Elysium

WOW!  So, Neill Blomkamp may very well be the best science fiction writer/director since Ridley Scott.  His first feature length film, District 9 was one of the best films of the year and maybe even decade (so far), his sophomore effort Elysium is every bit a follow-up.  While the two films are not connected in terms of story, we can start to get a good sense of Blomkamp's style by looking at the similarities between the two films.  The action scenes in both remind me of the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan: gritty, dirty, gory realism.  Blomkamp uses shakey-cam quite a bit, but never enough to make you sick, and he doesn't commit the cardinal sin of shakey-cam which is using it to hide bad directing.  Make no mistake, Elysium is absolutely one hell of an action flick.  Characters get torn apart, people get blown up (and not the cheesy fireball and chunks of scorch blown up either, we're talking concussive blasts shredding people and spraying gore everywhere), one of the major characters even gets his face blown off and we're treated to a nice close-up of the aftermath.  But, it isn't a problem because there are machines which can heal any injury.

The heart of the story is about the separation between Earth and Elysium, a colonized ring world orbiting Earth.  Earth is a desolate planet, full of pollution and decay.  The cities destroyed and overcrowded.  The people tend to have dark skin and speak mostly Spanish, while on Elysium everyone is white and speaks either French or English.  Only Elysium has the magical "cure everything" machines, and the people of Earth often try to illegally access Elysium for the medical care.  Okay, so Blomkamp isn't particularly subtle with the message, but who cares because he HAS A MESSAGE.  So few movies are actually about anything, and while that isn't particularly a bad thing, it's the ones that really know what they want to say that stick with you.

In terms of story we have Matt Damon as Max, an ex thief trying to go straight who lives on Earth, he gets in an accident at the factory he's working at and only has five days to live, so he straps on a robotic exoskeleton and goes to town trying to break into Elysium.  Oh, and Sharlto Copley as Kruger, a deranged mercenary with big sword and a lot of explosives, is trying to stop him.  I'll stop the synopsis there so as to not give too much away but it's safe to say not all is as it seems on Elysium.

This movie has a great story, a very relevant message, and awesome action.  This movie has a freaking cyborg ninja, and it's AWESOME!!!  I cannot say enough how much I liked this movie.  Elysium is probably the best movie of the year, certainly the best of the summer.  GO SEE THIS MOVIE!

9.5/10

The Matrix Part 2

***WARNING THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE MATRIX, THE MATRIX RELOADED, AND THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS***

When I wrote up part 1 of my interpretation of The Matrix I originally intended to only do two parts, one for the first movie and one for the sequels.  Upon watching all of the movies again I realized that my initial estimates of two parts was far too short to analyze all the symbolism in these movies.  I will do my best to keep from dragging these out but I have a lot of material to cover because these are very dense, symbolic movies.  I also intend to separate the themes into categories to help keep myself on track and make things easier to read

Systems of Control

What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this. (Holds up battery)

The final conclusion Morpheus draws to explain to Neo the what and why of the Matrix is that it controls us so we can be harvested for energy.  However, the explanation of the Matrix given in the movies does not fully explain everything that happens.  In all of the movies it is clear that people jack in to the Matrix via a long spike inserted into the plug at the base of the skull; it is safe to assume this spike works by sending and receiving electrical signals to and from the human brain thus acting as a redirection.  Our brain sends movement signals to the body which are received by the spike and transmit to the Matrix to which the Matrix responds by sending the appropriate response signals back to the brain.

A system like this makes sense in a lot of ways but there are a few problems: first, and most important, is the fact that if you die in the Matrix then you die in real life.  Morpheus explains this by saying, "the body cannot live without the mind"  and thus if you die in the Matrix your mind dies and then your body with it.  But the brain does not die when your five senses tell you you're dying, the brain dies when it is deprived of oxygenated blood.  For now though lets assume that Morpheus is right in his conclusion, that still doesn't explain what actually happens in the movie.  The first time we see bodily damage from the Matrix is when Neo is in the jump program and manages to face plant into a road, this busts open his lip and he bleeds a little bit, when he wakes up from the Matrix his lip is bleeding.  That isn't possible with Morpheus' explanation; the mind can't simply will a person's lip to split open like that.  Some might say "what if he bit his lip at the impact?"  To which I would respond, "except that later on we see Mouse get shot multiple times and this not only causes him to convulse but it causes him to cough up massive amounts of blood."

