The First Bite Draws Blood...

The 3-D trend for movies is reaching its tipping point of people either accepting and embracing it or just hating it. I fall into the “I’m over it” camp, because the market is just being flooded with so many “3-D” movies that have no business being in 3-D in the first place so people are being charged an extra arm and leg for a dimension that shouldn’t even be there. There is one exception to this, and that is when the extra dimension is used as a gimmick, because in the end that’s all it is anyway. So if the filmmakers are self-aware enough to utilize it as such, it can come off as a lot more fun. This is the case with Piranha 3-D.

Now, it goes without saying that this film isn’t for everybody. It pushes all the limits of shock, gore, and nudity all in the name of glorious classic B-movie horror campy-ness. So if you’re not a fan of beautiful people getting torn to pieces in new, creative ways (or just by fish) or a plethora of bare breasts, then you might want to skip out on this one. I, however, had a great time with it. This is a true “re-imagining” of the classic 70’s horror movie, aptly titled Piranha, and this updated version still keeps in line with the sensibilities of those exploitation/horror movies of that era. It’s not about watching the hero make it out safely, its about watching whatever the problem is (in this case, prehistoric piranhas) destroying as many people as possible, and then once you think the heroes are safe, finding out that they’re still screwed. And the 3-D just adds to the fun when it’s used as a gimmick, as I said. It’s almost like they’re making fun of the whole 3-D phenomenon, and showing that people are taking it far too seriously.

There is a serviceable enough plot to hold all the mayhem together. A random earthquake in a small Arizona lake town awakens a 200 million-year-old school of thousands of piranhas (as we learn from noted crazy old man, Cristopher Lloyd) that had previously been trapped in an underwater cave, but the earthquake conveniently gives them a way out into the open water of the lake. Unfortunately for the lake town, it’s Spring Break, and apparently the co-eds in this random Arizona town know how to party! The lake is full of beautiful people partying, and unaware of the eminent horrible death lurking under the water, and of course they don’t listen to the warnings of the sheriff who has seen the prehistoric killing machines in action first-hand. Speaking of the sheriff (played by Elisabeth Shue), her son (Steven R. McQueen) is supposed to be home babysitting his brother and sister, but instead he’s off shooting a “Wild Wild Girls” video with scumbag Derrick Jones (Jerry O’Connell, basically playing real-life scumbag Joe Francis of ‘Girls Gone Wild’ fame). So not only does she have to deal with trying to rescue the dying party-goers, she also has to find a way to get to her son. Drama!

It doesn’t take long for the bloody feeding frenzy to get going, and once it does, it doesn’t let up. There are zero slow parts in the movie at all, and if there’s not people getting eaten to pieces on the screen, then there’s a healthy dose of the aforementioned nudity, so there’s really something for everyone. It’d be easy to call this movie misogynistic at first glance, constantly referring to the women as bitches or f*cking whores (and of course...the boobs everywhere). However if you really look at it, the people who are referring to the women in this way tend to get the most brutal of deaths, so in a way it comes back to being anti-misogynist. The whole film could really be looked as an allegory for not being promiscuous. It’s pretty blatant actually: get drunk and start flaunting your body all over the place, and you will be annihilated by piranhas. And the only people who are smart enough to escape death (at least on screen) are the ones who are totally uncomfortable around the debauchery. So really I guess it could be a family movie with morals and everything.

The film succeeds because it knows what it is. It doesn’t set out to be a serious drama murder mystery. It sets out from the get-go to be an over-the-top bloody good time, and in that director Alexandre Aja succeeds. Once again, it’s not for everybody, but if you’re not squeemish, then you will have a blast with this film.

Aim For the Bushes?

It's an interesting thing; It's difficult to get excited about most comedies nowadays since trailers in general have gotten out of control with how much they give away. This is especially true with comedies because recently it seems that all the funny parts are shown in the trailers, and the rest of the movie is just crap. I was very wary of The Other Guys because of this. The trailers were hilarious, but I thought there was no way the actual movie could live up to it, also because I don't think I'm alone in thinking that Will Ferrell seems a bit played out at this point. Fortunately though, I was proven wrong in this case and had a great time.

