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Directed by: Johnathan Demme Starring: Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Jon Voight the whole movie was one intense suspense builder. the flash-back scenes were intensely awesomei loved those tenacle helmets and the FREAKY arab women with tattoes and BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS, and al melvin's drawings, artwork and apartment scenery were incredibly grueseome and demented. built a perfect atmosphere. the music was also very good. solid acting from meryl streep and denzel washington. i really thought marco was on the brink of insanity, and ms. shaw's speeches were very passionate. there were lots of little visual hallucinations from major marco that helped spice things up. little things like dr. noyle appearing and rosie's bleeding foreheadreally keeps you on your toes. the whole mechanics of building the conspiracy and unraveling the plot were smooth. liev schreiber, robert shaw, was deadpan and uninteresting most of the time. however, i would have liked to have seen a more comprehensive ending. what happened to manchurian global? what happened to major marco? what happened to marco's crazy albanian ally? RATING: 4.5 PROS: great acting, great music and atmosphere, scenery CONS: Liev Schreiber was a little flat, a few unaswered questions ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://imdb.com/title/tt0368008/
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Jul 31, 2004 03:29
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Excellent movie. I was glad to see they didn't take an enormous dump all over the original, while freshening up the story and giving it a few new twists. Excellent performances all around, great visual style, and a damned unnerving music score. 4.5/5
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Jul 31, 2004 03:40
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I never saw the original, but this movie was probably the best I've seen this year. It's too bad the media is creating a controversy about this movie. As a republican, I can say I didn't notice any correlation between the politics in this movie and the politics in real life. Infact, I think they did an amazing job keeping that clean. A good mix of LOTS of politics, a little sci fi, and tons of suspense. The movie has you thinking throughout the entire thing. Very smooth plotline, didn't notice any real holes. Voted 5 I too would have liked to have seen a more comprehensive ending, but it doesn't really leave you hanging. I probably missed it, but what happened to the other soldiers in the squad? There were the 2 soldiers killed, the guy who killed himself after talking to Marco, Marco, and Shaw. There was like 3 or 4 other people. Why didn't Marco or the FBI ever go looking for them? I don't get why he shot the two Shaw's at the end instead of the president. I know he went out of step to stop the assassination, but I don't get why he shot them. I mean he was looking around and stuff. Did he regain his senses and shoot them just to get them out of power? That doesn't really make sense since he could have easily publicized everything and gotten him help. I have a feeling I missed something there too.
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Jul 31, 2004 07:44
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I'd say this movie could be great just on the merit of the scenery. It was a great complement to the suspense. If the original was in black and white, the colors and lighting of the 2004 version justify remaking the manchurian candidate. I'm afraid this wasn't the sexiest movie that I've seen lately. The most erotic scene involved a mother and her son. What was the significance of the cup of noodles? In the beginning of the movie there was a zoomed-in shot of the soup with a crescendo-ing music track, but nothing meaningful developed. Were they trying to throw us off by making us suspect the noodles? Was it a reference to the first movie? I rated it 4 but now I want to give it 4.5.
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Jul 31, 2004 08:49
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quote:citson came out of the closet to say: It's because he felt a connection with Shaw, and knew the only way to free him was to both kill he and his mother. I thought the way Shaw was looking at him was just begging Marco to kill him, release him. This is the best movie I've seen all summer. I thought the way the plot came together at the end was masterful, because I honestly didn't see it coming. I went with two people who were like 'omg im so confused', but I defiently followed every single bit of it. About half way through the movie I couldn't wait to find out the ending, and to me that's a masterful job of writing. The musical score was impressive and kept freaking me out for the duration of the movie. All of the audio in the movie was impressive now that I think of it. I don't know what else to say, except that this movie kicks rear end and you should go see it. NOW 5/5
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Jul 31, 2004 14:09
