gmaileatsyourlunch
Joined Jan 2020
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Ratings153
gmaileatsyourlunch's rating
Reviews108
gmaileatsyourlunch's rating
Bottom line: A lot of star power can't save overly formulaic characters and script.
If there was an academy award for worst accents this could win twice. Tommy Lee Jones and LLoyd Bridges dip in and out of their horrible Irish accents, inspired, I think, by Lucky Charms commercials. Jeff Bridges and Forest Whitaker try Boston ("Bahston") accents with predictably forced results. Jeff Bridges' California "dude" accent peaks out constantly. The bad accents were so distracting they nullify whatever star power this packed cast otherwise brought to their frankly B-minus "collect a paycheck" performances.
B-minus also describes the formulaic script. Similar to other '90s action flicks, every first responder is responding CONSTANTLY. First date? Forget it. Midway through the perfect rom-com evening the pager will go off or the hero will see some suspicious character and they have to hastily apologize and go save the day. In this case, like popcorn tossed in a campfire, bombs are going off seemingly daily all around Boston and no one seems extremely alarmed by that. No regional or national emergency declaration seems warranted. Then in the next scene there's an idyllic children's birthday party and no one has a care in the world. Sure, it's a movie but this is just silly.
Predictably there's a kid and a beleaguered wife. These films throw a kid in the mix for cheap heartstrings so much I think they forgot the kid has to be halfway likable. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be rooting for the kid or the bomb. As always, the loved ones complicate things by naively being in the path of danger or refusing to do what the hero says, and the hero - and only the hero - must now save the day. Formulas are fun with some inventiveness and charisma but this one just doesn't cut it. It's vastly inferior to another formula - SPEED - which came out around the same time and did it better in every way.
I never felt a sense of tension and any attempts to build some are quickly undermined by a silly bad guy (played half-heartedly by Tommy Lee Jones) with a silly accent dancing and singing to U2 - one of several attempts at comic relief that doesn't work.
Tommy Lee Jones was a far better villain in UNDER SIEGE. Gone is the charisma combined with ruthless efficiency and sociopathy. Instead we get a former Irish nationalist "too crazy for even the IRA" who concocts bombs with Rube Goldberg-levels of needless complexity. They don't make him more threatening, just gimmicky and silly.
Watching BLOWN AWAY is probably better now than when it first released because the 1990s datedness of it is mildly nostalgic. I'll sarcastically add, it might be a better movie if you listen with a foreign audio track to sidestep the horrible accents.
BLOWN AWAY tries to be a formulaic action picture inspired by the likes of PATRIOT GAMES with it's Irish terrorist plot, but it's weak execution, characters and gadgets never amount to a memorable or exciting experience. If you recall seeing a copy of this in the 1.99 bin at Walmart circa 2003, that sounds about right. Watchable with low expectations.
If there was an academy award for worst accents this could win twice. Tommy Lee Jones and LLoyd Bridges dip in and out of their horrible Irish accents, inspired, I think, by Lucky Charms commercials. Jeff Bridges and Forest Whitaker try Boston ("Bahston") accents with predictably forced results. Jeff Bridges' California "dude" accent peaks out constantly. The bad accents were so distracting they nullify whatever star power this packed cast otherwise brought to their frankly B-minus "collect a paycheck" performances.
B-minus also describes the formulaic script. Similar to other '90s action flicks, every first responder is responding CONSTANTLY. First date? Forget it. Midway through the perfect rom-com evening the pager will go off or the hero will see some suspicious character and they have to hastily apologize and go save the day. In this case, like popcorn tossed in a campfire, bombs are going off seemingly daily all around Boston and no one seems extremely alarmed by that. No regional or national emergency declaration seems warranted. Then in the next scene there's an idyllic children's birthday party and no one has a care in the world. Sure, it's a movie but this is just silly.