The plot sort of takes a back seat to the antics of Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg, but in a nutshell the two guys play NYPD desk jockeys Allen Gamble (Ferrell) and Terry Hoitz (Wahlberg) in a characiture of a police station. Gamble is the straight-laced accountant, and Hoitz is the guy with the anger management problem who got stuck behind a desk because of a prior incident. The two hotshot cops on the force (played by Sam Jackson and The Rock (I refuse to call him Dwayne)) get all the glory for having car chases and generally wreaking havoc in the name of the law while the “other guys” (that's the name of the movie!!!) are left to file the paperwork. While doing some of said paperwork, Gamble comes across a minor violation involving some ridiculously rich guy (Steve Coogan), and gets him and his partner involved in a huge financial conspiracy that's way above their heads, and hilarity ensues.

I say the plot takes a back seat like it's a bad thing, but it really isn't in this case. The whole film is really just an excuse to put Ferrell and Wahlberg together in different hilarious situations (get it? because they're polar opposites!). The comedic writing is absolutely brilliant. I haven't laughed that hard in a theater in I have no idea how long. You can tell a lot of it is ad-libbed and you really get the feeling that the two guys get along well and are having a great time doing it. It's also very nice change of pace to get a very subdued Will Ferrell performance. After all of his played-out over the top loud parts, it makes his humor in this movie work even better because it's slightly unexpected. And I feel like this is the perfect role for Wahlberg. It's so funny to see him basically poking fun at his typically tough-guy roles he's been playing of late.

Where it falls flat is in the non-comedic parts. It just seems that director Adam McKay needed to find somebody to help him out writing the dramatic elements, or at least spent more time on it. The comedic stuff pretty much writes itself with 2 very talented guys being very funny with pretty much no effort, so it's a shame to see that not as much love was put into the other plot elements. It's like they couldn't figure out what they wanted to do other than be funny. There are parts that make it seem like it's trying to lampoon action movies like the parts with The Rock and Sam Jackson (which I would have loved to see more of), but then there are parts that seem like it's trying to make some sort of point about capitalism and corporate greed, especially apparent in the ending credits, and it just comes off as out of place. Not to mention that the conspiracy that Gamble and Hoitz get caught up in gets so needlessly complicated and convoluted that it's more like McKay just didn't know what he was talking about so he just decided to just keep stacking crap on top of itself to make it complicated, cause that's how conspiracies work, right? It's kind of a shame really, because if they could have picked a direction, especially if that direction was just lampooning action movies, this could have been the next Hot Fuzz.

In the end though, fortunately it's pretty easy to overlook the shortcomings because, again, of the performances. Even the smaller roles were fantastic, like Michael Keaton's continuous TLC references. While it does end up feeling a little long in the end, mainly because that's when all the side stories that nobody cares about come together, it's still a great ride and you really feed off the chemistry on the screen. On a personal note, I'm really happy to see this sudden resurgence in the action/comedy genre. With the A-Team, Knight and Day, and now this being the best of the crop this year (not saying that either of those are excellent examples of the genre, but definitely steps in the right direction), it's like people are finally realizing what they've been missing. We've been so bogged down in romantic comedies mixed with a little bit of action, and it's just not the same as a Naked Gun or a Tropic Thunder or a Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz. This is another, bigger step in the direction of bringing a horribly under-rated genre back to the forefront.

You're waiting for a train...

Christopher Nolan has just officially claimed his place among the elite film directors of the past decade. He has the uncanny knack of incrementally improving on each project he works on, and I would say that Inception is the pinnacle of that build-up, which actually may be a bad thing. I just don’t see how he can improve on this.

One of the main points I came away from the film with (along with many questions to ponder) is that Mr. Nolan took a leap of faith and actually respects the audience’s intelligence, by not having every little thing explained or spoon fed to the viewer. The time period the movie is set in is irrelevant; we know we are in a time and place where somehow people have figured out a way to enter in to people’s dreams and share these dreams with others. It’s hinted that the technology was originally intended for military use (of course) but again, that’s irrelevant. What is relevant is that we are watching a world in which this is possible, so you just have to accept that.

Apparently this dream-sharing process has given rise to thieves ‘breaking in’ to people’s dreams and stealing their ideas. Our protagonist, Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is one of these thieves, and a damn good one at that. He has taken up this line of work in an effort to somehow find a way to get back to his children, not being allowed to simply return because he is suspected in the death of his wife. He finds an opportunity in one last big job...an “inception” job--the planting of an idea, rather than the theft of one. It’s thought to be impossible, so he assembles a crack team to help him pull off the ultimate mind-job. Problems start to arise though when Cobb’s own inner demons start coming to light.