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quote:citson came out of the closet to say: My recollection is a little fuzzy, but I think there was a quick line that mentioned that all the soldiers were turning up dead or missing? I don't remember for sure, though. quote:JARJARBannedCar came out of the closet to say: I think the music was cued to emphasize the No-Doze he was buying. But, they fed them Cup-O-Noodles in the brainwashing camp. It's very fleeting, but the mention is there. We also see Robert Shaw eating noodle soup (in fact, the editing of it is such that we cut immediately from a shot of Major Marco eating noodles to Robert Shaw eating noodles). There's also the shot when Marco comes home to his apartment the first time early in the film where he walks past his kitchen and you can see his cupboard stocked, floor to ceiling, with Cup-O-Noodles. Also, Rose mentions Denzel buys a lot of tomato juice when we meet her on the train, and when we get back to her "cousin's" apartment, she has tomato juice waiting in the fridge. This correlates to the Internet video from later in the film of Dr. Noyle talking about his work on tomatoes, and the strange arabic woman holding tomatoes (and then brains) in the flashbacks. I loved this film. Not quite as much as the original, because I feel the political message behind the remake is a little too muddy. But then again, corporatocracy today isn't nearly as cut and dry as communism was in the 60s, and I suspect if the film's message got any sharper, it would never have been made or distributed. The acting was powerful. I thoroughly enjoyed Denzel's decent into madness, which was a welcome contrast to Frank Sinatra's too calm, too cool and too collected presentation. Liev Schreiber was stoic and cold, but I felt it was appropriate, and when his veneer cracked later on, I actually felt sorry for him. Meryl Streep is great I actually saw audience members tense up and rise a little in their seats when she said "Raymond PRENTISS Shaw?" and this performance might just earn her a few nominations. Beyond that, the cinematography, as was mentioned before, was simply incredible. I've never been so enamored with the lighting of a motion picture. The extreme close-ups (so close you can count eyebrow hairs and see pores) were so effectively done and acted (Jeffrey Wright  ) that it instantly set the tone of the rest of the film.I'm voting 5 simply because I loved the book, loved the original film, and was thoroughly prepared to hate the remake. In the end, I have to say there's not a lot to hate. I loved the updated plot that features much stronger women and some clever new plot twists that keep the story fresh without sacrificing what made the book and first film so gripping. The only reason I'm not granting the 5.5 is because the audio during the Albanian doctor's thickly accented speech was AWFUL (the actor's voice was so soft I could hear the buzzing of the boom, which is why I think they overlayed all those chirps overtop of the scene), and I couldn't understand half of what he was saying to begin with. Otherwise, the audio and music in the film really was top-notch, with good use of naturally occurring sounds indigneous to the scenes amplified and used to build tension. It should be noted that Wyclef Jean has a "featured" credit in the score, as well. Good movie, worth the price of admission. edit -- vB drama. With all the spoilering going on in this thread, it's starting to look like a redacted confidential document. BonesMcGuire fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Jul 31, 2004 |
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Jul 31, 2004 16:41
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quote:JARJARBannedCar came out of the closet to say: There was a short part where he was in the room where they brainwashed him, and he was eating cup of noodles. quote:jaym came out of the closet to say: Oh yeah, I forgot about the "connection." That makes a little more sense now.
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Jul 31, 2004 18:28
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A really good movie. Sometimes the pace was a bit slow and I found myself getting a bit bored (was the late show though, so..) but it was well done, extremely well acted and good god am I happy that she died! 4
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Jul 31, 2004 21:00
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I am wondering if I saw the same movie everyone else saw because what I saw was a poorly done "thriller" that was too concerned with trying to be surreal that it neglected to notice that everything that was actually supposed to be realistic, wasn't. It only took about five minutes for me to get the gist of what the movie was supposed to be about and most of the rest of the time was spent in various plodding scenarios where nothing is advanced and nothing is resolved. The acting was uninspired and I can't understand the praise for Streep's work, which was eight parts "crazy domineering overemoting bitch" and zero parts anything else. Worst of all, never did I feel like anything was really at stake. Instead of the original where the communist threat was indeed real and made sense, in this remake it's replaced with some sort of generic Evil Corporation, the goals of which are never outlined and of which I was never frightened. Boring, uninspired, and uninvolving.
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Aug 1, 2004 01:44
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quote:citson came out of the closet to say: Okay, time for the review. What I saw was a thriller so bent on being believable that it wasn't. The acting was generally very good, but the characters themselves seemed a bit flat. Each of them had exactly one side to them except for Shaw, and he just seemed confused. The plot is well laid out, but too much so, so that you can see almost all of it coming. The exception, at least to me, was Marco shooting both the Shaws, rather than just him. And, all in all, it ends on a huge downer... Marco seems even less happy at the end than he was at the beginning. Notice there's nothing in there about entertainment. There's one suspenseful scene (the victory party), and it bothered me that in that one scene the filmmakers don't seem to notice that it's suspenseful. 2.5/5.
