I didn’t feel they dealt with class issues at all. These people drove gas guzzling monstrosities of SUVs lived in huge million+ dollar homes and the only time money was even discussed was in regards to the Jennifer Aniston character.

I thought I would empathize most with her character but she was a selfish, self destructive and apparently a gold digger—who just stayed that way the whole film, there was no growth, no introspection.

I like each of the actors, but the film just left me cold. Was this just supposed to be a “slice of life” story? I feel like there were a lot of issues that were alluded to but never discussed (and certainly not resolved.)

Also, the very obvious product placement for two stores and two face care products made me cringe. This movie lost two stars just for that.

I know this is how things are trending in Hollywood movies these days, but I still don’t like it. The shots and mentions were completely gratuitous. Shame on them!

After suffering through Bruce Almighty (which at least had a few laughs) I avoided this film (like a biblical plague)—until I was trapped on a 10 hour flight with no other option but to watch this. It managed to be worse than I thought. At least Bruce A. made me laugh a few times despite my disgust at it’s prosethylizing. This time it didn’t just play up prayer and religion – - it had to go with the “BLIND OBEDIENCE to the will of god” crap. Submit your will to GOD and don’t think for yourself people!

I’m not saying I like the anti-environmentalist, Republican selfish ass he was before—but I didn’t like the solution to be God breaking him to his will.

I like most of the actors individually, but I was just embarrassed for them playing one dimensional characters (bland Stepford wife, cute kids, ‘sassy’ black woman, suckup intern and John Goodman merely reprising his role from West Wing.

The DVD I saw had the 1946 version (that is the most widely seen) – but it also had the 1945 version! (and a short documentary pointing out the differences).
The 1946 one was changed to highlight Bacall and (IMO) is better except that they cut out a whole scene at the police station explaining what was going on!

The main character is a delusional not so bright guy who thinks he’s a mastermind.
The 2nd character is aimless, follows out of loyalty and physically stalks a woman whose English isn’t very good until he wears her down (not so romantic).
The third character is so broken by years of physical and mental abuse he seems to accept the orders and abuse as accepted fact.

The dialogue wasn’t particularly interesting or clever, often hard to hear.

Before you dismiss my review as just one of those people who rate their movie by explosions or the kind of person who person seeks the lowest common denominator….. I do like Wes Anderson films. I like quirky/indie. I like subtle films where not a lot happens. This one just didn’t work (for me).

Worth watching if you’re a Wes Anderson fan (and want to see his first film) or a fan of any of the actors, there are a few gems to be found if you feel like digging/sitting through it.

Warning: Ending revealed & discussed.

I enjoy foreign films and prefer original movies to their remakes. I really dislike when foreign films are remade for American audiences and changed (usually sugarcoated, with a happy ending tacked on). I loathe this need to pander to our sentimentalism and our refusal to accept more “realistic” films.

However, after seeing this film, I’m curious to see the American remake of this film to see if it’s sensibilities are more in line with my tastes. Maybe I’m being unrealistic in thinking American guys wouldn’t have quite the same reactions.

I was looking forward to these 30-something characters
exploring/struggling with what it meant to be in a relationship.
However I didn’t like any of the characters. The women barely existed except as foils for the male characters. They were one-dimensional. All of them were portrayed as wanting nothing more than a marriage and kids. They were shown as jealous, nagging clingy/dependent shrews. The men on the other hand (with one happily married exception who was barely shown, and one unhappily obsessed w/ his ex) were shown as feeling trapped by women/relationships.

I really disliked the main storyline of the guy who is about to have a child with his girlfriend and yet suddenly decides he needs to screw a high school student. I was even more mad the way the film let him have his cake and eat it too. In effect the film said it was OK to cheat on your pregnant girlfriend because if you really apologize she’ll take you back. I don’t feel like he felt guilty for the act. He was just sorry he got caught. I don’t feel that he learned anything from the
experience. Nor did I feel is he unlikely to do it again.

I was sad that his girlfriend took him back. She admits he killed her love/trust and that it would never be the same. I was even sadder at the end that (to me) seemed to imply she was going to cheat on him too.

I thought the film was going to be about finding contentment in a monogamous relationship – to show that it’s OK to give up “the chase”, the desire for others because the committed relationship would be a more rewarding experience than a series of one-night stands. (This is not to say it also can’t show that people can be perfectly happy as single and free—I had no problem with the dread-locked guy who openly admitted he was just in it for sex). Instead it showed relationships/marriage as suffocating and unhappy for both parties. It showed that straying out side the relationship seemed to be normal (at
least for the men).

I wasn’t asking for ALL the characters to be blissfully happy and not have any doubts – or for everyone to feel they needed to be in a relationship. (clearly the obsessed guy needed to learn to be on his own.) I was merely hoping for a exploration of both sexes dealing with these doubts and issues – and I feel what I got was one-sided and very biased towards a particular conclusion. I’ll admit I was biased too. I’d hoped for a ending that showed the people in a relationship as
seeing that giving up others for a committed relationship is worth it. Instead I feel like I got the reverse. Perhaps it’s my fault for coming with certain expectations.

I simply couldn’t relate to any of them (being in the same age, having entered a long term relationships, thinking about these issues) – I’d really hoped it would resonate and make me think. Instead I found it rather depressing and disheartening.

And while I hate to stereotype, I’m sort of hoping that was an Italian mentality that would not translate to a different culture’s version of this film/these issues. So I’m going to break my cardinal rule of not seeing remakes and watch the American version called “Last Kiss” to see if it plays out in the same manner.

