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The plot basically concerns a couple of newlyweds whose honeymoon in Hawaii turns deadly when they become involved with a series of brutal murders.
I enjoyed it, even though I predicted the movie's twist in the first ten minutes.
The landscapes were beautiful, and the acting was above par for the most part (Olyphant stole every scene). There is some blood and gore, including one of the most realistic knife stabbings ever, but none of it feels gratutious or out of place.
However, as much as I enjoyed the movie, there was only one thing on my mind when it was over:
Saw it early this morning after our 3-d sonogram... I couldn't help but be bored to tears by it. One of those movies that you've seen a million times over. It's a pass situation.
First of all, I think your comment was intended to mean that this is similar to my Fade to White. Yes, there are similarities in the overall (perceived) theme, but the execution was not handled well at all, and this makes me even more confident that I’ve really got something special in my script. In many ways, this was a polar opposite of my script, but there were definitely a number of things it shares in common.
They really blew it with the advertising campaign here. To promote a movie on a “twist ending you’ll talk about long after the movie is over” is a big mistake, especially when there were so few possible twists, etc.
As Balt said, I was bored to death with this. Way, way too slow in the beginning, and really, way too slow throughout until the very end. Although they had such a beautiful backdrop to work with, they did not utilize it properly at all. If nothing else, I thought based on the scenery alone, it would be a good view, but it sure wasn’t.
I wish I had timed certain things here, to get an idea of how slow it really was. I’ll estimate that not a single interesting thing happened in the first 20 minutes. When potentially interesting things did happen, they were not visually interesting at all. For a thriller/horror movie, there were very, very few memorable scenes, and all in all, replay value has got to be about zero.
Not showing the original killings was a big mistake, as we needed something to happen early on to get us into the mindset that this is a horror/thriller type movie. Introing characters as obviously “antagonistic” or “protaganistic” was also a big mistake, because based on the add campaign, it was so obvious what was going to go down.
Another big issue was the way that everyone was so scared about these killers on the loose. It took away the tension, and pretty much had the opposite effect they were going for. It became a who done it, with so few possibilities, that everything else that was going on didn’t matter at all.
I did not think that Steve Zahn and Milla Jojovich did a good job in their roles. They just didn’t come across as a couple, even though Twohy tried so hard to make them out to be this loving, innocent couple on vacation. I really didn’t buy it for a second, but maybe that has something to do with the marketing again. I did, however, think that Olyphant and Sanchez did a very good job, and I liked their characters, although Olyphant went a bit overboard most of the time.
For an R rated horror/thriller, this was incredibly lame, other than probably 2 things…the knife wound to Zahn’s hand, and the knife in Sanchez’s leg. No sex or nudity either, and really not that much in terms of foul language, brutality, scares, etc.. I rarely if ever say that a horror movie should be rated PG 13, but I think this was a rare case in that it should have, and would have upped the take at the box office. Nothing here, as shot, needed to be R rated. Yes, it could easily have included more R rated stuff, but they missed the mark here again.
Some things that really bugged me – The fact that the dude from the store hiked in after Zahn to give him his permits was just downright stupid and foolish. C’mon…unbelievably ridiculous! The flashback scene was absolutely terrible. First of all, it was completely misplaced, and secondly, it was insanely too long. It completely took us out of what was going on, and at the time, things were finally heating up.
I’m really quite surprised how bad this turned out, as I like David Twohy’s work, for the most part. I don’t see who else to blame here, considering he wrote and directed it. Did ROGUE mess with the original idea? Who knows, but usually when a movie is written and directed by the same person, it’s his vision.
Finally, a couple more things to discuss. This had a budget of $14 Million. Other than possibly filming on location and some upper B list talent, what did this budget go for? Very little in the way of FX, very little in action scenes and stunt work, very, very little in gore, etc. It just didn’t come across like a $14 Million film, and they’re obviously not going to recap it at the box office.
This had a running time of 1 hour and 37 minutes, yet it felt like it ran over 2 hours! It was just so slow, dull, and full of mundane scenes, where characters talked and talked, usually in 2’s or a foursome. The vast majority of the locations looked exactly alike, which was a problem. Take out that flashback, and we’ve got a movie that runs under an hour and half, but feels like a 2 hour slug.
Very disappointed in this in literally every way. I was expecting so much more.
Damn, I forgot to mention 3 other big problems I had with this...
MORE SPOILERS!!!!! MORE SPOILERS!!!!! MORE SPOILERS!!!!!
1) The "reason" that Sanchez' character "knew" who the killers were was very poorly done, and if you really think about it, didn't make any sense. That brief picture of the "real" wedding couple, first of all, looked alot like Zahn and Jojovich. Wether or not it actually was them, wouldn't mean anything, anyway. Who cares if there's a picture of 2 people who just got married, that wasn't them? Does that mean all of a sudden that they're killers? No, it does not. WEAK!
2) Zahn's plan to kill off the final 2 was also very poorly planned out, and most likley wouldn't have worked, no matter how it played out. There were numerous people at the beach, meaning that the killers were going to have to kill them all. Stealing the 2 kayaks was just plain dumb. If nothing else, why not just borrow them/pay for them, like he told Olyphant's character? Why set off these people for no reason? What was supposed to happen when Zahn got back by himself, with only 1 kayak?
3) Why were Zahn and Jojovich killing these people anyways? I can see why they'd kill the first 2...to steal their identity. But why go after Olyphant and Sanchez? Why involve all the people at the beach? There's just no reason that I can come up with, and thinking back about these things, irks me even more.
I haven't seen this film, so are the killers the married couple? Because if so I guessed that just from the marketing. They probably should have done that differently.
Isle 10- A series I'm currently writing with my friend Adam and it will go into production soon. Think The Office meets 10 Items or Less.
I don't want to give everything away, but I pretty much did already in my 2 posts.
BIGGEST SPOILERS OF ALL!!!!! BIGGEST SPOILERS OF ALL!!!!!
Yes, the killers are the married couple, Zahn and Jojovich. As I said, based on the marketing, and lack of possible antags, it is pretty obvious very early on.
It's shockingly just a really dull, boring movie. Nothing memorable or interesting happens at all. Very, very WEAK!!! Surprisingly, Rotten Tomatoes has it at 54% approval, which is pretty damn good for a horror flick. Seems that critics either liked it or did not like it. Not much in between. I did not like it at all, and I was so looking forward to it.
Usually I would be pissed with such blatant spoilers in a review thread.
But, In this case I don't care, I have only seen the trailer once and immediately assumed that the "nice" couple were the baddies. To have it confirmed is not a bad thing, probably saved me 90 minutes of my life.
Sorry about the SPOILERS! I went back and modified my postings with SPOILER ALERTS.
I thought it was quite obvious based on the previous posts, but in looking back at them, they didn't actually give anything away.
My bad...hope no one else was annoyed by these.
PS - Murphy, you saved 1 hour and 37 minutes of your life...pluss the time for the trailers, the drive to and from the theater, the walk in and out, and most importantly, the days you'd be pissed of thinking about it!