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Aug 1, 2004 02:29
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quote:Linguica came out of the closet to say: Although I agree with some of the other points above, to some degree, I saw a different movie with regard to the acting. I thought Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, and particularly Liev Schreiber turned in outstanding performances. It was the performances and dialogue that overcame the sheer Star Trek episode hokiness of the mechanics of the conspiracy. I thought the performances were riveting enough that you didn't mind that the whole mind control surgery nonsense enacted by Mengele's love child was so ludicrous, or that the federal government, which can't pave interstate roads properly can place a sleeper agent in a mundane grocery cashier's job just in time to sell Denzel over-the-counter uppers. 4.5
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Aug 1, 2004 02:38
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Very entertaining and suspenseful. I think I want to see it again just for the minor details they put in the shots and the audio murmurs that arise from time to time. There are reoccuring items that you can easily catch, like the cup noodles which play in later, then there are just really subtle funny digs like the news footage, which has the screen more full of overblown graphics than the people being interviewed and constant references to terrorism and fear in the ticker. One of the best digs I caught was the title bar on the news that identified who was speaking or where the footage was being recorded, which was never a straight line like it should be. Then it hit me that the media was slanted.  Denzel Washington did well as Ben, who is fidgety and quiet instead of some charasmatic hero. Liev Shreiber displayed a deep inner conflict well and Meryl Streep was excellent as the manipulative bitch we all want dead. 4.5/5
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Aug 1, 2004 02:59
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I don't know, maybe it was because I saw Bourne Supremacy right before, but I thought The Manchurian Candidate had a lot of potential and it deflated in the last third. It had powerful actors, decent performances, but stupid story with horrible holes and a plot that doesn't take any turns and stuff just happens for no reason. Why would Manchurian Global let anyone survive that could cause them any problems? Now, if the implants were so great at controlling, how did Marco come to his senses long enough to resolve the movie successfully? How does a man kill 2 people on a beach where the victim kayaking is a familiar sight? (Yes, it was probably private, but screaming HELP usually draws attention from afar) Why does the female agent have all of her intelligence in her loving PURSE? Why does a surveillance camera have a red light beaming onto it's subject? Why are the back implants so close to the skin? And why the hell does Google go "beep beep beep zonk"? Not even macs sound that ridiculous. I'll tell you why all this poo poo happened: Because there wouldn't be a movie if it didn't. Now, I've never seen the original movie, so I'm not going to be a "the first one was better" zealot. I hear it has a similar premise, except the Chinese are involved in the conspiracy to get their man in office (hence the manchurian) Overall I thought it was too hokey, with too much emphasis on trying to make the dream sequences artistic, but instead they were plain corny. Was I the only one that saw the incest thing coming a mile away? At the beginning I thought the Shaws were married, until he said that creepy "mother" thing and talked about his female friend. Maybe I just think about creepy stuff like that too much. I'm glad they at least explained why an upstanding, privileged son of a politician would enlist. I was entertained, but I could have waited to see this one on HBO. 3/5
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Aug 1, 2004 04:26
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This was easily the worst movie I've seen this year. I read a post on the imdb forums that just about summed up the overwhelming amount of inconsistancies and did a good job of exploring why the film is actually incomprehensible. Quoting here from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368008/board/nest/10464742 (VERY LONG): THIS IS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE SEEN THE MOVIE I think the film's limitations stem from the requirements of film narrative in today's film market that simply did not exist in 1962. For example, it is indicative of today's films that the remake blasts you with loud rock music from the first scene, and often returns to it. It is nearly impossible to make a quiet, deceptively simple psychological thriller today as it was in 1962. Watching the film I longed for the kind of quiet, background suggestive ambivalence of David Amram's score in the original. The film assaults your visual senses with the required moments of gore and violence, noise and glitz, and the predictably cheap laughter-generating sight gags and quips---but that's because it has to. You can't make the kind of quiet, understated film that Frankenheimer did in 1962. It must be obvious. Nothing can be subtle, and little must be actually dramatized. Much is TOLD to us in this film, very little is DRAMATIZED. What is dramatized is often cursory and shallow. In the original, Janet Leigh approaches Frank Sinatra on the train and there ensues some lively, witty, unpredictable dialogue. Continuing her then-novel persona as the promiscuous woman that she played in PSYCHO (a film that was still in the audience's recent memory in 1962), it's fascinating to watch a popular leading lady like Leigh (who had played so many virginal romantic characters) aggressively pursue Sinatra with his popular persona as the strong, masculine type who never submitted to women. Sinatra is remarkable in this scene; he's vulnerable, wounded, frightened, passive. His normal persona would never allow a woman to come on to him so strongly as Leigh does but he simply allows her to take control. It's a sexy, seductive yet poignant scene and Leigh and Sinatra immediately establish a certain rapport that makes them "fit" as a couple. I was struck by how my heart went out to Marco and his pain in this scene whereas in the remake, I felt very little sympathy with with him. All of this is completely gone from the remake. There is absolutely no life in the scenes between Washington and Kimberly Elise. There is no wit nor anything memorable at all about her dialogue or her entire character, Rosie. Here, she is a federal agent investigating the conspiracy. I suppose this indicates some sort of updating of women's roles in today's films. Rosie is now a tough gun-carrying agent instead of a supportive rescuer to our hero. If there is anything that clearly demonstrates the shallowness of characterization in today's films, it is