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Directed by: D.J. Caruso Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Sarah Roemer, Carrie-Anne Moss Alright, let me preface this by saying - this movie is a straight up "teen movie" - but it's a really good teen movie. And yes, it's been done before, by the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock. So why do we need a re-imaging of a classic suspense film? We don't, but thanks to some solid writing, what could've been a mediocre film turned out to be the most fun I've had in theaters in a long time. First off, this movie is very, very funny. I was shocked at how much comedy they packed into a suspense film. And it works too! Somehow they tread the fine line of switching from serious and creepy to comedy very well. Kudos to the writers for not letting the film take itself seriously and providing us with an enjoyable experience. As expected and like it's predecessor, Rear Window, this movie has many twists and turns. Except it's like the writers decided to up the ante by about 1000x. This was okay in my book though some might find it cliche. Shia LaBeouf turns in an impressive performance and is more than just the new "rising teen star" but actually has some chops. With this and Transformers, he knows how to pick his roles! Sarah Roemer is a hottie and all the guys will appreciate that. And of course, Carrie-Anne Moss will always be Trinity. Whoa. To be honest, I can't find much bad about this movie. A couple lines of dialog didn't sit well with me and the ending was a bit cheesey but I really, really enjoyed the movie. I think this movie could really turn into a "sleeper hit". Then again, every showing was sold out. We waited in a HUGE line longer than what we did for opening night of the last Harry Potter movie so maybe it won't have to be a "sleeper". Whatever. I hope the film does well and encourage everyone to check it out. Just remember, it's a fun movie. So go and have fun and don't expect it to surpass Rear Window. RATING: 4.5 PROS: Very funny, twists and turns, solid acting, smarter than your average teen movie, doesn't take itself seriously CONS: Screaming girls in the movie theater ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0486822/
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Apr 14, 2007 07:25
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I saw this movie tonight and I think your review is dead on. It is definitely a teen movie, but a fairly good one (plus, its got a "goon" connection!). Very entertaining, fairly decent acting (although I was glad Carrie-Anne isn't in it much because her acting in some scenes isn't great), and certainly some parts where you are taken by surprise and jump out of the seat a little. The massive con are all the screaming teenage girls getting freaked out. The song from this movie by This World Fair is pretty good, too.
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Apr 15, 2007 08:26
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Well, I just got back from seeing "Disturbia" about one hour ago and my mind is still filled with too many questions without answers and that's a bad thing. Basically, I don't think I'll sleep tonight because my mind is so hosed up by what I just saw. All in all, I think I would have had more fun getting in a car crash on the way home instead of seeing this movie. First things first, the acting. The acting is actually quite good throughout the movie. Shia LaBeouf (Transformer's kid this summer) works well in his role as a teenager who is put under house arrest for his summer vacation. His facial expressions and voice are completely believable in the right situations (freaking out with bad guys, chilling with hot chick, being emo, etc). The bad dude, David Morse (The Rock, head SWAT guy in The Negotiator), also plays his role perfectly as the lunatic neighbor and can easily make you jump when he surprises those pesky teenagers who won't leave him alone. The other actors are pretty much forgetable. Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix, Memento, Red Planet) plays the bitchy Mom who doesn't understand what's going on. The hot neighborhood girl, Sarah Roemer, fits her role quite perfectly as being...well..hot. Aaron Roo, the stereotypical "Haha. Jokester" Asian friend is best left as ignored through the movie unless you enjoy sexual jokes and dry, witty humor. The second and last good part about this movie is the premise. I mean, it sounds just totally cool chilling out in your house spying on neighbors all day and finding out all their dirty little secrets. Hell, I would want to be under house arrest for 3 months just so I can have some time to find out why my neighbors are so hosed up. Unfortunately, while this premise is cool, the movie doesn't live up to it. I.E. Don't expect much on "spying" on multiple neighbors and finding out about cheating husbands or whatever as portrayed in the trailers. The movie basically revolves around rear end shots of Sarah Roemer  and creepy David Morse next door.Well that's where the good stuff ends. The rest of my review will COVER THE ENTIRE SUMMARY (I.E SPOILERS) of the movie and why it is so goddamn bad. Frankly, I feel the need to tell you of this movie before you get tricked into seeing it by the trailers. Onward to Hell. So, basically, we're treated to a loving Father/Son relationship of fly fishing with an unnecessary "Hey son! Let's take a break! *breaks out two Coca-Cola glass bottles* Mmmm! Yum!" Shia LaBeouf, or Kale, is portrayed as a happy, straight A, "I love you Mom and Dad!" teenager. This is all abruptly changed when Father/Son getting into a mega car crash thanks to trucks driven by what would have to be dead, retarded children. Dad dies, and Kale turns emo which results him later (a year I guess?) decking his teacher for making dead Dad jokes (Christ, those are funny). Anyways, this results in him being under house arrest for 3 months over his summer vacation which requires a monitoring braclet to be shackled onto his ankle. Conveniently, the cop who makes sure he doesn't leave the house (i.e. break the invisible radius of the braclet and device which extends to the fencing around the house) happens to be the cousin of the teacher that Kale just laid out. This leads to dumb situations where Kale is wrestled to the ground and handcuffed by gun point by these deranged cops. The next