Disturbia
Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 8:48 pm
Today I took my son to see "Disturbia" at the movies. I had it narrowed down to that or Will Ferrell in that skating movie. I let my son make the choice. They're starting to show weekend morning movies for four bucks. I like that.
All we snuck in to eat today was two bottles of cold pop, chocolate licorice and Laffy Taffy. We'd just been to a big breakfast buffet. Laffy Taffy is not fun to eat in the dark. You don't know what flavor you're getting. I got banana three times in a row, and I don't really like banana.
"Disturbia" is getting a lot of publicity here. From the trailers I've seen, it looked like it was a teen-aged version of "Rear Window".
Well, it was a teen-aged version of "Rear Window". The main character, a high school kid who is under house arrest can't leave his house, gets bored, glues Twinkies together (one of the best parts of the movie) and starts looking out the window with binoculars. Most of the time he is standing right in front of his big bedroom window. If he was an Indian, he would have been named "Sh*t for Brains".
A new family moves in next door, and he goes gaga over the teenaged girl who swims in a bikini and changes her tops in her bedroom with her back turned every time. When we finally see her face, it turns out she's very plain and on the unattractive side of the fence. They really should have picked a prettier girl if this snoopy boy falls so much in lust/love with her.
The main character, who gets so many close-ups with a lustful look in his eye, he gets tiring - has a Japanese male friend from school. He is the comic relief tool, and they could have done so much more with him. His dialogue was lame and felt like it was written in a hurry. He had the potential to deliver some great lines - he did have the talent. The writers missed a good opportunity to make the movie better.
There were some really dumb scenes in it, too. Like when the girl follows the suspected killer around a store with her cell phone/camera. She made no attempt to conceal herself. Who makes this junk? She's walking in the middle of the aisles with him in sight all the time.
And there's another scene when the boy goes looking for his mother in places that make no sense, yelling, "Mom! Mom!", knowing the "killer" is nearby.
Too much time is spent on the house-arrested kid mooning over the new neighbor girl. By the time we are introduced to another neighbor who the kid thinks is a killer, we are bored and on the verge of calling it quits. But we stick it out, thinking it's gotta get better.
Not necessarily. Casting of the 'killer' was genius. This guy had a different look to him physically, and he was great at pretending to be normal (if he was the killer, which I'm not saying). It's too bad they didn't make him a bigger part of the story, and sooner.
Of course the ankle-braceleted kid's mother won't believe her own son when he tells her he is a psycho killer and she walks over there to apologize for her son calling the cops on him. Alone. In the dark. Smart move, mom. And predictable.
The climax of the movie was ruined by the film maker's decision to show anything violent in a fast speed/blurry mode. You can't see who did what to who, and if we do get a hint we don't see the results, save one that we see for a few seconds. And after sitting thru that whole movie, we
deserved to see. We weren't even sure who was dead and who wasn't. We had to use the process of elimination. 'Oh, there that person is, so they're not dead ... Oh! I thought she was dead. Okay, she's still alive ..."
Well, the movie did not disturb us. And the actors were not convincing enough to be disturbed. So who was disturbed? Oh, I know. The people who made this movie.
All we snuck in to eat today was two bottles of cold pop, chocolate licorice and Laffy Taffy. We'd just been to a big breakfast buffet. Laffy Taffy is not fun to eat in the dark. You don't know what flavor you're getting. I got banana three times in a row, and I don't really like banana.
"Disturbia" is getting a lot of publicity here. From the trailers I've seen, it looked like it was a teen-aged version of "Rear Window".
Well, it was a teen-aged version of "Rear Window". The main character, a high school kid who is under house arrest can't leave his house, gets bored, glues Twinkies together (one of the best parts of the movie) and starts looking out the window with binoculars. Most of the time he is standing right in front of his big bedroom window. If he was an Indian, he would have been named "Sh*t for Brains".
A new family moves in next door, and he goes gaga over the teenaged girl who swims in a bikini and changes her tops in her bedroom with her back turned every time. When we finally see her face, it turns out she's very plain and on the unattractive side of the fence. They really should have picked a prettier girl if this snoopy boy falls so much in lust/love with her.
The main character, who gets so many close-ups with a lustful look in his eye, he gets tiring - has a Japanese male friend from school. He is the comic relief tool, and they could have done so much more with him. His dialogue was lame and felt like it was written in a hurry. He had the potential to deliver some great lines - he did have the talent. The writers missed a good opportunity to make the movie better.
There were some really dumb scenes in it, too. Like when the girl follows the suspected killer around a store with her cell phone/camera. She made no attempt to conceal herself. Who makes this junk? She's walking in the middle of the aisles with him in sight all the time.
And there's another scene when the boy goes looking for his mother in places that make no sense, yelling, "Mom! Mom!", knowing the "killer" is nearby.
Too much time is spent on the house-arrested kid mooning over the new neighbor girl. By the time we are introduced to another neighbor who the kid thinks is a killer, we are bored and on the verge of calling it quits. But we stick it out, thinking it's gotta get better.
Not necessarily. Casting of the 'killer' was genius. This guy had a different look to him physically, and he was great at pretending to be normal (if he was the killer, which I'm not saying). It's too bad they didn't make him a bigger part of the story, and sooner.
Of course the ankle-braceleted kid's mother won't believe her own son when he tells her he is a psycho killer and she walks over there to apologize for her son calling the cops on him. Alone. In the dark. Smart move, mom. And predictable.
The climax of the movie was ruined by the film maker's decision to show anything violent in a fast speed/blurry mode. You can't see who did what to who, and if we do get a hint we don't see the results, save one that we see for a few seconds. And after sitting thru that whole movie, we
deserved to see. We weren't even sure who was dead and who wasn't. We had to use the process of elimination. 'Oh, there that person is, so they're not dead ... Oh! I thought she was dead. Okay, she's still alive ..."
Well, the movie did not disturb us. And the actors were not convincing enough to be disturbed. So who was disturbed? Oh, I know. The people who made this movie.
