Vantage Point(or Be Kind Rewind)
 

Has anyone else seen this movie yet? I went and saw it this weekend with a friend of mine and I have to say... I was a little disappointed. It was a somewhat original story, to give it some credit, and the idea was sound in concept, but it didn't work as well in execution.

For starters:

The trailer for the movie gives away EVERY surprise plot twist except for one, which is BLANTANTLY obvious.

Not to mention:

The whole "Rewind" feature got real freakin old after the 3rd go around. I'm sorry... but was it really necessary to rewind every time before each "Vantage Point" change? we couldn't just fade or cut to black and then re-timestamp it again? As I said, the concept was good, but the execution of this was total unadulterated crap.

and lastly...

Now, I'm no die hard patriot by any means, but seriously... could we make the American Secret Service and Government look like any bigger tools than we did in this movie? This movie seemed to be more about making the Secret Service look like a bunch of hamfisted morons rather than the protective agency that they truly are. Hell... Dennis Quaid's character only saved the President at the end of the movie by sheer luck! He loses the guy he's chasing(fantastic car chase, btw) and then hears gunfire and is lucky enough that the idiot was forced to stop at a rally point because he's held at gunpoint by his passenger(spec ops guy because he wants his brother). And then it just so happens that at that exact moment, a lost girl finds her mother across a busy street and runs to her without any idea that it's a major road.

This is where the movie fails. And I understand why, but allow me to play the devil's advocate here... The "terrorist" who's driving the ambulance containing the hostage President swerves to miss the little girl who is in the middle of the road and wrecks, killing his accomplice and allowing the President to be rescued by Captain Lucky ass(lets face it, this man has Super Luck). Lets recap... You assassinate the President's double so you can kidnap the real President, set off a bomb that kills at least 30-50 civilians and military personel and mercilessly shoot the brother of the special forces agent whom you hold hostage SO the spec ops guy does your bidding... but you don't run over a girl in the middle of the street so you can get away with your master plan? Way to commit there chief! If you're going to go as far as you did, then you need to be prepared to go all the way.

Sure, I know this was a plot point.... but what a crappy plot point. It would have made more sense for another driver to cut in front of the Ambulance and cause the wreck which allows the burned out Secret Service agent to find the President in the wrecked amublance. As you can see... the whole end of the movie was made of fail. The only thing that made this movie worth it for me was at the very end, where the Secret Service agent sits the Prez up and says "Mr. President, I've got you." and my friend leans over to me and says instead "Mr. President, I've got your nose." I cracked up laughing and at that point enjoyed the movie.

Thoughts?

I loved this movie. I understand and agree with every point you made here, but somehow I still managed to come out of the movie completely entertained.

Amusingly (to me at least) I have a similar favorite part of the movie:
During the last part of the movie, when Dennis Quaid was shooting the spec ops guy, my friend leaned over to me and said, "this is Dennis Quaid's angry face - grrrr" and she made a really funny expression that I wish I could replicate here. I didn't stop laughing till the end of the movie.

I'm not saying at all that I wasn't entertained. I was.

Hell, after the 3rd Rewind began, some guy down the rown from me shouted out "Oh now, what's going to happen now!" and got the whole theater laughing. And I did enjoy the movie. I was just sort of bothered that to see every single plot twist, except the "Rogue Agent" thing, all you had to do was pay close attention to what happened in the trailer. Just about every movie nowadays is given away by the trailer. Or with a comedy, all the really funny jokes are in the trailer. It's just disappointing.

So when do we start talking about Be Kind Rewind? Cause that was a great movie.

I, uh, didn't see the other one...

I know, right? I went into this thread expecting a chat about michel gondry, but instead I get a discussion about pseudo-tom clancy bullcock.

I did see Be Kind, Rewind on Friday. It wasn't as funny as I thought it was going to be, but that's okay, because the movie itself was awesome!

Well acted on all parts and the Sweded movies were hilarious!

So here's how Vantage Point should have ended.

Okay, let's recap. We have 5 terrorists: Matthew Fox, the girl, the leader, the Special Forces guy who was conned into it, and the cameraman who is breifly revealed to be working for them. Okay, so leader and lady die when ambulence avoids girl, Matt Fox crashes car, SF dude gets shot. Dennis Quaid is in the ambulance having found the President. Movie ends. What should have happened is that Quaid should have done his "I've got you" line to Hurt. Then, ambulance asplode. Cut to cameraman, holding detonator and grinning. Roll credits.

I really want to see Be Kind Rewind. It looks like Jack Black plus Youtube turned into a feature-length film.

Except since...you know... the camera man was already dead

I enjoyed the movie...sure it wasn't a masterpiece and it ain't gonna win any Oacars but it was worth the 6 bucks I payed to get in...and that's all that mattered. It's worth it just for the awesome car chase. And yeah the rewind thing got a little stale by the 3 time...

I actually found Mos Def's character a lot more interesting than ol' JB's...

But man, that montage sequence of films? You'll know the one I mean. Freaking brilliant. Gondry's a genius.