So what we have at its core is basically a heist film (which I thoroughly enjoy anyway) but Nolan succeeds in completely turning that on its head and then spinning it around at breakneck speed. In order to pull of this inception, this team has to go though multiple levels of subconscious reality; basically multiple levels of dreams within a dream. It sounds confusing, and it is, however it is handled so brilliantly that you never really lose your frame of reference as to which level you are currently watching. The effects that the events in the waking world have on the dream world are absolutely fantastic, for instance while a our team is sleeping in the back of a van and that van goes airborne, in the dream world there is no gravity. It makes for one of the coolest and technically fascinating fight scenes since The Matrix.

It’s very easy for such a complex concept to end up having many holes, but really any questions are tied up nice and neat with simple ground rules for how the process works. And here’s the kicker: they actually stick to the ground rules. There’s nothing worse (well there are things worse, but still...) than a sci-fi movie that has rules for how something is supposed to work, only to have some rogue characters or something break those rules as a way to introduce some sort of ‘twist.’ For instance, how do they have time to do all this stuff in the dream? Because your mind perceives time in a dream differently than when awake. While only 5 minutes may pass in the waking world, that is the equivalent to about an hour in a dream, and if you dig down to another level of subconscious, time goes even slower. And so on. You still with me?

One of the things I’ve always been impressed with Nolan for is how he manages to get the absolute best performances out of his actors, and even actors that you wouldn’t necessarily think were capable of such things. Case in point: Heath Ledger. Did anybody really think when he was announced as the Joker that he was capable of a performance of that caliber? He does it again here, with Ellen Page turning in an absolutely captivating performance as the young student-turned-dream-architect, and proving that she’s more than just Juno. And while not having a huge part, Joseph Gordon-Levitt really shines and will immediately trump any memory you may have of The Rise of Cobra (but let’s be honest...nobody has any memory of that). Nolan said that he never considered anybody else but Leonardo DiCaprio playing the part of Cobb, and it shows. I would put this in as one of Leo’s best performances to date, and I honestly can’t think of anybody that could have fit the role any better than him.

One of the main questions I came away with after the film (not related to the film itself anyway) is whether the general public will embrace this film or not. The ratings on IMDB and Metacritic and the like seem to suggest they are, at least so far, but I wonder how long that will last, being a summer blockbuster with a brain and all. I’ll keep my hopes up and if it continues to do well, it may do a lot to restore some faith in humanity. The cool thing about it is that I could give away the ending right now, and it wouldn’t even spoil anything because it’s all about context. I won’t do that, but still...without having any knowledge of how it got to that point, it would make absolutely no sense and to me that is just absolutely genius writing and storytelling. The bar has absolutely been raised for film-making, and I can’t see anybody topping this one for some time to come, and if it happens it’ll probably be Nolan that does it.

Ridiculous....ly fun...

I will say this about Knight and Day: it is 100% as advertised. After first seeing the trailer for this film, I remember saying something to the effect of "What just happened?" And yet I found myself looking forward to it. It's a rare thing that a film actually delivers what the trailer promises, and here via the trailer we are promised ridiculous, over-the-top action sequences combined with a throwaway plot and cheesy dialog...and that's exactly what we get.

I'm a complete action movie junkie, so it's no surprise that the ridiculous-looking action sequences were the main draw of the film for me. My only complaint is that there weren't more of them and that they weren't longer. The action is so unapologetically ridiculous that they just add to the comedy of the whole situation, and you're too busy laughing and enjoying the ride that you don't notice that the special effects are horrendous. I mean seriously, how can you find time to complain about bad compositing when there's a man in front of you who just pulled a knife out of his heart to continue on with his business of kicking ass, only to get thrown through the window of a moving train and, while holding on only by a chain of sausage, gets obliterated by another passing train? The plot is serviceable enough to hold this string of sequences together, but pretty basic. Cameron Diaz is in the wrong place at the wrong time and gets mixed up in the affairs of Tom Cruise, who is a special agent gone rogue. He will stop at nothing to prevent a top secret government project from falling into the wrong hands of another, evil government agent...or will he? You get the idea. Pretty standard stuff.

