Yogi's Movie Consumption Blog

I haven't seen many of Villeneuve's movies, but I really like everything so far. When thinking about Prisoners after a few days, there was a particular scene that somehow kept returning to my memory: When Gyllenhal's character is introduced, sitting alone in Chinese restaurant, not-flirting with the waitress. For some reason this scene struck me as "different". That gave me the idea to examine all the first appearances of the characters in the movie. ( SPOILERS )   KELLER DOVER (Hugh Jackman) - we don't actually see him, we start with a very static shot into the forest. The man is looking into the forest, it is his POV (which we find out quickly). But we can hear him praying, while a deer walks into the frame. When the camera pulls back, a rifle points at the animal. And just after "Amen", a shot is fired. Now, here's a little surprise: Keller, who was doing the praying has his son RALPH (Dylan Minette) shooting the rifle. It's a fat...

 Groundhog day meets Mission Impossible - where Gyllenhal has to relive the last 8 minutes of a doomed train attacked by terrorists. The story was quite alright in itself, the execution was professional but I felt strangely unsatisfied with the whole film. I think that except Gyllenhal's character the players (esp on the train) felt very cardboard like. Since he has only 8 minutes to connect to those people it would have been more satisfying to give them more extreme, eccentric and visual features. Some of the train passengers were quite ok, but most of them just fell flat. It might have been more interesting if Michelle Monaghan would have given a much more aggressive character - the love story came out of thin air, so she had to already be in love with the guy. It would have been much more fun if she was just about to break up with Gyllenhal's alter ego. There's not enough tension and as this is a science geektion story, so nobody gives a toss about romantic love, b...