portion of the film might as well been the original trailer shown in theaters and on t.v. I seriously would not know the difference. The whole setting up rope around the lawn, building twinkee tower, checking out dude cheating on his wife with the maid, etc, is all covered in about 5 to 10 minutes. Included within this span of "extended trailer footage" is product placements of Ghost Reacon for the fake Xbox 360 (odd lettering and hosed up dashboard menu...yea, I don't know), iPod, Apple laptops, etc. In addition, Carrie-Anne Moss proceeds to bitch out little emo Kale for being such a stupid human being and not cleaning his room. This results in the cord to his HDTV being cut in half and then being told that she "canceled his iTunes." Wait, what? Huh? But that doesn't...make sense...Uh..Yea, how the gently caress does one go and cancel iTunes for someone? This is where the alarms in my head starting to go off. Eventually, we meet Sarah Roemer's rear end...I mean..Ashley's rear end...or, um, tits..I mean..uh..body. Kale eventually meets her after many sessions of spying on her through her "greenhouse" room on the 2nd floor which apparently has no blinds until after she strips her top off (no nudity, son of a bitch!). Anyways, she gets down with Kale and his Asian friend, Ronnie, and all of them start to spy on that crazy David Morse looking guy, who goes by the name of Mr. Turner, next door. We are then treated to scene where Mr. Turner chills with some chick in his house that he picked up at a bar and what we might assume to have led to murder but turns out to be a false alarm as the chick leaves his house in her car that she pulled up with. (or did she? Dun dun dun!?) Ugh, one thing leads to another where Asian kid breaks into Mr. Turner's garage (with crazy nightvision camera that the Asian kid had laying around), Mr. Turner looks angry with a shovel, sexual harassment against poor, slutty Ashley, Asian kid gets smacked in the temple with aluminum bat in full swing and lives, yada, yada, yada. Kale finds out that Mr. Turner is in fact some looney killer and goes to check out his house which turns into a little house of horrors that include freezers filled with ice, a little operating room packed with surgery equipment, secret door panels, football field sized basements, green zombified corpse pools, and what looked like probably 10+ corpses. The "works" basically, if one were to think of the contents of a generalized murderer's/haunted house. All of this makes no sense. He lived in Texas before hand, so he must have moved some corpse with him to his new place by Kale? Why operating tables and freezers packed with ice when all he does is just kill people? How in the gently caress did Mr. Turner get such a huge loving basement that includes large mazes filled with dead women? Why does he only target women? How did a 6ft 2in 240 pound killer look like a short, fit young women in high heels when Karl spotted her getting back in her car? (this is explained with her found car keys, a wig, and high heels located in the basement)How does a high schooler rig up night vision cameras and radios when he can't even clean his room? Why didn't Mr. Turner buy that loving shovel after standing around all day looking angrily at them? When did he think, "Well, now's the right time to bury these rotting corpses in my ultra-basement. Oh poo poo I don't have a shovel!" Why didn't he have a loving shovel to begin with when it became apparent that he had every tool known to man except a shovel in his basement? Why couldn't I see Sarah Roemer naked goddammit? And why didn't I kill myself by the time I got near the end of this terrible movie that tricked me with their trailers? I urge you not to see this movie but if you feel the need to think that you can answer these questions then by all means try to solve this mystery. Rated: 1.5 out of 5.0 rSkan fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Apr 15, 2007 |
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Apr 15, 2007 09:07
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Unremarkable, but thoroughly enjoyable. The writing is solid and makes the best of a tired story (when a plot is so well-known that the Simpsons have riffed on it, it's probably best to stay away, but they managed to pull it off.) Shia LaBeouf plays an extremely likable main character, and they do a good job of showing that he's got some issues with his father's death, as well as fitting in, but they don't spend excess time on either. Every once in a while there was a real dud in the writing (I have never heard the line "You're breaking my heart!" work in any movie, ever) but for the most part the movie was well-constructed. Definitely worth the price of admission. Go see it with your friends or a date, if she can handle the occasional morbid image. 4/5 edit: I had assumed the movie was rated R, but astoundingly it is only PG-13. Be warned, then, that there are multiple scenes up-close of dead, mutilated and preserved bodies. There was just a tad more gore than would be expected for a PG-13 summer movie aimed at the teen market, so weak stomaches beware. Also, it's kind of funny that we can have tons of mutilated people and grab a PG-13, but if they had shown that hot chick's tits it would have been rated R. America 
extra innings lovin fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Apr 22, 2007 |
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Apr 22, 2007 19:28
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Went and saw this with my girlfriend. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was. We've already gotten decent reviews that's covered all the good points so I'll point out some things that annoyed me: -The "love" relationship with the neighbor was incredibly cliche and felt awkward to me. I thought the chemistry between the 2 was really cool when they were hanging out but any of the love stuff just seemed awkward. -I actually feel like this movie should have been extended by 20 minutes or so. The ending seems abrupt to me and they could have easily added 20 minutes of more spying on other neighbors, the pyscho, or whatever. I also felt like we didn't know enough about the crazy neighbor. Overall a average movie that is worth a rental at the very least. 3/5
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Apr 28, 2007 07:37
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