guys (Freddie Kruger) than actual Orcs.
Se7en (1995)
A horrific view of the world of homicide, investigation and morals.
This movie is nothing short of amazing. The more I think about it, the more I believe that I only gave it 9 instead of 10 because I didn't like the ending. And I didn't like the ending, not because it wasn't real or well written, but because it wasn't a happy ending where the good guy "gets" the bad guy.
This movie is incredibly deep and in the mean time, very enjoyable. Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey and Gweneth Paltrow deliver masterful performances. Paltrow's performance practically ruined the movie for me because she was so convincing.
I would recommend that people own this movie. Even though it has a rap for being gross, most of the gross parts are in the mind of the viewer.
This movie is proof that the most brilliant rendering of horror is that of human imagination. It proves that movie makers who spend millions of dollars making this computer graphics monster to look scary are looking in the wrong place. There is a part where someone is starved to the point where he eats his tongue. This most cruel thought that escaped even the most twisted producers of horror movies is not even depicted. Yet, when it is simply thrown out there, you cannot help the chills that run up your spine.. It is as if you are seeing this horrible act take place.. Each one of us will imagine it in his/her own disgusting and horrific way, yet all of us will have that chill. This is because the writing of the script is so solid, and the delivery of the actors is so strong that you BELIEVE them.
The movie's plot is the story of two homicide detectives, one old and retiring, the other young and new.. Both have contradicting views that represent the old vs new conflict in its generality. The young cop still believes in good, he still believes his job is to "catch the bad guys." The older cop's view has changed over time to just collecting evidence, he has seen too many "bad guys" slip away to still believe that his work actually leads to avenging the murdered victims. One studies the mindset of the murderer, the other studies the evidence and the finger prints. They are truly a pair.
This pair is assigned a daunting task.. That of a serial killer killing through applying the seven sins on people whom he perceives are doing them. For the sin of Gluttony, he would feed an overweight man until he dies.. And so forth. The killer is creative and is unbelievably dedicated and cruel.
The movie is not simply a thriller where you sit on the edge of your seat waiting for the next gruesome murder to unfold, nor is it a trivial action movie where you know the good guy won't be harmed or that the bad guy will be caught.
I would have liked to see the movie end on any different note than the one it ended on, but it's just the harsh reality that the movie wanted to deliver.
In addition to the magnificent tale, the movie deliver several warning bells, such as police personnel in police stations who share info with the press for money. Also, the idea that the FBI having a few "flags" over certain books and people who borrow them or buy them. These are realities of the police world that were never addressed before and are addressed effectively yet in a realistic sense in the movie.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
A very good rendering of a comic that is actually a novel.
I couldn't help the feeling of emptiness after watching Harry Potter. The movie is wonderfully rendered. Acting is great. The only problem is that, the movie was either on a tight budget or on time contraints.
Watching the movie, you can't help but get the feeling that the director is trying to put as many aspects of the original novel into the movie that he doesn't give any of them justice.
For instance, Harry's family, they are protrayed sarcastically in the start and then completely forgotten, even Harry doesn't seem to recall they exist.
Another example, is this Centaur that jumps in, saves Harry, and leaves. To people who read the novel, they might know who that is and feel empowered by such knowledge.. To the majority that didn't.. They are left feeling that a scene in which the centaur tells Harry who he is should be there.
And so the movie goes, after a slow calm start, the movie runs in similar fashion, at first portraying Harry's miserable childhood, and then quickly leaving that and taking you to Hogwarts where the movie portrays the wonders of the school and then leaves them there and shifts focus to the sorcerer's stone and Voldemort. And just when you get emersed into that, the final conflict is quickly upon you and it is one of the weakest final conflicts you have ever seen in a fantasy movie. There is no real battle.. No grand finale, no suspense. Nothing. Just a dead end. Perhaps the Novel had more to offer, but the movie did not, and so a better ending was in order.
And so, after leaving the movie, you feel pleased and disappointed. Every rendering of one aspect of Harry's story was accurate, the problem is that the sum of it didn't really fit together well nor did it do the story well. In fact, if there was one theme to the whole movie, it would be the four houses that the apprentices are inducted into. Which is sad because there are greater themes in the novel itself, but this is the only theme that flows through out the movie. Everything else pops in and then quickly pops out again.
I think the best solution to this problem would be to make the movie longer.. At least an extra hour of film is missing from this rendition of the Harry Potter stories. This is why I felt the movie was cut short for some reason. Any one can feel it. Every rendering that took place was accurate, but not one rendering gave justice to the original novel.
Rollover (1981)
A complicated economic plot that falls way short in all aspects.
The short side of the story is that this has to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Rythme-wise, the movie is dead. It makes you feel like you are attending a lecture on economy at the university. And to think that I watched the movie because it was described as a "thriller!"
