FRAGMENTS - WINGED CREATURES (a review)
Stars: Kate Beckinsale, Forest Witaker, Guy Pierce, Dakota Fanning, Jackie Earle Haley, Jennifer Hudson. A big, ensemble story.
The story: a gunman walks into a diner and begins shooting people and finally himself. This is a story of the survivors and how their lives are changed, all in different ways, by the incident.
Was it good?
No. It's a big ensemble story and those are incredibly difficult to pull off and even though it was a great cast almost all of them (except Fanning) are horribly underutilized. The problem with ensembles, especially ones like this where isn't a central goal or anything, is that everything depends on character and theme. And especially with theme, this movie fails. In a movie like this theme has to be very clear and very focused because each character is going to examine a different aspect of that theme. BIG CHILL is about dealing with death and their lives. BREAKFAST CLUB is about acceptance/outcase. This movie is about...I honestly couldn't tell you. All the characters are affected, but there isn't really any unity to how it affects them to what they are dealing with or even if they are dealing with anything. And without any thing external to work against and without any clear thematic push, the movie amounts to just watching people walk around. Only Dakota Fanning's character, a girl who suddenly becomes a devoute believer after her father is killed in the diner, really has anything interesting to say.
It's a shame because there are a lot of very interesting actors, but even great actors are boring when they don't have anything to do.
**** AVOID *****
No comments:
Post a Comment