When looking at the new movies that came out this week, V and I came down to two choices: Side Effects, a thriller about a woman who takes an anti-psychotic that causes her to go crazy and Identity Thief, a comedy where a woman has stolen a man's identity in order to live it up in Florida. Side Effects looks like Generic Thriller Number Three, and Identity Thief looks like it could be pretty good or the kind of antics that most of the audience laughs at while I check the time.
So we decided to rent a couple movies instead. Our theme was "time." The first movie was In Time, starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried in a highly-stratified dystopian America where time is the currency of choice. Literally, you spend your life. Aside from the creepy factor of everyone looking virtually the same age (25), it sounded like a neat concept. I was ready for good ol' man versus society conflict where he overthrows the system or escapes the system. And have I mentioned that I enjoy the whole dystopian thing?
It turns out he's actually Robin Hood, robbing the rich to give to the poor, and Maid Marian's father is one of the financial magnates with millions of years stockpiled. The Sheriff of Nottingham (alias The Timekeeper, played by Cillian Murphy) is actually the most interesting character; he escaped the lowest tier of society where they live day to day (often literally on borrowed time) and then moved on to enforce the system, helping to keep millenia in the hands of the rich while the poor were likely to drop dead from debt. If this is starting to sound like social criticism to you, it is.
Unfortunately, the movie makers did not see fit to have Robin Hood and Maid Marian overthrow the system, which would have made for a much more interesting movie. Nor did they see fit to explore the Timekeeper's character -- seriously, why did he enforce the system he fought to escape? Instead, they opted to focus on the social criticism ("millions must die for a few to be immortal" was one of the themes) of the elite having much while the 99 percent live from day to day.
On another note, what is it with Cillian Murphy and having roles in movies in which socialism/communism plays a role? In case you missed it, in the last Batman movie (The Dark Knight Rises), the bad guys -- including Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow -- portray a very American view of communism, in which they promise equality for the masses but actually deliver a reign of terror. I'm not sure what the significance is here, but I just thought it was interesting to note. It's not like it's typecasting him, in this sense; in The Dark Knight Rises, he's on the (bad) socialist side, while in In Time, he's on the (bad) capitalist side. Okay, so he never gets to play the good guy. But at least you can't profile his political leanings.
So, on to movie number two (assuming you're still interested): Looper. Looper stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a killer who works for some unnamed crime syndicate killing men sent back into the past for the expressed purpose of being killed. The catch in the job description: when you sign on, understand that eventually your future self (thirty years down the road-- once time travel has been invented) will be sent back to the past for you to kill. Knowing that killing your future self will not keep you loyal to the organization, closing your loop (killing your future self) is the last hit you have to make. Bruce Willis is Joseph Gordon-Levitt's future self who comes back to the past, avoids getting shot, and then proceeds to try to off the kid who takes over all the crime syndicates in the future and begins closing all the loops of these assassins in the past. Temporal paradox much?
In spite of the inevitable paradox that takes place in the movie, it is actually a well-done, plot-driven, gritty, dark, violent, edge-of-your-seat movie. Ultimately, a killer is a killer, and the movie makes no bones about it. In a world of questionable moral choices, this movie remains true to itself: killers are made, not born, and you are rooting for a morally-reprehensible killer. That being said, while Looper is a very well-done movie, I did not particularly enjoy the experience. While the ending was satisfying (in a grisly sort of way) and you never lose track of the fact that you are rooting for a killer (albeit one who tries to "get his life back"), I have no plans to ever watch this movie again. If it were a book, it would be one of those where by the end of the thoroughly-engrossing book, you feel like you've been beaten because you've been so involved in this painful emotional roller coaster. A well-done movie, but I'll be glad to send both it and In Time back to the video store.
And, btw, let The Terminator references begin.
P.S. Our other female guppy gave birth! At least one of them lasted for twenty-four hours! I don't know if it's still alive, though....
No comments:
Post a Comment