Saturday, August 6, 2011

Unknown

Starring Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger (Troy/National Treasure,) the dreaded January Jones (Emma Frost in X-Men: First Class,) and Frank Langella (the man you hire if you can't get Christopher Lee or Terrance Stamp. Although there's nothing wrong with him he seems to pick bad movies to attach his name to, such as The Box, Superman Returns, The Ninth Gate, Sweet November, Masters of the Universe [Skeletor,] and Cutthroat Island [sorry Grant,] - although, he is in some good movies like Dave, and... well, he's in a LOT of movies.)


Liam Neeson's character, Martin Harris, gets in a car crash. Four days later he awakes from a coma except his wife refuses to ackowledge he is who he says he is, and is married to a different man claiming to be Martin Harris (with the proper identification and everything.) Meanwhile Liam Neeson's Martin Harris has no identification because he's in a foreign land and lost his passport, yadda yadda yadda.

This is one of those movies that tries to "be different." It tries to go, "Surprise! You didn't see that coming! Aren't we clever!" But like unto Salt, and Premonition before it, the answer is no, Mr. Movie, you are not clever. In fact, the movie would have been better if you would stop trying to "trick us."

I don't mean to give away the twist ending, but unless a movie can pull off the twist as seamlessly as The Sixth Sense did, I'm not interested. I'm far from surprised, and I'm also far from caring.

I've written enough screenplays with "trick" endings that I've gone back and re-writ because they're just plain (for lack of a better word) stupid and unimpressive, that I know an ending that should have been rewritten when I see one.

Unknown was an all right movie, and apart from my first complaint the dialog was careless and the writing sloppy. There's no chance for you now to see it in the theater, so if you pick it up on Netflix or at a Redbox... it's worth a buck. It's no Taken, that's for sure.

And the title is something I'd joke with my 5 year old nephew about - "Hey, what's the name of your new movie?" "It's Unknown." "What do you mean it's unknown!? Isn't it coming out tomorrow?" "Yes! The name is Unknown!" "What do you mean you don't know the name of it, or nobody knows?!" Get it? GET IT!?

1 comment:

  1. cutthroat island *is* a bad movie. no apology necessary. we recall enjoying it. havnt rewatched recently.

    Dave is excellent. now if you had it on DVD...

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