1.5 Razors

• Title: Midway
• IMDb: link

Roland Emmerich turns his attention from disaster flicks in favor of one of the worst war films in recent memory. Midway makes Pearl Harbor look good. Theoretically, Midway is about decisive WWII naval battle that turned the tide in the Pacific. In reality, only about half the film deals with the battle as it struggles in fits and starts while failing at offering a broader context leading into the Battle of Midway.

Wes Tooke‘s script is over-brimming with forgettable characters, bad dialogue, and dramatic interludes where history seems to all but stop. The result is a bland film filled with unremarkable actors giving unremarkable performances during what we’re told, but not shown, is an important historical event (that is never really properly put in context).

Rather than offer a central character, the story moves around showcasing various people involved in war effort including analyst Edwin Layton (Patrick Wilson) and maverick fighter pilot Dick Best (Ed Skrein) along with a dozen others who come and go over the course of the film so frequently you forget they were a part of the story (poor Aaron Eckhart).

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• Title: Lucy in the Sky
• IMDb: link

Lucy in the Sky offers little for audiences while struggling mightily to bring the life of astronaut Lisa Nowak to the big screen. Director Noah Hawley‘s film offers a plum role for Natalie Portman and some interesting visuals but lacks a clear purpose. I was also perplexed by a constantly changing camera frame. At first, I thought it was Hawley’s attempt to differentiate the parts of Lisa’s life that worked at NASA versus those she struggled with at home. However, it soon became apparent that there was no rhyme or reason other than, I suspect, to try and keep the audience’s interest through a tedious series of events.

The project has a star, intriguing subject matter in the astronaut’s deteriorating mental state after her return to Earth and failure to earn another trip to space, a supporting cast including Jon Hamm, and plenty of budget (the scenes of NASA training being the best of the film). So what went wrong? For starters, the script by Brian C. Brown and Elliott DiGuiseppi is mind-numbing slog that turns on a dime just in time for a bizarre final act featuring Portman’s character running far off the rails (and keeps on running) in a series of events that aren’t earned or properly established.

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Lucy in the Sky (Without Diamonds)Read More »