There are also other things that throw the idea of jacking in to the Matrix out the window: for example in The Matrix Reloaded, Neo manages to destroy sentinels just by thinking about it, the same way he would in the Matrix, and he does this again in The Matrix Revolutions, taking on the entire defense of the machine city.  He also goes into a coma and is connected to a sort of limbo between the Matrix and the real world, which doesn't make any sense.  How can he be jacked in to the Matrix in any form without the metal spike?  And we know it's connected to the Matrix because Neo talks to programs on their way to see the Marovingian, an extremely old and powerful program within the Matrix.  Plus, when Trinity, Morpheus, and Seraph come to rescue Neo they take him from the limbo back into the Matrix itself and then he jacks out of it having inexplicably gone from comatose to physically jacked in at some point. The movies explain this by claiming that Neo touched "the source" which allowed his powers as The One to extend beyond the Matrix, but we are never told what the source is or why it exists.

The only adequate explanation of this is that the humans never actually leave the Matrix.  What they refer to as the Matrix is a virtual world and what they consider the real world is another part of the same virtual world.  Many video games deal with parallel realities and it would be no problem to create two separate worlds.  This theory also fits very nicely with the explanation we are given by the Architect when he meets Neo.

The Architect tells Neo that the original Matrix was designed to be a perfect world and that every human would be happy, however no human truly accepted the program and thus had to be unplugged and killed, which is a waste of energy for the machines.  He then explains that while later versions of the Matrix were designed to more closely resemble the imperfections of the real world as it used to exist, the final method of getting people to accept the program was to give them a choice between the Matrix and the real world at a nearly unconscious level.  Unfortunately, while this is the most successful method of making people accept the program of the Matrix it is also inherently flawed as a very small percentage of people will still not accept the program.  The Architect refers to these people as anomalies and states that the emergence of an anomaly among the crop of humans is the emergence of The One; Neo is the anomaly that did not accept the program.  However, this is not an adequate explanation either because several people never accept the program completely which is how they come to find the resistance who have been unplugged and escape the Matrix themselves.

Where the theory of dual virtual realities comes in is that the choice changes.  Instead of choosing between the Matrix and the real world, the people are choosing between the two virtual worlds.  This explains why people can reject the Matrix naturally without being The One, and what makes The One so special is that he rejects both worlds.  Even though his dual rejection of reality is on an unconscious level, the choice was on an unconscious level as well and thus Neo gains the ability to control things in both worlds as The One without knowing why.  This dual virtual reality theory also ties back to both the speech given by the Merovingian and the themes of the first movie.

Choice is an illusion created between those with power and those without.

The Merovingian directly tells Neo that some choices are useless, such as choosing the Matrix or choosing the real world because either way they are still under control by the machines.  Everything starts to make more sense when we realize that there are two virtual worlds and nobody ever actually escapes.  People are given a choice of accepting the Matrix or finding their way to the real world, but either way the outcome is essentially the same.  Nearly everyone accepts one world or the other and thus the system of control that is the Matrix becomes a perfect balancing act.  A balanced equation.

In part 3 I'll talk about the idea of a balanced equation between the two worlds and within the Matrix itself.

Thoughts and Ramblings on "The Matrix" Part 1

****WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST HAS MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE MATRIX, THE MATRIX RELOADED, AND THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS****

For those who don't know (and if you don't know you shouldn't be reading this) The Matrix was a 1999 science fiction film written and directed by the Wachowski brothers and starring Keanu Reeves, Lawrence Fishburne, and Carrie-Anne Moss.  The film was a hit and managed to earn close to $500 million at the box office due to its extremely well choreographed action scenes, ingenious new camera techniques for filming said action scenes, and mind-bending story about mistrust and the internet that came out right as the internet was exploding.  Today the film is fondly remembered and considered one of the best science fiction films ever made.  The sequels to The Matrix are not as fondly remembered.

One of the key elements of The Matrix that helped it make it's lasting impression is just how well it predicted the future; not necessarily on the surface level but on a more symbolic one.

"What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."