The story portrays an Arab plot to shake the foundations of global economy using the simple concept that there is alot more "printed" paper money than there is actual value out there in the world.
First of all, the movie is offensive to Arabs. If this movie was made now, civil rights groups and Muslim/Arab groups would be all over it, in one scene, Jane Fonda says (about taking a loan from those Arabs): "I feel like a beggar asking them for money, and I HATE it!" and Kristofferson comforts her by saying: "You and the rest of the world!" This is an out right racist statement that wouldn't slip so casually as it did in 1981. Aside from that, the movie protrays Arab customs rather poorly, on one side, the director of the movie is keen on showing Arab rich people sitting on the ground and eating with their hands from one big plate (to somehoe portray primitivity) and forcing Fonda and Kristofferson to do the same (which doesn't happen in real life, they give guests plates and spoons if they need them), but the director makes a bigger slip of showing them shaking hands with Fonda and sitting right next to her in the dinner. That would not take place in the same societies that eat with their hands from the plates.
Other omissions are plenty as well, portraying Arab countries and cities as vast areas of desert lands and tents doesn't portray what the Arab world looked like in 1981.
From an acting stand point, Fonda is not too bad, but Kristofferson is awful. His "cowboy" acting style really misses the target in this one. The image of a banker who talks like a cowboy, behaves like a cowboy and tells his boss in the bank that if he doesn't hang up the phone he would smash his head.. This image is just not real. The way every night fall in the movie almost always ends with Fonda and Kristofferson making love is also not real for two people well over fourty as the movie portrays. So, you feel like the roles were written in a naive way. Not much attention was put into seeing how the characters fit into their perspective roles.
Overall, this movie is not worth renting on video even, I would suggest waiting till its out there on TNT or TBS or something, in fact, it's not worth such a long review. (:-)))
Heist (2001)
A very good starts, great continuation and terrible finish.
It's another "great robbery" film where you know the plot is about the great thief who is forced into that one last great operation and you know there is going to be double crossing all the way.
The movie starts out great and builds up on that great start. Gene Hackman is this master-thief who has three great aids. Their work is perfect and flawless. Until on one operation Gene Hackman is burned (his face exposed to security cameras) and has to retire simply because he didn't want to kill an innocent woman in a robbery. (Keep that in mind.)
This is when the chess games between him and Danny Devito (the corrupt thief in charge of fencing the good and finding targets) begin to fall in place. Unfortunately, the game is not balanced. Gene Hackman is given too much brain power in his role whereas Devito is given the brain power of a hamster.
Contradictions are not few in this movie. At one point, Delroy Lindo (Hackmans's assistant) is this brash idiot who doesn't realize a bag full of jewelry is empty, at another point he's as masterfully skilled and smart as his boss. Hackman refuses to kill the innocent woman yet shoots injured thieves in cold-blood like a professional assassin.
Yet, as far as thrill goes, the movie is very good up until three quarters of it. You are honestly surprised by most of the "moves" that Hackman does in his game of chess with Devito. Then something goes wrong (my guess is they lost the script for the last quarter of the movie) and things start repeating themselves. All of a sudden.. The "Ooohs" and "Aaahs" in the movie theater are replaced by "What? How did he fall for that?" or "I bet he's bluffing him again." And that's when you know a thriller has lost it.
That's what happens in Heist.. How many times can Hackman lie to people about where the loot is and get away with it? It gets very boring near the end where you can see from a mile away.
The most mysterious part of the whole movie is where Rebecca Pidgeon stands. You're never sure where her allegiance lies. Even as the very last scene of the movie unfolds. You're not sure exactly if she's with Hackman or not.
Overall though.. There is no shortness of acting greatness in the movie.. Hackman is great, Devito was born to play out the evil dirty little guy, Lindo and Jay play their roles very well as the assistants to Hackman. Special props have to go to Sam Rockwell because he REALLY gets under your skin with the way he plays out the over-confident spoiled jerk whom Hackman has to take along on a very delicate robbery and who thinks at every turn that he can outsmart Hackman (and naturally doesn't). He plays the role very well and I believe, like Devito, Rockwell can make a living playing those irritating over-confident jerks, he was masterful in the Green Mile and he's pretty obnoxious here too.
Memento (2000)
Overall, great story telling, great flow, disappointing finish.
This movie is truly unique. One of those movies that you MUST see. You just have to experience. All the reviews you read and all talk you hear will not do it justice.