It looked funny. I can accept the premise of a supernatural being granting you power. I like Jim Carey. I really was planning to enjoy it. I came to it with midling expectations, just hoping for some laughs at someone learning about the corruption of power and his own life.

However,this movie actually made me mad. Not just disappointed that it wasn’t good, or that I wasted two hours. It made me mad because I realized I was watching one big Latter Day Saints commercial (remember the “who broke my window” moralizing segments on TV?)

I could accept the “stop whining”, “stop asking god to fix your life” ... sort of message. However, this movie then preached the need to “surrender your will to god” and that you need to “trust that god knows best about how your life should be” – in other words the same old accept your place in life argument of many organized religions. A lecture about my need for blind faith in some supernatural being was NOT what I was looking for. I don’t believe bad things happen for a “good” reason or as part of some larger plan and should just be accepted.

Nor was it amusing to be preached to.

I’m actually mad it was aired on TV. I’m mad it was made. I’m hoping Jim Carey & Morgan Freeman are ashamed they made it.
And I’m annoyed they made enough money to make a sequel (that I will avoid like a biblical plague).
So not the worst film I’ve seen, but a bad film definitely.

I love seeing movies made from Phillip K. Dick stories (though they can never approach the brilliance of the books). I was able to appreciate BladeRunner, Total Recall & even Paycheck and a Scanner Darkly.

I can forgive the casting of both crazy Cruise & Farrell, neither of whom I like as an actor.

But Spielberg has disappointed me deeply.

Since he’s not a first time director should I assume the stolen stuff was intentional homages? Matrix went all GREEN, let’s go all BLUE. TRONs cars were cool, let’s stick those in. Clockwork Orange was stunning for it’s juxtaposition of calming classical music with violence? Let’s use that.

And there were some sloppy points in the script. I’m willing to suspend a lot of disbelief, ignore plot holes (esp. to do with the future). However, you seriously can’t expect me to believe that no one revoked his access to high security areas after he’d been found out. Using his old eyes to get into a building not once by twice—even after he’s been convicted & jailed? That’s just lazy! If he’s still got access and that doesn’t set off any alarms, then there was no need to remove them was there?

Also, as someone else has mentioned, setting the crucial plot twist in a “murder she wrote” moment of “I didn’t mention how she died” was just cheap and ruined the movie.

And as many others have said, the overly sugary, touchy-feely, everyone is happy ending was WAY OVER THE TOP and totally unnecessary.

But what I can’t forgive the film is the product placement. I appreciate the way they show how ads are moving to become so individualized. But you know that Guiness, GAP & the others paid Spielberg millions for those scenes! It’s incredibly sad that such a famous director would sell out like that. I have lost a lot of respect for him. There could have been other ways to show the same idea without turning the movie into an ad itself. I certainly don’t’ remember a bunch of scenes set in the mall in PK Dick’s story! For shame for tainting his story with your sell out Spielberg!

For someone who doesn’t have an interest in reading the book, but wanted more information this was a good introduction.

Though why on earth they felt the need to show gratuitous stripper scenes, I don’t know. It’s not like we didn’t know what they were referring to and it was only tangentially related to the story. I find it sad that a documentary on fraud had completely gratuitous sexual objectification of women! Not only did it not add anything but it cheapened the film and made me less likely to show it to teens who should learn about this kind of corruption.

Such great actors, such potential. Such a bad film.
Bad writing, crass immature ‘humor’ (starts with a burp/fart/poop three-part “joke” and goes down hill from there.

The characters are all 1 dimensional.
There’s Mr. I’m Bored/my wife isn’t good enough… so I cheat.
There’s the stereotype of the professional woman too busy to fulfill her husban’d’s needs.
There’s the intelligent interesting woman who suddenly is DESPERATE to get married and BREED.
There’s the usual “fear of commitment” guy.

I can’t remember a funny moment or even a moment that seemed true to life.

And the ending was just disgusting. After both guys spend the 2nd half of the film bitching about how their women dumped them - they make one last minute pathetic attempt to get their attention… and it works?? There was no apology. They act like middleschoolers – passing notes, stealing flower. There was no change/no growth/no character development. Duchovny wasn’t sorry he cheated- he was sorry he got caught. There’s nothing to assume he won’t do the same thing next week. And the 2nd guy didn’t decide he wanted to get married on his own—he merely gave in to his girlfriend’s demands. They were all stupid.

I didn’t quite realize this was a response to an earlier Capra film with the same name, so I came to this film expecting more of a psychological study or at least more of a historical examination.

I was a little disappointed at how the film sort of jumped around and contained more interviews/opinions than it did in recounting actual facts/dates and other things that I felt might have taught me more.

On the whole though this film was very good and really made me think. I enjoyed hearing Eisenhower’s speech, since I’d only heard references to it before.

The movie did do a a good job of trying to get a very diverse group of people to interview (pilots who dropped the actual bombs, disillusioned DoD employee, father of 9/11 victim who wants to bomb ‘the right people’, neo-cons, etc.)

All in all, I think the film would have been more compelling if it had
presented more historical analysis, statistics, facts and less “person on the street” interviews and opinion segments—but it definitely was interesting to watch and made me think.

I think the most interesting thing I thought about was the links to the “Think Tanks” in forming the Iraq/neo-con poicies which really made me rethink how I was defining the word TANK (instead of more of a collection of people – I began to see these organizations more as
an offensive weapon).