Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 2378957" data-attributes="member: 32740">Saw it just yesterday.  Gave it an 8 thought that's probably a bit too kind.  As just about every review I've read says, I also thought the first half was visually outstanding but that the second half was a jarring change of pacing. But that's a problem that carries over from the original material, not because the books pacing it particularly jarring or slow, but because it simply doesn't translate well to the pacing requirements of a movie. POSSIBLE LIGHT SPOILERS BELOW (Assuming of course you're one of the few that doesn't actually know the story, such as it is.)The character development at the outset seemed stilted to me and BADLY written. I mean BADLY. I think it would have worked MUCH better to simply have the main character seperated from his wife rather than estranged and with disaffected children from that marraige. For a Doomed-World disaster movie it does itself a severe disfavor by not maximizing the affection the viewer will have for the protagonists. Then it isolates Cruises character, Ferrier. from his kids at the outset as well, sacrificing lots of opportunities to build even more viewer identification with Dad protecting Kids-In-Danger. If the characters had been more immediately presented as entirely worthy of emotional investment that wouldn't have been as much of a loss. Isolating Ferrier could have been played for some greater emotional appeal - Dad has to go get his kids out of the way of destruction - but because all the protagonists are somewhat distant from each other at the outset all we can really do is marvel at the destruction and vicariously fear the unemotional killing machines. And of course at the start of the latter half we go from active devastation and panicked flight to about 20 or 30 minutes of subdued, whispered conversation or silence in hiding before we get a bit more action near the end. Now it was of course intended that all the action should be presented from a largely first-person perspective. Ferrier is in every scene and we never see anything that he, himself doesn't see so any real heroics on his part are going to be difficult to work into the scheme of things. But then that's why it's probably not the best choice to adhere too closely to Wells' story.</blockquote>

Verification