The plot is simple (at first) as we have a person, Leonard, whose wife was raped and murdered and he was attacked during the incident. The whole incident (either the hit by the attacker or the traumatizing effect of seeing his wife die) left him with this illness. He lost his short term memory. He cannot form any new memories. Several times in the movie we see Lenny (Leonard) doing something, and as soon as he loses focus for several seconds, he forgets what he was doing. At one point he is being chased by an armed man, he gets tangled in a few obstacles and when he comes out of them he can't remember why he is running, he sees this man running on the opposite side of the building and he thinks he is chasing that man, as he starts running at him the man pulls out his gun and starts firing.. Lenny then realizes it is he who is being chased. In another incident.. Lenny is harassed by someone who knows his condition, that someone insults Lenny and his wife and then walks out.. Three minutes later that same person walks in (to Lenny trying to find a pen to write down that this person is bad) and the mere distraction of the door opening is enough for Lenny to forget what took place and for that person to pretend he/she was Lenny's friend.
From the get go, there are two things that capture your interest..
One, Lenny is a strange person, he has this weakness that he refuses to succumb to. He refuses to trust anyone or anything but his own observations, sentences like "I know when someone knows me, I just look into their eyes" strike you are pretty confident for a guy with no memory. He places infinite trust in his Tattoos, notes, files and photos. The major facts he finds about his wife's killer, he writes as a Tattoo on his body, his research work on the killer is in a file he keeps with him all the time. He leaves notes in his pocket for things he plans to do, simply by leaving them there, he is sure to revisit them later. He takes polaroid photos of all the important things in his current situation, where he's staying, his car, people he met (and on the back he writes his impressions about them). The techniques he uses to record these memories are not surprising, but the way he trusts his own handwriting and his own remarks on the back of each photo is what strikes you as odd. I believe it is a very accurate depiction by the writer of the story as anyone who has dealt with a disabled person will testify that this form of defiance and reluctance to rely on others is very much a real behavior. As Lenny himself said (describing a case he handled when he was an insurance investigator of a man who suffered from the same condition he later on acquired), "I realized that the look of recognition in his eyes (which made me think he was faking the condition) was actually fake. He was giving that look to everyone who approaches him hoping to give them SIGNs that he is doing better."
Two, the movie is told as two tales.. One moving backwards, and the other moving forwards. The reverse tale is in color and is the personification of Lenny's case. Like Lenny, you see events unfold with out knowing what took place before them. You see he is talking to a man who is trying to help him, but on the photo he has of that man he has written the sentence "Don't trust him" so he ignores the man's advice. You (like Lenny) have to believe the photo (of course as a viewer, you start thinking, may be that's not his handwriting, may be someone forged his handwriting to lead Lenny in the wrong way). And as this story unfolds backwards (with you having the privilege of knowing what would result from each scene because you've seen all the way till the end) the other story (shot in black and white) is moving forward. From the beginning you realize that it is taking place prior to the colored story (Lenny has less tattoos).
Eventually, the two stories meet near the movie's finale. Until THAT point in the movie, it is one of the greatest movies EVER.
But it is the finale that detracts from the movie as the director (or story writer?) tried to leave a puzzling finish to make the movie sound real deep. He succeeded in making the finish puzzling, but he failed in making the finish live up to the level of story telling and overall performance of the movie to that point.
Someone likened the surprising ending of this movie to the ending of the 6th Sense.. All I can say is that this statement would be true if the Sixth Sense ended in you finding out that all those ghosts the kid saw were just actors and that it was all a prank on the little boy. That's how surprising the ending of Memento is.. It's REALLY surprising, but greatly frustrating.
Don't Say a Word (2001)
Overall, this is a respectable thriller but the story needs some work.
This movie is probably the stereotype of thriller movies. Fast-paced, with a little mystery and a few surprises here and there, but most of the time you will be drawn by the fact that you want to see how the ending was made rather than what the ending IS.
The movie commercial lays out the story pretty much. A psychiatrists' daughter is kidnapped by some highly sophisticated criminals. The reason is that they want his skills to extract a number from the mind of a teenager. This number relates to a failed robbery they committed a decade before and they need the number that the girl memorized a decade ago so that they can get to their loot. The movie has a very fast pace. There isn't one scene that lasts more than five minutes. Not one long conversation or huge confrontation or any such thing. Which is probably the movie's biggest weakness. It's amazing the amount of detail that was put into creating the settings for the movie. As much time as the director put into looking after the tiny details in the scenery and the equipment the criminals have, he sure put little time into reviewing the story itself. Little effort is made to introduce some very key characters in the movie. For example, a key police officer in the story just POPS into the movie and starts investigating trails that lead her gradually to the movie's grand finale ending. Out of the blue no introduction of her character, nothing causes you to care about her in any way. She just marches into a crime scene and starts investigating right away.
Still, the movie is a good thriller and there will be several times when you will be taken by surprise or be blind-sided by a trick the director put to rush adrenaline into your blood. And the bottom line is that's what thriller movies are about.