Alice Braga

Went to see “Crossing Over” in the cinema. Not that I was particularly waiting for it or anything – it’s just that there isn’t much else too see these days, and a duo of Harrison Ford and Ray Liotta in the same film sounded a tiny bit interesting.

The film turned out to be pretty average. There was a lot of good acting, but the script and directing just weren’t up to the par. Multiple main characters, each with his own life, all getting connected to each other the closer the movie went to the end, plus a social problem of immigration being so hot in the USA, these all reminded me of another movie. It’s surprising how similar this film is to “Crash“. But comparing it to “Crash” doesn’t do it any good either.

The story lacks depth and detail. People often behave in weird waves and no explanation is given. Or, when given, it often is unbelievable. There were suposed to be a lot of drama, but the story not having enough depth, all drama turns into depressive non-stop crying. And what’s more disappointing, after bringing up attention to a serious issue, the film fails to make any points at all, or leave any food for thought.

As I said, good acting minus good directing and holes in the story make up for an average film. Rating – 3 stars, average.

Addendum for those who saw the movie. Scene in the supermarket with four out five robbers shot. Do you still wonder what happened? He got out of bullets. Scene with the singing of the national anthem – that was a joke from the editors, which was added after the final cut. Just kidding. Both times.

I went to see “I Am Legend” with a few friends of mine. Some of them saw the film before a few times, but decided that it was worth another view anyway. That pushed my expectations up a bit. But. The film was indeed worth it.

Here are the things that I liked, in no particular order:

Will Smith. He is a good actor. It just that most of the times he has to do those rather simplistic roles. But in this one, you can see the talent. He does really good.
Visuals. There are some really cool images in the film. In fact, it’s the visuals that create the bigger part of this movie. There is some excellent photography, which could have been easily transformed into still images and paintings.
Drama. There seems to be no shortage of movies about viruses, zombies, and the end of the world. However, so many of them fail to create the drama around the events. Broken families, numerous victims, and blood rivers seem to be present everywhere. But rarely they are used to create the horrific sense of sadness and pity.

Of course, there were a few things that sucked in this movie. I’m not going to go through the details on these, since they aren’t worth it. However I’d like to mention the zombies. I think that the choice of rather cartoon-ish characters was wrong. More “realism” in this area could have made the movie almost perfect.

I’d give it a strong 7.5 out of 10, and a recommendation to watch it, even if you are not a fan of the sci-fi end of the world horror. It’s pretty good.