(no subject)
Saw Jarhead tonight...
So here we go.
Story:
Over-all, story was a lot weaker than I expected it to be. Don't get me wrong, the script was decent, as is, but not as strong as I expected. I saw a scene where they quoted Full Metal Jacket (You quote a Kubrick movie, and you get kudos points with me), and I was bursting at the seams to see this movie.
The story was not bad, I just expected it to be more. The scene where Kubrick is quoted isn't bad, at all. In fact, I was on edge as to what would happen, which was the intention of the scene, but the pacing shortly afterwards ruined it. The script also had it's humerous parts, for instance, the scene where they play football in their NBC (Nuclear Biological Chemical) suits. These scenes were pulled off decently well, and I enjoyed them. Also dialogue was believable, but possibly could've been polished a bit more.
Characters/Character Development:
The characters in this movie seemed a bit too stock. You have the main character who starts off as sane, and then loses his mind throughout the movie. The sidekick who wasn't quite what the main was, but was trying so hard to be. He even starts living bi-cariously through the main at one point. The random ethnic comic reliefs who seemed to be just in place for racial jokes to cool the movie down a bit. The stupid guy who has an unhealthy infatuation with war, and all things generally psychotic. The softy who isn't cut out for war, and you're trying to figure out what the hell he is doing there in the first place, who comes off even too soft for someone who did this voluntarily. The smart person, with the only politicial views in the movie, who is attempted to have development throughout the movie, but it's poorly achieved. I think out of the movie you were supposed to get the troupe as general unit, and sort of feel for them. As a general unit, this was a failure. The stupid guy you simply wanted to shoot whenever he opened his mouth, because you knew he would fuck up a generally good moment. The random ethnic guys seemed too purposely placed, and you never got more than a good 1 or 2 minutes with them. Making it hard to feel for them besides the one attempt when the cuban guy finding out about his child. The main character almost got on my nerves, because of the lack of character development. It was like a stair-case with extra long steps length wise. He would start on one level, stay there for the longest time, and all of the sudden he is on the next. This would conitnue throughout all levels of his character. The stupid guy, there was no character development, except for the fact that he gets more and more depraved throughout the movie, and never ceasing to amaze the audience with his senseless acts and dialogue. The one character that I thought was decent was the sidekick, I felt a true evolution of his character that no other character came close to. At the beginning he seems like he's in control, cool, and is the perfect man for his job. Eventually it's revealed that he can't reinlist, and his character slowly degrades from there, to the final breaking point of his character at the end of the movie, when he is about to get his first kill of the war, and it is stolen by a higher officer calling in an air-strike. His character then proceeds to break down, and cry, and throw a rather well thought-out fit. The main character wasn't pulled off well simply because of the first part of the movie, in the later parts he seemed to progress better than the first. At the first he already seems a bit off, which makes him hard to relate to. It's hard to feel sorry for a character which you never felt anything for in the first place. We must first, as an audience love him as a normal person, and then grow sicker and sicker as he deepens in madness. The first part of this never happened. The softie, well, he never really made sense to be in there. His character cries at the pulling of a trigger, and he never seems to grow numb, or suicidal, as all characters in that situation...well, do. Heh. Finally, there's the smart guy, who I don't blame his character on the actor, but simply the script. There's not much this guy could've done to be bigger. His few lines of random "Hey, this isn't right" show him to be the only one in the troupe with a consciousness of what he's doing. He's just simply a small character, and I think if given the chance, he would've brought some kind of variation to the movies themes.
Pacing:
Pacing in this movie was horrible. The movie at the beginning was a series of same paced scenes that involve training. Then it moves into the desert, where it consists of one scene of a character losing his mind, or something in a generally negative direction, to a scene of comedic relief, back to another scene attempting character development. The movie ends in a long series of dramatic scenes that are the gold of this movie, but don't seem to be going anywhere.
Cinematogrophy:
The part I liked most about this movie. The shots in this movie were brilliant. From the burning oil fields, to the starch white training hall in the opening scene. My favorites were during the part of the movie in the desert. The heat mirages added a feeling of disillusion, relentlessness, and the infiniteness that is the desert. The one thing that I can say about this movie that was done beautifully were the few scenes while the oil feilds were burning. When they started the sky grew dark, with bad forebodings, and then at it's most intense parts, oil rained down from the sky like black thick rain. They stood in the night, illuminated by the fires from the oil wells, and it looked like the fires of hell, which is what I think it was meant to look like. It was pulled off beautifully.
Dialogue:
I won't spend much time on this, but it seemed like the person writing dialogue was trying to be eloquent at parts, and he accomplished that rather well, especially the opening and closing dialogues about a man and his rifle. The rest of the script seemed impromptu, and very...well, just unpolished.
Sound:
Another good part of this movie. There is a beautiful sequence in this movie set to Nirvana's "Something in the way" (Another kudos point there). Simply because I've never seen Nirvana put in a movie, and have it work too well, but it worked very well in those scenes. Also a scene where a helicopter flies over an oil field blaring Morrison and The Doors "Break on through". All that's said about it is,
"That's Vietnam music, can't we at least have our own fucking music?"
I thought that scene was decent, as well.
As I'm rabbling on about specific scenes, I also want to comment that I enjoyed the scene of the random horse in the desert covered in oil, and the Staff Sargeant rambling on about what he'd be doing if he was home.
Overall, I give this movie about a 3/5.
I think if more time were spent on coherancy, and development, this movie could've been one of my favorites. I wouldn't mind watching it again, and giving it a second try, but honestly, I don't think it'll change anything.
Ok, I'm done rambling about movies.
...yeah, I don't really care to talk about anything else going on in my life.