Within the movie this represents the computer system feeding your brain information so that you believe you are in a place you're not, doing something you're not.  However, within a real-world context this is a reference to the media: nobody can be everywhere in the world at once, it isn't possible.  So when we want to get our fix of news we turn to either the internet or the television and news stations that report what's happening in the world.  But, what if everyone told you a lie, if every source you looked up told a story that never happened you would believe it was true, and why not?  The news has never lied to you before, at least not to your knowledge, but that's the point: nobody can be everywhere, nobody can know everything, and if all your sources of information lied to you, you would have no way of knowing if it's true or not.  But, The Matrix takes this one step further:

"It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. … That you are a slave, Neo.  Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind."

Morpheus is referring to how humans are being used as batteries for the machines, but in real life it is a representation of the way society is set up.  News outlets constantly feed you lies, people with money make decisions, and you have no ability to impact the world.  Morpheus says it blatantly: "You are a slave."  Think about that.  In the movie people aren't used for labor, they're used for energy.  On just the surface plot he could have said "That you are a battery," but he didn't.  The word slave was specifically chosen for its connotations and definition.  Regular citizens in a society are slaves, we're simply here to keep the machine of progress running.  We're the worker bees, and despite what we're led to believe, individually we have no influence over the world as long as we follow the path laid out before us.  Movies entertain us, the media lies and keeps us scared, advertisers sell us things, and we work day in and day out.  The system of our society is entirely set up to keep us blinded from the fact that we're just workers and will never be the queen bee.  As evidence of this just look at the distribution of wealth in the United States.  When the top one percent of the population controls forty percent of the wealth in the nation, do the individual workers have any ability to influence the world?

Within all of this a savior rises up among us: Neo, the one, the new man.  The Jesus allegory is not subtle, in fact one of the other main characters is named Trinity, obviously representative of the holy trinity, and we even have a Judas to betray our savior.  Look closely at the way the characters are portrayed outside of the Matrix: they wear ratty clothes, they eat gruel, they sleep in bunks, and generally live in poverty.  But they are free, they may live in poverty but no longer do they have worries about who controls what.  If there's a conflict in Africa the news would be all over it, people would watch it continuously, those who had "unplugged" themselves would say "that's in Africa, there's nothing I can do, so why worry about it?"  The answer is to simply reject the Matrix, or ignore the news.  Who cares if there's a conflict in Africa?  Who cares if the president had sex with someone?  Who cares about a man in another country doing something we think is wrong?  When you start to notice all of the lies being fed by the news, the advertisers, and the government you realize the best way to fight it is to ignore it.  Don't buy that new car, don't donate $200 to that shady "non-profit" organization, and don't waste your time worrying about the government because nothing you can do will affect it.  By rejecting the influence of the system you become free in a sense.

Of course the system is still there, and you can take a look at all of the people who are still stuck in it:

"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."

Consider the kind of people who actively participate in this system: the idealists, the addicts, the people controlled by fear, even people who have strong opinions but don't choose a political party.  We're given choices to vote on gun rights, abortion rights, gay marriage laws: all things that seem important and indeed are to those who fall into those categories, but consider how little it actually affects the government or society as a whole.  We are so distracted by choosing on these small freedoms that we are blind to the fact that we are still slaves.  The small choices in our everyday lives keep us stuck on the track of the good worker bee while the system tells us how we feel.  The only way we can truly be happy and free is to live for ourselves and those we love.  Completely disconnecting ourselves from the world and living a simple life free of all the lies and crap that we've been fed.  Focus on what makes us happy, not what makes us feel superior, and live a simple, fulfilling life.

The Matrix is an intense visual and philosophical trip, even on its surface narrative that played on the fear and paranoia of the internet just as it was exploding.  Then the Wachowski brothers made sequels.  The sequels to The Matrix were both a big departure and a direct continuation of the original.  Most people don't consider them as good as the original movie, and I agree, but they aren't as bad as some people claim either.  The movies use a familiar framework and explore new ideas based around the world the Wachowski's created.  And, I'll explore those ideas in Part 2.


Special notice should be made to Rob Ager (www.collativelearning.com) for his analysis of the symbols and themes in The Matrix.

