Vantage Point

A bit of advice I received for my pregnancy was to go out to the movies as much as possible with Murray. I think that both Murray and I (and especially Murray) really intend to take this advice to the fullest extent possible. Last night, in honor of Jimmy Stewart's 100th birthday, we went to see You Can't Take It With You at BYU. It was great. Definitely a great, classic, feel-good movie. A masterpiece.

On Saturday evening, we went to see a movie that is not actually a masterpiece. We went to see Vantage Point in the dollar theater. We could have seen the new Narnia movie. I wasn't looking forward to the crowds. We could have seen Baby Mama. I was in the mood for action. So we went to see Vantage Point. I thought that it looked good from the previews---just a brainless little action flick.

Brainless is a good way to describe the writers... This movie got so ridiculous that I actually started laughing out loud uncontrollably at very inappropriate moments. (Coincidentally, the last time this happened was in another Dennis Quaid flick, The Day After Tomorrow.)

(Vantage Point: A thrilling tale of terrorist plots, betrayal, and compact car chases.)

In case you didn't know, the movie follows the "vantage point" of several different characters. So you see the first 23 minutes of the film. Then it rewinds itself back to the beginning (conveniently, you also see everything you just saw in rewind) and you begin again from the vantage point of someone else. Each vantage point gives you further insight into what happened. My favorite vantage point was the final vantage point. Up until the last vantage point, each had focused on one individual. The last vantage point is "ethnic minority terrorists" where you get the vantage points of every non-white person involved in the terrorist plot. Nice.

Other nice things:

Sigourney Weaver being in the movie in a pretty minor and forgotten role.

Matthew Fox, after being revealed as a bad guy, saying "Now I no longer have to live my double-life!" I think they included this so that you know that he was bad all along. This was so ridiculous and so comical in fact, that Murray and I still haven't stopped repeating this line to each other.

The Spanish terrorists speaking Spanish to each other. Then English. Then Spanish. Then sending English text messages. Then speaking Spanish. Then speaking English. You get the idea.

A phone that controls a window fan (the terrorist simply clicked "window fan" on his phone's menu to turn on a fan set by a window to create a diversion), that controls a sniper rifle (the terrorist simply went to sniper rifle mode at which point his phone turned into the sight of the rifle in perfect high-def picture, and then killed the fake president of the United States), but that can't set off bombs. No, they needed a token suicide bomber to do that. Everyone knows that it can't be a terrorist movie if there isn't at least one suicide bomber willing to die for his cause.

Did I already mention "Now I no longer have to live my double life!" because, Bwahahahahahaha!

After the terrorists have killed hundreds, if not thousands of people, they finally have successfully kidnapped the not-fake president, they're driving him away to their secret terrorist headquarters in an ambulance, and a little girl (who's been seen in every vantage point) steps out into the road in front of the ambulance. Everything goes into slow motion, and the terrorist driver, instead of killing one more insignificant person, tries to avoid crashing into the girl (and by the way, we're panning over everyone's face in slow-mo right now, which might be contributing to my maniacal laughter), and crashes the ambulance instead, leaving his co-terrorist dead, himself almost-dead, and the not-fake president alive and bruised.

There are probably so many other things that I'm forgetting right now. Like Forrest Whittaker getting a phone call from his estranged wife at the very end of the movie, asking if he's okay, and you know that they're going to get back together, and even though Forrest Whittaker has witnessed terrible death and destruction all day long, and his life has been in danger several times, he laughs in wonderful relief, which is what signals to the audience that everything is okay now. But you know what? It's not okay! Forrest Whittaker just witnessed enough death and destruction to put him in therapy for the rest of his life. He's not going to be laughing it all off with his estranged wife on the phone, I don't care how happy he is that she's calling him.

Anyway. I definitely recommend this movie. For a really, really good laugh.