this. Leigh's comparatively more traditional portrayal of a woman going after after a man (tho her aggressiveness was pretty daring in 1962) is far more striking, sexier and far more memorable than all the shouting and running around that Kimberly Elise does in the remake. The most damaging character change in the remake is the disappearance of the core relationship in the original: the patrician, remote, unlikeable, cold Raymond Shaw v. the vulnerable, everyman Ben Marco. In the original, Ben Marco is not hampered by having to prove he's sane to his superiors (except at the very start of the film). The remake predictably reduces Marco to an outsider desperate to be believed, thwarted in his attempts to reach Raymond Shaw except for a couple of brief scenes. The film wastes precious character time with scenes showing Marco trying to get to Shaw, being thrown out, etc. The original does away with this quickly and focuses on the developing relationship between Shaw and Marco, the contrast between these two very different, wounded men. Crucially also in the original, we learn in the brainwashing scenes that Raymond Shaw considers Ben Marco to be the least unlikeable man in his outfit. That immediately establishes some connection between Marco and Shaw on the battlefield, enabling Marco to build on that as he tries to discover what has been done to Shaw. There is no such background given in the film -- all we know vaguely is that they served together. We thus get only cursory and stunted character development. Further, there is no attention paid at all to the people behind the conspiracy. The original devotes a lot of time to the Chinese and Soviet perpetrators of the brainwashing experiment with the American soldiers. We see them brainwashed to believing they're in a garden party with a bunch of well-dressed elderly women. These are bizarre, chilling scenes, esp. when we see Raymond Shaw kill two of the soldiers casually. In the remake, all we see are scenes of men hooked to wires, reciting chants, and the face and voice of the doctor who brainwashed them. Throughout the film, we also see the recurring presence of a blonde British man who is involved in the conspiracy, but we never learn who he is or what he's about. As for Streep, she is quite a powerhouse. I quite enjoyed watching her performance, she dominates every scene she's in. But, again, her character development is hampered by the script's limitations. In the original, we see Lansbury's character brilliantly presented as the manipulator behind the McCarthy-like figure of her husband senator, played by the wonderful character actor James Gregory. Furthermore, throughout the original, Raymond refers to "my American operator" (or a similar term), meaning the American who is his direct link to the conspiracy. This repeated reference is critical in developing the story because we begin to wonder just who is this "American operator." Thus, when we learn that it is his mother, the power of that moment is given much greater weight. Before we discover her true identity, we've seen her character dramatized as the sort of worst anti-communist demogogue. We've seen how deeply her son hates her and her husband (his step-father), the McCarthy-like senator, for their extremist views. We've seen him desert his mother and step-father in disgust to go to New York to work for the liberal journalist Holborn Gaines. All this is laid out for us as background. Therefore, to discover that it is she who is in league with the communists to capture the American presidency gives that moment of revelation enormous power, and it is the central point of the story's criticism of McCarthyist demagoguery. The only time that Frankenheimer allows a character to explicitly condemn McCarthyism is when the liberal senator, Tom Jordan, tells Lansbury's character that he will fight her husband with all his strength. Frankenheimer’s point is clear throughout the film: extreme, right-wing, anti-communist demagogues like McCarthy were more dangerous to the country than any domestic subversives and could even be used by real communist powers to manipulate American public perceptions and even their elections. The anti-communist fears of the period lends Lansbury's character a great deal of coherent context. We have a clearer sense of what she wants and who she is, and of the goals of the conspiracy. Therefore her dialogue, her behavior is rooted in a storyline that delivers a coherent message to the audience. Toward the film's end, Lansbury explains to her son clearly that, yes, she "served them" (the communists) and that she'd agreed to the conspiracy. But in return for her loyalty they chose her own son to be the assassin of the party's presidential candidate. And for that, she says, she will wreak her vengeance on them once her McCarthy-ite husband is elected. We thus get a sense of what her motivation has been -- first, some ideological loyalty to the Soviet-Chinese communist axis, then (upon discovery of their abuse of her loyalty by using her own beloved son) a desire to use the power she will attain and use it against them. At the end we also learn of her incestuous love for her son. Throughout the film we see clearly that she detests her husband and is merely using him. At the end of the film, we learn that it is her son who she loves---and in an incestuous way. The sudden kiss-on-the-lips she gives Raymond is just short enuf and just long enuf to shock and discomfort but it does not linger. Lansbury does it in a natural, unthinking, impulsive way. The moment is one in which we learn more about who she is, what she is thinking as person and directly LINKS ALL THAT TO THE CONSPIRACY; it clarifies the conspiracy to the audience and ties it with her personal relationship with her son. But there is no explicit dialogue about how she feels toward her son---it is all done with her eyes, her voice, her manner and in her kiss. What is also striking about Lansbury's performance, is that tho she is only a couple of years older than Laurence Harvey, we never ever doubt that she is his mother. As to dialogue, Lansbury's alarmist political demoagogic dialogue was infrequent. When she delivered it, it was clipped and quiet. When she tells Raymond about how dangerous Tom Jordan is, she does it compellingly, softly. In the remake, Streep has far too much in-your-face over-the-top political rhetoric, tho it is brilliantly delivered. I especially liked the line "there aren't any men in this country anymore" (or something like that). She has some of the best dialogue in fact. The film's presentation of her demagoguery in the context of anti-terrorist fears is a good attempt at making the storyline relevant to the present day. Coupled with the elements I already mentioned (the background radio and TV news reports), her dialogue provides the climate of fear and impatience with niceties like civil liberties that many people have in today's America. Yet overall, her dialogue and her delivery is, for me, far too unrestrained, too shrill, and