Ghost in the Shell

Ah, Ghost in the Shell, a memento from my childhood, though I didn't understand the complex plot and boring political banter at the time I still loved it because it represented something special to me: night.  I used to sneak out of bed in the middle of the night and watch anime on the movie channels of satellite TV as a child with the volume extremely low.  Anime always came on late at night for some reason, probably partly due to the mature nature of what was shown and the fact that most anime fans were night owls anyway so Showtime could successfully market to them without alienating the mainstream watchers.  Whatever the reason, as a child anime symbolized late night (at the time roughly 1:00-3:00 AM which is early for me now) because late night was my time.  Everything was silent and dark and only the flicker of the big CRT TV with the volume barely audible from a foot away (I didn't want to wake up my parents and be sent back to bed) and in a way those nights were almost romantic in their nostalgia.  I ran across a few gems of the medium as well at the time such as Bubblegum Crisis, Gunsmith Cats, Cowboy Bebop, Ninja Scroll, and of course Ghost in the Shell.  One of my favorite things about Ghost in the Shell is that it truly is a science fiction movie (rather than a science fantasy movie like say Star Wars) [for anyone who does not know the difference science fiction is always focused on technology including how it works, how it changes things, and how it fits into our lives, science fiction is almost always based strongly in reality on current or potential technology, whereas science fantasy tells a story in a futuristic setting and simply explains "magic" by saying "because science!"].

As a child I liked Ghost in the Shell because it represented freedom, it represented maturity, and most of all it represented staying up late without my parents knowing.  On top of that the unusually dark (for my experience) science fiction setting was an interesting change and the cool gadgetry of the world intrigued me. As an adult I like the movie for different reasons (although those original reasons still apply too, go staying up way too late without my parents knowing even though I'm an adult!), mainly because it has an extremely interesting plot despite being a bit over-complicated by political banter which is used to set up the background story.  To put it simply: Ghost in the Shell is the anime equivalent of Blade Runner.  What I mean by that is they both ask similar moral questions.  But, for simplicity the plot revolves around a group of counter-terrorists who specialize in cyber terrorism and are led by Major Motoko Kusanagi, who is probably my favorite female character in anything ever.

As a character Major Kusanagi is very quiet and stoic, she talks during the movie with the people who are around her because she knows and and trusts them but seems to rarely talk unless necessary and when she does she is very efficient with her words.  She doesn't have much respect for authority but she does have respect for those around her, including her superiors and her subordinates.  She respects people rather than positions.  The word efficient is probably the best way to describe her because her personality is like a well-oiled machine (which is intentional but more on that later).  Watching her in action scenes is incredible because the animators made sure to imbue her with a sense of power and, again, efficiency.  The way she runs: taking steps just long enough to not be cumbersome and not moving any other part of her body, the way she shoots: double tap with straight, realistic aiming, and pinpoint precision, and everything about her scream perfection.  She is someone who is very careful with how she moves and controls herself and makes sure every action is perfect, almost like a machine.  This is interesting because she is a machine!  Mostly.  She has part of a human brain inside of a cyber-brain enclosure that provides increased thinking and information processing capabilities as well as networked links to connect to the internet, and the brain is stored inside an entirely cybernetic body.  The title suddenly becomes clear here, Ghost in the Shell is in reference to her, the partial human brain is where her creativity, instinct, and human soul come from, i.e the ghost, and the cybernetic body is the shell.  However, in the world of Ghost in the Shell fully cybernetic and partially cybernetic humans are the norm and the only thing that sets her apart from most people is that she has a extremely expensive body with a lot of capabilities because she works for the government in a job where she would definitely need those enhancements.

In fact, nearly everyone has some sort of cybernetic enhancement in this world, even Togusa who is the only member of the anti-terrorist team that is almost entirely human (his only cybernetic enhancement is a brain augmentation that allows him to connect to communication systems such as the internet).  The movie adequately explores the dangers of these enhancements through a practice called "Ghost hacking" in which a hacker will break into the cyber brain of an individual and either take control of the persons body or mess around with their memories.  Both instances happen in this movie, in one situation a senators assistant is hacked into in order to force her to assassinate the senator and in another instance a mans memories are replaced which leads him to committing crimes he doesn't realize he's committing.  The movie, and the TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex investigate the possibilities both good and evil in great depth.