So here we go.
Story:
Over-all, story was a lot weaker than I expected it to be. Don't get me wrong, the script was decent, as is, but not as strong as I expected. I saw a scene where they quoted Full Metal Jacket (You quote a Kubrick movie, and you get kudos points with me), and I was bursting at the seams to see this movie.
The story was not bad, I just expected it to be more. The scene where Kubrick is quoted isn't bad, at all. In fact, I was on edge as to what would happen, which was the intention of the scene, but the pacing shortly afterwards ruined it. The script also had it's humerous parts, for instance, the scene where they play football in their NBC (Nuclear Biological Chemical) suits. These scenes were pulled off decently well, and I enjoyed them. Also dialogue was believable, but possibly could've been polished a bit more.
Characters/Character Development:
The characters in this movie seemed a bit too stock. You have the main character who starts off as sane, and then loses his mind throughout the movie. The sidekick who wasn't quite what the main was, but was trying so hard to be. He even starts living bi-cariously through the main at one point. The random ethnic comic reliefs who seemed to be just in place for racial jokes to cool the movie down a bit. The stupid guy who has an unhealthy infatuation with war, and all things generally psychotic. The softy who isn't cut out for war, and you're trying to figure out what the hell he is doing there in the first place, who comes off even too soft for someone who did this voluntarily. The smart person, with the only politicial views in the movie, who is attempted to have development throughout the movie, but it's poorly achieved. I think out of the movie you were supposed to get the troupe as general unit, and sort of feel for them. As a general unit, this was a failure. The stupid guy you simply wanted to shoot whenever he opened his mouth, because you knew he would fuck up a generally good moment. The random ethnic guys seemed too purposely placed, and you never got more than a good 1 or 2 minutes with them. Making it hard to feel for them besides the one attempt when the cuban guy finding out about his child. The main character almost got on my nerves, because of the lack of character development. It was like a stair-case with extra long steps length wise. He would start on one level, stay there for the longest time, and all of the sudden he is on the next. This would conitnue throughout all levels of his character. The stupid guy, there was no character development, except for the fact that he gets more and more depraved throughout the movie, and never ceasing to amaze the audience with his senseless acts and dialogue. The one character that I thought was decent was the sidekick, I felt a true evolution of his character that no other character came close to. At the beginning he seems like he's in control, cool, and is the perfect man for his job. Eventually it's revealed that he can't reinlist, and his character slowly degrades from there, to the final breaking point of his character at the end of the movie, when he is about to get his first kill of the war, and it is stolen by a higher officer calling in an air-strike. His character then proceeds to break down, and cry, and throw a rather well thought-out fit. The main character wasn't pulled off well simply because of the first part of the movie, in the later parts he seemed to progress better than the first. At the first he already seems a bit off, which makes him hard to relate to. It's hard to feel sorry for a character which you never felt anything for in the first place. We must first, as an audience love him as a normal person, and then grow sicker and sicker as he deepens in madness. The first part of this never happened. The softie, well, he never really made sense to be in there. His character cries at the pulling of a trigger, and he never seems to grow numb, or suicidal, as all characters in that situation...well, do. Heh. Finally, there's the smart guy, who I don't blame his character on the actor, but simply the script. There's not much this guy could've done to be bigger. His few lines of random "Hey, this isn't right" show him to be the only one in the troupe with a consciousness of what he's doing. He's just simply a small character, and I think if given the chance, he would've brought some kind of variation to the movies themes.
Pacing:
Pacing in this movie was horrible. The movie at the beginning was a series of same paced scenes that involve training. Then it moves into the desert, where it consists of one scene of a character losing his mind, or something in a generally negative direction, to a scene of comedic relief, back to another scene attempting character development. The movie ends in a long series of dramatic scenes that are the gold of this movie, but don't seem to be going anywhere.
Cinematogrophy:
The part I liked most about this movie. The shots in this movie were brilliant. From the burning oil fields, to the starch white training hall in the opening scene. My favorites were during the part of the movie in the desert. The heat mirages added a feeling of disillusion, relentlessness, and the infiniteness that is the desert. The one thing that I can say about this movie that was done beautifully were the few scenes while the oil feilds were burning. When they started the sky grew dark, with bad forebodings, and then at it's most intense parts, oil rained down from the sky like black thick rain. They stood in the night, illuminated by the fires from the oil wells, and it looked like the fires of hell, which is what I think it was meant to look like. It was pulled off beautifully.
Dialogue:
I won't spend much time on this, but it seemed like the person writing dialogue was trying to be eloquent at parts, and he accomplished that rather well, especially the opening and closing dialogues about a man and his rifle. The rest of the script seemed impromptu, and very...well, just unpolished.
Sound:
Another good part of this movie. There is a beautiful sequence in this movie set to Nirvana's "Something in the way" (Another kudos point there). Simply because I've never seen Nirvana put in a movie, and have it work too well, but it worked very well in those scenes. Also a scene where a helicopter flies over an oil field blaring Morrison and The Doors "Break on through". All that's said about it is,
"That's Vietnam music, can't we at least have our own fucking music?"
I thought that scene was decent, as well.
As I'm rabbling on about specific scenes, I also want to comment that I enjoyed the scene of the random horse in the desert covered in oil, and the Staff Sargeant rambling on about what he'd be doing if he was home.
Overall, I give this movie about a 3/5.
I think if more time were spent on coherancy, and development, this movie could've been one of my favorites. I wouldn't mind watching it again, and giving it a second try, but honestly, I don't think it'll change anything.
Ok, I'm done rambling about movies.
...yeah, I don't really care to talk about anything else going on in my life.