after awhile, less impactful. When we finally reach the end, we're left with a great big "what was all that about?" In the end, all we know is that she was part of a conspiracy with a giant, powerful, worldwide corporation that profits from wars and contributes to both parties. So what exactly was this conspiracy all about? Incredibly, this film makes the highly implausible, nearly-successful Soviet-Chinese brainwashing conspiracy to capture control of the White House more credible than the vague plot offered here. In the original, Lansbury's character did not want her son to be the assassin but is forced to go along with it. Streep's character, however, deliberately chose her son to endure the horrific brainwashing regimen in Kuwait in order to ultimately secure the White House for this giant corporation and--presumably--herself. But, again, why? Is it for money? At one point, Streep says she's a believer, so presumably she's not in it just for the money. So why does she willingly put her son thru all this? Streep clearly portrays a mother who loves her son in a passionate, incestuous way; a mother who is utterly devoted to her son. Her performance here is excellent. But the script does not support her as it should. She engages in a convoluted, risky conspiracy just so that he can get into the White House and presumably be manipulated by her and Manchurian Global to control the war on terror and reap super-profits from it. Beyond that, for Streep’s character, does it also mean that she'll be able to control her son's decisions and control the "war on terror"? In the scene with her son where the incest is made almost explicit (she does NOT kiss him on the lips, she kisses him on the cheek; the camera angle makes it look like it’s on the lips), she never explains what all this has been about as Lansbury did in the original. The scene is entirely about her passionate, incestuous devotion to her son---all well and good, she plays it masterfully. But there is no direct connection made to the conspiracy. So what the hell has all this been about??? It is not the relevance of a powerful corporation profiting from the military-industrial complex and its many wars that I question. Anyone reading what Halliburton has been up to in the last 3 years knows that they're having a bonanza overcharging massive prices for "rebuilding" Iraq. It is the ridiculous notion that anyone would go to so much trouble, risk so much, to accomplish something that the film makes clear ALREADY EXISTS IN ABUNDANCE: that is, corporate collusion in and dominance of military policy. What I found particularly hilarious was the notion that it would be necessary for a powerful corporation to go to all this trouble to "own" a vice-president or a president when that has been the everyday reality of American politics for years. Clinton and Bush were and are both corporate-owned presidents, as are their parties. It is corporate officials who comprise cabinet members, elected officials, agency directors and so on. When they leave office, they go right back to work for these same corporations. While they're in office, they remain tied to these same corporations and craft policy decisions according to those priorities. There’s no conscious conspiracy needed here, that’s just the reality of American politics. As for the facile comparisons to Hillary Clinton made by the media, Streep has hotly denied any similarity to Hillary Clinton in her portrayal and has said that she's astounded that people see Hillary in that way. Streep is an admirer of Hillary Clinton's, after all. The comparison is something that has been imposed upon the film by pundits and journalists and frankly, I don't take it seriously at all. The comparison has more to do with the politics of the pundits and a popular image created about Hillary rather than any conscious intent of the filmmakers (for the record, I loathe Hillary Clinton). The remake adds so many new elements that merely serve to obscure and complicate an elegant, straightforward plot. The most egregious here is some undefined Albanian scientist friend of Marco's who was totally extraneous. Strangely, there are also a few pointed close-ups of a character called "the Secretary" (of State? Defense?), played by veteran B-movie director Roger Corman. I was utterly baffled by this. Rather than devote time to needless characters, they could've concentrated on clarifying the existing characters' backgrounds, motivations, relationships and so on. In the original, for example, we get to know a little of Tom Jordan, his daughter and their friendship with Raymond Shaw. When Josie returns, she still loves Raymond and we briefly see the cold-hearted Raymond Shaw whom no one likes blossom into a deliriously happy, loving man as he rekindles his romance with her and finally marries her. We also witness his deep, years-long pain at the forced separation between them instigated by his mother. We thus come to sympathize with Raymond, whereas I found little room to understand or sympathize with the remake’s Shaw. When Raymond discovers that both father and daughter have been murdered, his anguish and grief have far greater power -- and thus that of the audience. Their deaths mean so much more in the original to Raymond, and therefore the audience. In the remake, the impact of the senator's death is shamefully reduced to a blow against Marco's attempts to be believed. Tom Jordan therefore is reduced to just a brief cipher whose only function is to temporarily give Marco hope that he will be listened to by the authorities. Josie, his daughter, has absolutely zero impact---her presence serves no function to the storyline at all. If the original had any real flaw, it was its naive depiction of a Soviet-Chinese communist alliance. This reflected years of American misunderstanding of the Soviet-Chinese relationship. The official break between the two communist countries occurred in 1961 but relations had soured long before. This was known to many experts in the region (many who were academics and shouted down as pointy-headed subversives) and journalists who tried to explain this fact to the era's pundits, news organizations and the US government. But American perceptions of foreign affairs are not known for their understanding of such fine distinctions. So for years American pop culture and politics reflected the inaccurate belief that the Soviet and Chinese were always in cohoots when, in fact, the enmity between them was even deeper than that which existed with the West. It took years for American policy to finally recognize this, culminating in Nixon's famous trip to China in the early 70s which established a rapprochement between the US and China that never quite existed between the US and the USSR. Anyway enjoy the remake for what it is -- entertaining, interesting with some good performances, and a fair attempt at updating the material for today’s political climate and its technology. But I don't believe it will be as well remembered or as impactful as the original.
