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I really like Take Shelter (and Michael Shannon in general) so I was pretty excited for this one, but I didn't end up loving it. The first half was great but it slowly got less and less intriguing as it went along. I think the point it lost me was after the sunrise scene. The whole first half of the movie there's this tension being built about whether Alton is gonna die from his powers and whether they can make it to the location in time when they can't travel by day. Then out of nowhere he's magically cured by sunlight and it sucks all the suspense out of everything. The hitmen from the Ranch plotline have basically no purpose in the plot, they kidnap Alton and then are immediately intercepted by the FBI and disappear from the movie entirely. I also thought there was going to be some sort of point to Roy's anger issues that we see when they face off with the state trooper and the exiled friend from the Ranch. But it pretty much never comes up again. Overall the characters felt really underdeveloped and flat, so I found it hard to get invested in what was going on. Adam Driver was the only one with any personality. Jeff Nicholls does a really good job of telling the story without a bunch of exposition, and there is some great imagery throughout the movie. I really liked the night-vision driving scene, the school buses over the hill with the sun behind them, the satellite crash... but in between there's long stretches of flat dialogue. The second half really drags on and on. The editing seemed off too, I'm pretty sure when we're introduced to the Ranch hitmen, we see them enter a house, open their stash of weapons, haul out a duffel bag, leave the house, get back in the truck and drive away. A single shot of the weapon stash would have given us the same info. Later on there's a long shot of them walking up to a house for some reason. I dunno, this one was just frustrating because it is close to being great. But it feels like two movies bolted together in the middle. The Spielbergian stuff almost works, but it's let down by the bland characters. If it had a less stellar cast this movie wouldn't work at all.
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Apr 27, 2016 14:23
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| # ¿ May 18, 2024 01:40 |
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Magic Hate Ball posted:I thought this was pretty fun in the moment, but a lot of it felt kinda flat, which is how I felt about Take Shelter as well. I wanted more ideas, more pulp, more character. The alternate universe looked like a Kia ad - it needed that creative oomph Close Encounters has, but instead it wanted to be cooly understated, like every other boring indie movie. Agreed. The best parts of the movie are when it gets a bit crazy- the night vision driving scene and the laser eyes are what come to mind for me. The latter half of the movie didn't really have any moments like that.
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May 19, 2016 19:31
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