“Hey guess what? It’s my bday today! So of course I had to get a movie in. And thanks to AMC stubs, between my rewards credit and a bday coupon, I got my ticket and a Sprite for free! I actually spent last night cleaning and baking for my movie night tonight so I could catch a movie and not be so rushed. For the record, this year’s line up is Aladdin, Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, Tucker & Dale Vs Evil, and A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas. Hoping it’s epic.
Yesterday, at the end of the work day Im bumming around the office, drinking a traditional Friday beer with a coworker and fellow movie afficionado. He pulls up his iPhone. “”Oh my God, there’s a movie with a 0% fresh [on Rotten Tomatoes]”” “”No way! Which one?”” “”Gone?”” “”Crap, I was gonna see that tomorrow!”” I pulled up the page on my screen and pointed out that it said there was no consensus, even though it did say all the critical ratings were rotten. Alas, I just checked the site and it now has a consensus…at 15% fresh. So do I agree with the rating? Well…
Here’s the thing. Watching the movie, I was into it. It was a fun mystery to try and figure out (Where’s her sister? Who’s the bad guy? Was she ever really abducted?), and Amanda Seyfried can really light up the screen and carry a film. But once it was all over, I was left with a kinda “”that it?”” feeling. There was nothing special or particularly creative about the movie. It just sort of plodded along until the inevitable conclusion and then we all went on our merry way. It was also at that point that all of the quirks I’d noticed along the way came to mind more as flaws than anything else.
For example: duct tape. Any time she found duct tape there was a sense of oh-my-God-only-bad-guys-use-duct-tape-he-was-here-aaaahhhh. Um. If duct tape makes you a bad guy, well then I guess I’m…not gonna finish that sentance for fear of incriminating myself. But I will say that it makes my patched up couch seem more like a domestic violence victim (which I guess is true since it was the cats that beat it up) than something that was given a quick fix by a pseudo-engineer. Also, how many different cars can one girl in Portland drive within twenty four hours? Srsly?! Every other scene, she had a shiny new car (for varying definitions of shiny).
But yeah, in retrospect, things just seemed so contrived. There were many moments of chasing down a random, small detail -> finding random person who may have encountered bad guy -> random person who had fleeting conversation with bad guy knows his address or other incredibly important details that you’d never have given to random person. WTF?! At least it kept things moving and streamlined, but with how unsatisfying the final result was, it’s just inexcusable. There was no thought put into anything. I’m really not sure what the point was of the whole thing. Actually though, Im not sure how streamlined it really was. At least getting started, there was a good while where I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t seen the trailer, I’d have had no clue what was happening.
Anyways, so again, watching the movie, it didnt feel like I was wasting my time. But looking back at it now, all I’m seeing is negative (though that 90 seconds of Hunter Parrish may have been worthwhile).
Gone – \m/ \m/