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Aug 1, 2004 05:45
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Personally, I thought it was a very good movie. I love a good conspiracy thriller. However, my only two problems with it were: A) What REALLY happened in Kuwait? Was that Shaw shooting down those helicopters from the hummer? Was this all a nightmare Marco conjured up? How long did this plan go back? Was Shaw brainwashed prior to the ambush? B) The movie didn't have enough "Oh I GET IT!" moments like these kind of movies should. The only one I recall having was when Meryl Streep repeated Shaws name three times, which was explanation to how the device worked, using their names repeated three times as sort of an activation code.
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Aug 2, 2004 07:48
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This was a great film, and it kept me enticed and interested throughout. Nice suspense, plot and build-up, not to mention impressive acting, and great cinematography. 4.5/5
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Aug 2, 2004 08:27
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Very good film. Best I've seen in a while. Streep's character (Sen. Prentiss-Shaw) was incredibly convincing. It takes an excellent kind of acting to make me want to punch the character on the screen in the face. Speaking of punches in the face, that scene was awesome and unexpected, and made my whole theater burst out laughing. I have two gripes: - The ending. Too short / not nearly enough detail. It left the audience wondering what happened, but not in a good "mysterious" way. - The editing during the scene when Shaw meets the Senator's daughter at the atrium party was terrible to the point of being distracting. The audio when the shot was over her shoulder was totally different than the audio straight on. Then there's a shot where she says goodbye and turns and begins walking away, and then there's a cut and she's still facing him. But those don't detract much from the quality of the film. 4/5. Would easily have been a 4.5 if not for the unsatisfying ending.
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Aug 2, 2004 09:24
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I saw this film, and really, nothing in it totally surprised me. Denzel Washington plays Denzel Washington, uncovering yet another conspiracy/mystery, and it's totally bland in that respect, especially with 'mysterious woman' added in. Meryl Streep is great, but 'wooden' does not begin to describe Liev Schreiber's portrayal of Raymond Shaw. Some of the parts were just plain confusing, as well. Still, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't like this movie at all. It really was okay. 3.0/5. Would have been 3.5/5 if they hadn't used CGI cel-shaded soldiers during some of the brainwashing scenes.
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Aug 2, 2004 09:54
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quote:Nighend came out of the closet to say: they had to use that because the brainwashers needed to create an illustrated memory of the fictitious events. i doubt they would have had time to hire actors and film it for the 3 days the soldiers went missing.
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Aug 2, 2004 22:26
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quote:FYAD WIZARD came out of the closet to say:
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Aug 3, 2004 03:35
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It was a good movie, a couple plot twists that were somewhat predictable, I won't go into them because there really is no need. The ending was somewhat obvious. My biggest beef with the movie was that the first 30 minutes were nothing but a pathetic stab at Republicans. "Sometimes, she has to choose between her medicine, and her dinner."  4/5
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Aug 3, 2004 03:42
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RIVALS!!!!!
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One of the best of the summer so far. The action was good, and it really left you on the edge of your seat for a good portion of the film. The plot was also disturbingly believable, if a bit sci-fi still. There were a few unanswered questions that could bother you if you let them. My advice is, don't let them. Enjoy this for what it is, a good suspense film/intrigue thriller, and it'll be well worth your hard-earned 8 bucks. I give it a 4.5.