As far as plot goes Section 9 (the aforementioned anti-terrorist team) is given the assignment of hunting down a hacker known as The Puppet Master.  The name The Puppet Master comes from the fact that he ghost hacks people and uses them as human proxies to ghost hack other people.  He has a whole series of these ghost hacked puppets which he uses to commit various crimes and due to the way he has some puppets hack other people to turn them into his puppets he is very hard to trace because even if the team captures a cyber brain in the process of being ghost hacked it will only lead to another puppet.  The setup is both eloquent and complex and the sort of person who could control such a system must be incredibly intelligent and calculating, a great foil the the Major herself.  So what we have is a spy thriller about a cyber criminal, but it is also a great personal journey for Major Kusanagi because she has been in a cybernetic body so long that she has no memories of when she was a human.  In fact, she doesn't even know for sure if she has actual human brain cells in her cyber brain and so throughout the film she is seeking an answer to whether or not she really is human.  One particularly good scene involves her going scuba diving with one of her close friends and subordinates, Batuo, after having seen someone else with the same cybernetic body as her earlier in the day which made her question her individuality.  She states that she can let herself go when she scuba dives and the conversation that she and Batuo have about both their individuality and their cybernetic bodies is extremely well presented.  She really comes across as someone who has been so focused on making her professional life perfect that she forgot who she was on a personal level.  She is an extremely strong, independent woman who knows her place in the world, but doesn't know who she really is or if she is even human.  She is quite a well developed and subtle character.

The movie also has a few action scenes that are sporadic but extremely realistic in their presentation (based on the rules of the world) and while the movie does have several scenes with grotesque violence, the violence is there for a reason, not just to shock.  Ghost in the Shell is outstanding and, considering most of the scenes are incredibly simple, they work perfectly.  Overall the main character is extremely interesting as is the villain, and both are products of the well-realized and eerie world of future Japan.  This film is an absolute must-see for any fans of science fiction, crime drama, or action.

Verdict
9/10

Donnie Darko and Donnie Darko Director's Cut: Part 2

Last week I talked about the fairly good, if overly confusing, movie Donnie Darko.  The biggest complaint I had was that the movie did almost nothing to clue the audience in to what was actually happening in the plot or why it was important.  The Director's Cut not only completely solves this problem, it does so without losing the feeling of mystery that the theatrical version had.  The Director's Cut also takes the characters that were so good in the theatrical version and makes them even better while it cryptically reveals why everybody is acting so quirky and unusual.

The biggest strength of Donnie Darko Director's Cut is that, while it reveals enough information to figure everything out, it reveals it slowly and deliberately.  On top of that, it still leaves enough out that the audience has to draw their own conclusions about specifics, however they now have the tools to do so.  Plus, this movie doesn't skimp on the importance: in an early scene Gretchen says to Donnie "Donnie Darko?   What kind of a name is that?  It sounds like some sort of super hero."  To which Donnie replies, "What makes you think I'm not?"  In the theatrical version this scene just comes off as harmless flirting because we never know what is actually going on, however in the Director's Cut, especially when watching it for a second time, the audience may chuckle a bit as they get the joke.

I know the article isn't very long this week, but honestly there isn't too much to say about Donnie Darko Director's Cut that wasn't already said in the review of the theatrical release.  The movies are very similar to each other, the Director's Cut just tells us the plot, and unfortunately I don't want to talk about that too much so as to not spoil it for anyone.  Needless to say, Donnie Darko Director's Cut is an extremely good movie with quite a complex and very compelling story.  For any fans of cerebral thrillers and science fiction movies I highly recommend Donnie Darko Director's Cut.

Verdict,
9.5/10

Donnie Darko and Donnie Darko Director's Cut: Part 1

Donnie Darko is a movie I saw three years ago for the first time.  I remember watching it twice and even after the second watch having no idea what the hell was going on in the movie.  The overarching plot about time travel didn't seem to make any sense, there were a few things here and there that I caught on to but overall I had no idea what to make of it.  That being said I still enjoyed Donnie Darko because of its characters and interactions.  It had a great cast for its time including Jake Gyllenhaal, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Noah Wyle, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, and even a young Seth Rogen.

