Hey folks, Harry here with the latest screening of K-19, Kathryn Bigelow's latest film... This one sounds quite promising indeed. It has been too long since Harrison Ford has made a good movie.... It'll be good to see the ol guy in a kickass flick again, this sounds like it is that indeed...
Hey, I got to see a screening of a new submarine flick K-19. I got a few passes from friends and figured I'd tag along. I wasn't too excited because it starred Harrison Ford who really hasn't done anything good since The Fugitive, but then I discovered it was directed by Kathryn "Strange Days" Bigelow. She's former Mrs. James Cameron and an action goddess (and she ain't too hard to look at either, too bad she's about 30 years too old). Wait, back to the movie. Basically, I really liked it; I found it to be exciting as hell, even though most of my friends didn't have the same reaction.
Basically, it's a submarine movie taking place during the Cold War, with the only villain being how inept Communist manufacturers were. Nothing on the Russian sub works and everything seems to go wrong, with the most dangerous being the nuclear reactor, which bursts and spreads radiation throughout the hull in addition to overheating and threatening to unleash a nuclear blast much larger than Hiroshima right outside the Eastern coast of the United States.
Yes, the Russians are the good guys, which might result in this movie losing box-office dollars (it wouldn't be the first movie by Ms. Bigelow that bombs), but this movie isn't about Communism or the people, it's about the situation, which is based on a true story. It's a really involving plot because of the dramatic urgency. If the sub blows up, not only will everyone on board die, but it could potentially start World War III. The people on board can't ask for help because their radio is busted and the only nearby ships are from the states, who offer to help, but will capture the sub once they do.
The movie is exciting. Once it picks up, it doesn't let go, things get more and more intense. While the human story is pretty much absent (which doesn't mean to say that there aren't a few emotionally effective moments), the movie manages to build tension around the extreme situation. The movie ran about 2 hours 10 minutes and it felt about half that long.
Although the CGI wasn't finished, it is going to be sweet once it's done. Right now, the graphics looked like the kind used for storyboarding sequences, but there were some that blew me away with what they were trying to show, even though they looked very cartoony. Everyone I was with agreed that one sequence is going to be downright awesome once the computers are done doing their thing.
Now for the bad news. The ending sucks. Not getting into specifics, it's the kind of epilogue we've all seen a dozen times before that has never worked. I really don't know why they keep trying because it's not only a cliché, it's a lame cliché. It doesn't ruin the movie, but it does it end it on the wrong note.
The other thing is that of the people I was with, about half didn't like it. I was with six other people: one other person liked it about as much as I did, two others accepted it as entertaining, but a disappointment, one person didn't like it and two people hated it. They mentioned script problems, mainly that there was no real character development and that there was one scene where both characters seemed to switch sides or something to that effect. They also hated the ending and found a few lines of dialogue to be inane. None of this really bothered me (except the ending) because I thought the movie was more about the situation than the characters (which isn't always a bad thing). I should also mention that I'm kinda into the whole Cold War genre, loving movies like Fail Safe (both the original and the remake) and Dr. Strangelove (and I even liked movies like this past year's Thirteen Days), so that might have had something to do with it.
I saw Bigelow before the show in the lobby, but didn't have the guts to go up to her and tell her how much I love Strange Days (which is an awesome movie, for those of you who haven't seen it). The thing about her is that not many people know who she is or what she looks like, so she was able to blend right in. Despite being a female director, she's able to pump a lot of testosterone into her movies and here she manages to do it again. There's a lot of action, even more suspense and more than a few nifty explosions. I can't wait to see the finished product.
The Quick Brown Fox