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Aug 3, 2004 04:10
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Probally the most disappointing movie I've seen all summer. Denzel was amazing as always, and I really enjoyed Liev's performance as well, but there were a few too many plot holes. - So the FBI's "shadow group" puts an agent as a clerk on the grocery store to watch after Marco for all of 5 minuts a week? Please. Plus Rosie says the reason they're following him is because they found an implant in the dead soldier but that was after we first meet here. So I guess the FBI makes a habit of trailing wackos with shadow agents? - Duuur secret video cameras have red lights on them - Shaw recognizes Jordan's daughter while under control, how? He doesn't recognize the doctor. - Oh yeah VP candidates can just go around and kill whoever they want nobody wonders where they are - The evil doctor clearly states in the hole in the wall scene that the brainwashed state lasts for only 20 minutes. Yet later Shaw stayes brainwashed for hours when he kills Jordan, and even longer (phone call in class room -> next day). We can assume that the new implant means he can stay brainwashed longer, but Marco stays brainwashed for a day and he never got upgraded... - It took 13 years for Marco to notice the implant in his shoulder? So his just starts appearing at the surface at the same time as Shaws? - The implant was for... what? Not mind control obviously. The Albanian speculates its a tracking device (which was apparently correct) and yet Mancurian never does anything to keep him from talking to Shaw. - Shaw hates the medal of honor yet for some reason produces it out of thin air gives it to Marco not knowing he would even be there - Rosey presumably knows all about Marco's past and mission in Kuwait, yet fails to notice THE MISSING INDEPENDANT CONTRACTOR. For those of you who didn't see this very obvious placement, he was the only person walking down the hall in the school literally right in front of her. - When Shaw handed Marco the phone it was obvious to everyone I talked to that either: 1) Shaw was going to snap out of it and take the bullet at the last moment or 2) Marco was going to shoot Meryl Streep. Oh look both happened. Which brings me to my last question: why kill Raymond? If you kill his mother you destroy a major peice of the whole conspiracy. If you keep Raymond alive there is at least a chance to get your story out still (assuming he doesn't stay brainwashed all the time but there's not reason to assume that would happen). The way the movie ends now I think its save to say that Mancurian didn't get caught, they're just bummed they don't have control of the world. Oh well I guess they could always sell the amazing neuro-nano-tech that they miraculously invented in 1991. It's only the biggest scientific breakthrough in the past 50 years. The flashback scenes were sufficently creepy however. Rated: 2/5 boston fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Aug 6, 2004 |
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Aug 6, 2004 05:43
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edit: what the hell
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Aug 6, 2004 06:07
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Some good directing, but it didn't make up for the weird and often cheesy writing. The acting was pretty good, I suppose. 2/5
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Aug 6, 2004 06:28
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I just saw this tonight. I thought it was pretty good with solid acting, but it definitely was nowhere near as good as the original. I probably would have enjoyed it more had I not seen the original, but I wasn't too disappointed. 3.5/5
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Aug 6, 2004 06:58
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I was very disappointed by this movie, and I'm surprised so many people aren't. The movie was FULL of rather large plot holes and glaring inconsistencies. A lot of them have been covered here or in the imdb post, so I'll leave it at that. It seemed to me that what they had here was a pretty good 3 hour movie that they had to cut down to 2 hours. Because of this, many scenes were pointless or made little sense. The result was a scatterbrained story that fell on it's face. Denzel was solid, but he couldn't save it. There were other slightly nitpicky issues I had with the movie. I had a problem with the ultra-unrealistic cheesy TV coverage that was woven throughout the whole film. The campaign rally/etc scenes were jarringly phony. Also, can someone explain why lovely rocky music seemed to be playing next door in virtually every scene? It was obnoxious. 2/5 destroebl fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Aug 6, 2004 |
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Aug 6, 2004 08:19
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Far-fetched, unrealistic, clichéd, boring, pointless. Being a left-wing partisan, I tried to watch it for subtle Bush bashing, as it was widely publicized so. Instead, the story focused more on the outcome and any suggestion that Manchurian Global was Haliburton was ultimately lost on me, and I assume on other viewers. 3.5/5 Denzel saved this trainwreck with his incredible acting ability. Otherwise, it's a forgettable thriller which doesn't deliver the goods to either political nerds or realism hawks.
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Aug 6, 2004 16:51
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quote:cioxx came out of the closet to say: I thought it was pretty blatant, especially after the news voice-over that talked about a scandal were Manchurian Global vastly over-charged troops for medical supplies. I really was surprised by this movie and liked it a lot. I wasn't expecting to be surprised by the plot, and I wasn't. What caught me off guard and impressed me was the execution. I really enjoyed the semisubtle complaints about our political system. Never naming either political party to show that they're really the same was nice.
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Aug 9, 2004 09:42
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quote:destroebl came out of the closet to say: Also, my eyes rolled out of their sockets at the Mt. Rushmore with 2 extra faces. As for the rest of the movie, Washington was solid, but Streep was no Lansbury, and Liev was too wooden (maybe a stab at Gore?). Having seen the original really hurt the movie for me, since I knew 85% of the twists (although the mother being in on it was obvious even if you hadn't seen the original). The only thing that was really different was the ending, and the only thing I wasn't sure of was whether or not Marco would succeed in killing himself. The Megacorp as the bad guy made zero sense, especially today, since special interest groups already have that kind of power. At least the commies made sense (especially since McCarthy turned out to be half-right). Lastly, the dreams were under-used and far inferior to the brilliant dream sequences in the original. 2/5
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Aug 10, 2004 06:34
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Doesn't quite beat the original, but it was different enough for me to enjoy it, though I would have liked it even more hadn't I seen John Frankenheimer's version before. Acting was solid on all parts - Streep in particular was great. I also liked the many close-up shots of everybody that made for a more paranoid atmosphere. Those drat arabic ladies wearing masks with facial paint were also incredibly creepy. It did go on a little too long though, and while I thought it was an interesting touch that Denzel's love interest turned out to be a government agent (compared to the original what I thought was a weak subplot concerning Janet Leigh's character), it did create more plotholes than I would have hoped for (the way she started as a grocery store clerk is a little iffy). Shaw killing the senator and his daughter didn't have the same power as it did in the original considering there's less development for them. And it was more partisan than I would have liked (they couldn't have been any more obvious with Al Franken as a news host). But overall a tense thriller worth checking out. 3.5
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Aug 15, 2004 03:59
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4/5 The thing I really want to know is were I can get a copy of Wyclefs cover of "Fortunate Son", I cant find it any place!