Jake Gyllenhaal is the titular Donnie Darko, a teenage boy who is extremely intelligent but has some rather serious emotional issues.  In the beginning of the film Donnie is a rather unlikable character, seemingly being a jerk to whoever he talks to be it his parents or sisters.  During one early scene in which he smokes a cigarette in front of his younger sister, he threatens to put her hamster in the garbage disposal if she tells their mom about the smoking.  However, as the movie progresses we see that Donnie is actually very likable (at least to me) by being extremely intelligent and logical.  In fact, he seems so out of place with the rest of the characters except his would-be girlfriend Gretchen.  Another early scene shows Donnie hanging out, drinking whiskey, and shooting bottles with his two friends; the friends are talking about a gang bang scenario involving the Smurfs and Smurfette with Papa Smurf filming (this is not a movie for children as it shows "average" teenage guys talking among themselves and as such many of the sexual frustrations of being a teenager are apparent through conversation and other means).  Donnie then proceeds to explain to them in explicit detail exactly why this scenario would not be logical or even possible in the world of the Smurfs.  Donnie has a bit of a rough start but he shortly makes up for it by showing how he is simply an average, albeit very intelligent, teenage boy just trying to find his place in the world and by the end reaches the point of being a strong and respectable, even likable character.

Jake Gyllenhaal gives a phenomenal performance as the awkward teenage boy but he isn't the only strong character.  Jena Malone does an exceptional job in the (more important than you might think) role of the girlfriend while Patrick Swayze does his usual thing as a cheesy '80s public speaker and self-help author.  Drew Barrymore is an English teacher who almost cares too much and Noah Wyle is a science teacher who has a fascination with time travel and guides Donnie through a decent part of the movie.  There are many other characters I could talk about as well that are all very well developed but I think you get the point.

As great as the characters are in Donnie Darko the plot suffers heavily from too much editing.  Think for a minute would you, of any great movie or book you read which had unusual occurrences and strange events that seemed to make no sense but were actually revealed to be extremely important in a handy wrap-up of what happened at the end.  Now, imagine that wrap-up were completely cut out and the viewer is left trying to decipher the incredibly obscure rules of this fictional world.  That's the biggest flaw with Donnie Darko.

The plot of the movie revolves around Donnie and his continual changing perception of his world.  Early in the movie he sleepwalks out of his bed following a 6-foot tall, creepy looking rabbit named Frank.  Frank lures Donnie out of his bed to a golf course where he proceeds to tell Donnie that the world will end in exactly 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds.  Right about the time this happens a large jet engine falls out of the sky and crashes through the roof of Donnie's house into his bedroom.  If Frank hadn't lured Donnie out of the house he would have been killed by the jet engine.  Throughout the course of the movie Frank asks Donnie to do illegal and dangerous things, things that never physically hurt anyone but that cause other things to happen.  No I'm not going into any more detail than that.  Interesting setup, right?  The problem is that we, the audience, never know what to expect: we have no idea what the goal is, what is at stake, why it's important that Donnie do these things, and where the people of the town all fit into the equation.  And, the answers are never revealed.  The ending is incredibly ambiguous, not as to what happened, but as to why and how it happened.  Nothing seems to make sense and things start happening apparently randomly in the last third of the movie with little or no explanation as to the character motivations other than Donnie's.

Now that we have the strongest and weakest aspects out of the way lets talk about how the movie looks and feels: fantastic.  The whole movie is shot with an off-putting blue lens which does an excellent job of keeping the audience with a feeling of isolation in this world.  All of the characters act a little bit off as if they have something bothering them but don't know what it is.  On top of that there are a few character turns that were completely unexpected but make total sense.  Finally, the whole film was shot as if it were a horror movie, making common use of the empty space technique (I'm sure that isn't what it's actually called but it's where the camera shows a sudden clearing of empty space, an example would be a person leaning down below the camera from a closeup so that the audience has a sudden chance to see the monster standing behind them with claws ready to disembowel).  Every frame of Donnie Darko was shot with a love and care rarely seen in movies and everything feels precise and needed; unfortunately we needed a bit more to actually understand what's going on.

Overall Donnie Darko is a very good movie, but not great, and it's on Netflix.  Normally I would give my recommendation and say "go watch it" and I still say that to the lazy moviegoer who just wants to watch something unusual and refreshing but for those of us willing to go out and find a particular movie I have something better in store for you so you should skip out on Donnie Darko.

Verdict,
7.5/10

This was getting very, very long so I decided to do it in two parts.  Part 2 will cover the movie you should watch if you're willing to go out and find it: Donnie Darko Director's Cut

Movies by the Book

In my Cloud Atlas review I stated that there were different ways people view movies that are based on books depending on if the person viewing the movie had or hadn't read the book.  Today I'd like to go a bit more in depth about it.  I'm sure we've all heard someone say that they thought a movie was better because it was closer to the book, or liked it less because it deviated from the book significantly, and others say they liked the movie with or without reading the book.  So who is right?  I mean I know it's a subjective question but it is still valid: is a movie based on a book better if it follows the events of the book more closely or is it better if it follows the events of a book more loosely.  The answer, unfortunately, is that there is no answer.