Predictably there's a kid and a beleaguered wife. These films throw a kid in the mix for cheap heartstrings so much I think they forgot the kid has to be halfway likable. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be rooting for the kid or the bomb. As always, the loved ones complicate things by naively being in the path of danger or refusing to do what the hero says, and the hero - and only the hero - must now save the day. Formulas are fun with some inventiveness and charisma but this one just doesn't cut it. It's vastly inferior to another formula - SPEED - which came out around the same time and did it better in every way.
I never felt a sense of tension and any attempts to build some are quickly undermined by a silly bad guy (played half-heartedly by Tommy Lee Jones) with a silly accent dancing and singing to U2 - one of several attempts at comic relief that doesn't work.
Tommy Lee Jones was a far better villain in UNDER SIEGE. Gone is the charisma combined with ruthless efficiency and sociopathy. Instead we get a former Irish nationalist "too crazy for even the IRA" who concocts bombs with Rube Goldberg-levels of needless complexity. They don't make him more threatening, just gimmicky and silly.
Watching BLOWN AWAY is probably better now than when it first released because the 1990s datedness of it is mildly nostalgic. I'll sarcastically add, it might be a better movie if you listen with a foreign audio track to sidestep the horrible accents.
BLOWN AWAY tries to be a formulaic action picture inspired by the likes of PATRIOT GAMES with it's Irish terrorist plot, but it's weak execution, characters and gadgets never amount to a memorable or exciting experience. If you recall seeing a copy of this in the 1.99 bin at Walmart circa 2003, that sounds about right. Watchable with low expectations.
This is one of those films where I can't understand all the positive reviews. While not without a substantial list of strengths - including Tim Roth's breakout role - it's completely undone by characters who are presented a certain way and then repeatedly act in entirely different ways without any reason or justification. It's as if the writer or director decided several times through the filming, "No, wait, I want this character to be something else", but didn't go back and re-shoot previous scenes to match. I guess these spontaneous and sloppy character turns are being interpreted as "deep" or "art" by some, particularly given its pseudo-philosophical themes of death, but it turned this gritty on-the-run film into something of a pretentious, ramshackle farce I couldn't take seriously. If you're willing to take style over some very questionable substance, you might enjoy this more than I did.
This is an "un-movie" in that there's really almost no plot, no message, no character development (or even insight) and it tests your patience most of the time because it drags on and on. Very style over substance. You can watch the first and last 20 minutes and you really didn't miss anything. About 80% of the run time is droning shots of driving or overly long close-ups of Guy Pierce's scowling face.
The post-collapse world isn't interesting or insightful, and no different than many struggling third-world countries of the present day. Certainly no justification for why Pierce's character is so unrelentingly brooding or why the film is so determined to writhe in its monotonous nihilism and pointless despair. If you told me this was written by a very angry 14-year-old - hoping for the collapse of everything so THEN his parents would see! They'll ALL see! - I would not be surprised in the least.
This is one of those films where it's on the audience to extract some kind of meaning or artistry from it's obnoxious minimalism and four or five lines of dialog. If you like this sort of dross, you'll probably love The Proposition - another Guy Pearce glacially-paced navel-gazer intercut with a handful of gritty action scenes, but mostly panning vista shots or closeups of Pearce' granite jaw line.
The post-collapse world isn't interesting or insightful, and no different than many struggling third-world countries of the present day. Certainly no justification for why Pierce's character is so unrelentingly brooding or why the film is so determined to writhe in its monotonous nihilism and pointless despair. If you told me this was written by a very angry 14-year-old - hoping for the collapse of everything so THEN his parents would see! They'll ALL see! - I would not be surprised in the least.
This is one of those films where it's on the audience to extract some kind of meaning or artistry from it's obnoxious minimalism and four or five lines of dialog. If you like this sort of dross, you'll probably love The Proposition - another Guy Pearce glacially-paced navel-gazer intercut with a handful of gritty action scenes, but mostly panning vista shots or closeups of Pearce' granite jaw line.