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Aug 16, 2004 18:32
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quote:citson came out of the closet to say: It may not be an explanation to the Bush vs. Kerry campaign, but one of the film's major themes--big business with powerful influence in Congress--has given me something to think about with respect to modern politics. First off, I thoroughly enjoyed this film. 5 all around. Outstanding acting; either Denzel or Meryl should win an Oscar for their respective performances. Secondly, her face looked slightly unnatural. Did she put on a fat face for the role? Or was she just gaining weight in odd places? Hmm.... quote:Anonymous John came out of the closet to say: It was a covert operation -- a "shadow" team, as the lady put it--that had been watching him for a long time.
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Aug 21, 2004 10:34
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Well, my dad wanted to see this movie over the weekend, so we both went to see it, and I can't even begin to describe how terrible I thought it was. First the good points: 1. Washington's acting was commendable. Now the bad points: 2. The rediculous plot and terrible script can't be made up for by the above. 3. The movie, though I understand it completely, was so terribly pieced together that I can honestly say right now that I couldn't replay most of the movie in my head, just a general gist. 4. BRAINWASHED ZOMBIE SOLDIERS. Greeaaaaaaat idea...would've made a better evil dead flick =P Eh so it was frustrating mainly, with a terribly written script and good acting/directing. 2/5 here.
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Sep 7, 2004 01:02
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I enjoyed it in a very neat little thriller way. I also enjoyed the irony of the conspiracy's dueling Halliburton/Swift Boat mirror to reality. Ending was a bit confusing but overall it was a nicely done little remake. 4/5
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Sep 7, 2004 02:08
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I enjoyed the movie a lot. I went to the theater just a few days ago and it was still packed. A left-handed compliment here, but Meryl looks like hell. But drat was her acting good. There just wasn't a second you didn't believe she was a Senator. There was a scene when she's chewing out one of the corporate guys and the actor from Quantum Leap was in the background just smiling. He had the look like, "drat, she's chewing up this scene." Denzel was also amazing and he pulled off the character completely. The story was strong and interesting, if not completely believable. My problems with the story were: -What happened to the Albanian doctor? Was he even real? He seemed worried "they" would know he was there -Rosie. She didn't need to be there and I didn't like the semi-sorta love interest -No one seemed all that ticked that a bite was taken out of the back of the VP hopeful. Hello? Someone just performed surgery with his mouth. Also, that thing only seemed to be there so it could be found and because he couldn't conceivably take a knife/mouth to a skull in the same way -The internet "movie" of the bad doctor was super over-acted and expository -The general concept of it all. It's so much easier to just buy a president. 4.0
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Sep 7, 2004 16:16
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Maybe I'm just not a big conspericy theorist, but I thought the acting was shotty for most supporting charactors, the production value was crap, and the entire feel of the movie was like some college kid's local film festival entry. And of course, plot holes ahoy! One of those movies so bad you were more worried about the section of your life that is now missing from banging your head against the wall then the $8 you wasted to get in.
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Sep 20, 2004 00:22
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Okay, let me first say that I didn't really like the original Manchurian Candidate movie because I thought it raped the book. And I didn't like this one because it raped both of them. But more importantly, I found the plot just to be outlandish when reconfigured for the early 21st century. Extreme Freudian themes and brainwashing are, well, very, very 1964. It was a flawed concept from the get-go when they decided that this element would be retained, in my opinion, because the whole thing just ended up feeling ridiculous. The original movie (and maybe even a little bit of the book) suffered from an awkward conspiracy development -- this one even more so. If you want to see a genuinely smooth conspiracy theory, check out something by John LeCarré. I'm going to give it a 3/5, as I could not suspend disbelief enough to really enjoy it.
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Oct 4, 2004 03:59
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Clammy and tense thriller that kept the pace up throughout. Meryl Streep overacts to the point where she can now claim to be a female Al Pacino. I paid little attention to plotholes and such, because it was clearly obvious to me that Washington's character was insane and probably growing more and more delusional until the end. The insane complexity of the conspiracy is the biggest hint to the fact that it never existed at all. 4/5
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Aug 2, 2005 11:57
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