Books and movies are fundamentally different mediums: books are meant to be read over long periods of time, days, weeks, or even months depending on the reader.  Movies however, are meant to be watched in one sitting, generally between ninety minutes and three hours.  The key problem here is pacing.  Books have a tendency to have a lot happen in them, just look at Harry Potter, the first book was a mere three hundred pages, give or take, and it took nearly three hours to make into a movie.  That was the first Harry Potter movie and, aside from one scene, the movie was nearly identical to the book.  Let me say that again, three hours to tell three hundred pages, and the movie wasn't great either.  Due to it's adherence to the book the first Harry Potter movie was riddled with awkward dialogue and over acting, and for it's extend length the movie didn't even even have all that grand of a plot.

Lets compare that with the fifth Harry Potter movie, which removed a considerable portion of the book and added in scenes to fill the gaps with more important, and better presented scenes.  All told the fifth movie was considerably better as a movie than the first.  Yes it still had about a three hour running time, but the story it got through in that three hours was nearly eight hundred pages, and because of the significant editing the movie was presented more like a movie than a book that was just filmed.

Another good example of a movie being made into a book correctly is the Lord of the Rings which is probably the greatest piece of fantasy fiction ever put to film.  And, yes, Lord of the Rings stuck to the books quite well, save for a few moved around scenes and some editing for theaters (the edited content, which was quite significant, was later added in anyway in the Extended Editions, which is a must own for any movie enthusiasts collection), but what it got right was pacing.  Peter Jackson knew that if he rushed through LotR with the same recklessness as was put into the first few Harry Potter movies (which, coincidentally, premiered about the same time as LotR) then they would have the same problems, particularly awkward dialogue and overacting, as well as a hollowness to the story.  So, what did he do right?  Pacing.  It has become sort of a joke that the Lord of the Rings movies are incredibly long, and they absolutely are, but for very good reason: Peter Jackson wanted to make sure the audience had adequate time to get to know all of the characters.  Every single character in the movie is introduced deliberately and effectively.  Remember the first time you meet Aragorn and he's this mysterious ranger calling Strider, that you don't know if he's friend or foe?  Didn't that make you incredibly interested in the character?  And then he saves the hobbits lives and leads them to Rivendell!  Aragorn was an awesome character, and one of the most well introduced characters in the series.

Now we've reached the point of characterization and this is the main reason for the discrepancy between those who have read the book and those who haven't when watching a movie.  PEOPLE WHO HAVE READ THE BOOK ALREADY HAVE AN EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT TO THE CHARACTERS IN THE BOOK!  Comparatively, those who are watching a movie as an introduction to the story do not have that emotional attachment to the characters.  So, why is this important?  Those who have read the book only want to see the scenes acted out, they already know what's going on in each characters mind as well as what their hopes and dreams are and etc...  They have an emotional attachment to the characters so the movie doesn't have to try and build it up.  Conversely when someone is new to the story and a movie just replays the scenes from the book without giving the audience a way to really get to know the characters, the audience then has no reason to care about the people on screen, or any danger they might be in.  This makes movies flat and boring for anyone who hasn't read the book.

Finally, what is the best way to convey a book in movie form, despite the fact that they're entirely different mediums?  It's simple, though not easy.  Step one is to read the book and decide what the theme and tone of the book are.  Try and figure out what the book is trying to convey to the reader.  Why was this book written, essentially.  Then make damn sure your movie delivers that to the audience.  Step two is to make sure the characters are likable and have human depth.  Flat, one dimensional characters can ruin any movie, no matter how good the plot is.  And finally, step three is to get the events in order.  Add what you can from the book but only as long as it helps the movie say what it needs to say.  Never sacrifice pacing for more scenes from the book, pacing is important and it can make or break a movie.  Don't be afraid to make up your own scenes, if they serve the purpose better than anything in the book they add them and the movie will be better for it.

The key point to remember is that a movie is a movie and a book is a book.  A movie should be taken on its own merits and not on how close to the book it is, so make sure your movie is good for everyone watching, even the ones who haven't read the book.