The weakness of the movie, as if it wasn't obvious, is the part of movie where guys aren't pulling knifes out of their hearts and getting thrown out train windows. The slow parts are just hilarious, in a that-really-shouldn't-be-funny kind of way. This is mainly because there is absolutely zero chemistry between Cruise and Diaz, which could possibly stem from the fact that she's about 4 feet taller than he is. It's interesting, in the slow parts of the movie where I had some time to think, I found myself thinking that if this was a weekly action/comedy TV show I would absolutely watch it. I would completely be on board watching the antics of the crazy ex-government agent every Tuesday at 8 on Fox. This way they would be able to disperse the slow parts of the story over a few weeks rather than getting the equivalent of an entire episodes-worth of boring dialog all at once. I'm just saying...24's off the air now, and Human Target didn't actually wow anybody...so there's room.

If nothing else, this was a way for two people (Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz) to try to prove that they are still relevant. One of them succeeded. I haven't liked Tom Cruise for quite some time, mainly because I found it difficult to dissociate his ridiculous off-the-screen personality from whatever ridiculous on-the-screen personality he was protraying. Nonetheless I found myself very surprised just how much I enjoyed Cruise's performance. He was his old charismatic 80's/early 90's self again (complete with plenty of aviator sunglasses). And given that (arguably) the last big success he's had was the first Mission: Impossible movie, he needed something to breathe some life into whatever career he may still have. He didn't need to do some serious period-piece, or another Jerry McGuire. He just needed to go back to what got him started in the first place, and I think he succeeded in that. Unfortunately the same can't be said for Cameron Diaz. She really needs some project to show why she should still matter, and if there is one, it's not this one. She just came off as very flat to me, and personally I have zero attraction to her whatsoever as she's really starting to show her age. Again, that's just me.

In the end, I think the endless amount of re-writes and re-shoots ended up absolutely derailing the last third of the movie (they were re-shooting up until mid-May for a film that released in June). When you have a film that's so flimsy to begin with, any bit of doubt just comes through that much more and just destroys the whole thing. That's not to say that I didn't have an absolute blast, but that's just because I was with great company and because I went into it expecting nothing more than the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. It's definitely no A-Team, but if you go in expecting to just completely turn your brain off and watch Tom Cruise run around like a crazy person, you will have as good a time as I did. Drugs help too.

Futurama's Back Baby!

And so am I! it's been freaking forever since I've posted anything on here...but leave it to Futurama to bring me out of hiding. In other news, I'm also writing reviews and such for the up-and-coming blog CrimsonMonkey.com, so good times! This is the first actual review I've written for em, so enjoy!

Futurama made its triumphant return last night, this time to Comedy Central, and I am happy to report that it is glorious! Sure we've had the "movies," and those were fine, but something about the long format just made them seem a bit...off. That was the very first thing I noticed about the 2 new episodes we were treated to last night. That the return to the short 30-minute format is much, much more successful. They don't have to worry about filler or stretching to fill time or anything, and it's great.

I had a few concerns ever since it was first hinted that the show was coming back, not the least of which was that they were having trouble getting the original cast's contracts worked out. If any show would have come on the air and called itself Futurama without that cast, I would probably throw my DVR out the window and disavow any knowledge of a "Comedy Central." Fortunately for my DVR, they were able to get everybody squared away and they are all right back on point. The other concern was time. When Family Guy was canceled, we had some great seasons of a great show to watch endlessly, and quote way too much. Then when it came back it was like a completely different show, just constantly looking to see how offensive it could be while sacrificing decent storytelling. I did not want this to happen to my beloved future jerkbags. Happily again, it looks like they still know what they're doing, so far at least.

The first episode was, at its core, a fan-service welcome back to the series. It picks up where the last movie, Into the Wild Green Yonder, where the Planet Express ship has just jumped through some sort of wormhole away from Zapp Brannigan and his ship. On the other end of the wormhole, our crew ends up right back at Earth. From here the Professor proceeds to get everybody back to working order, while Bender is forced to keep dancing in order to stay alive. And of course hilarity ensues.

The second episode wasn't quite as strong in my opinion, but still was great. Just like in the history of the show, even the weak episodes are still better than anything else out there. And it was still just so refreshing to see a nice, short, self-contained Futurama story (no, I'm not going to let that go, thank you very much).

The jokes and the timing made me feel like the show never left, and the short format made all the jokes hit that much harder since they came much more frequently. It all just felt like home, as cheesy as that is. Even the new Leela/Fry relationship worked for me. I didn't think it would, since to me, so much of the drama and comedy of the show always came from that dynamic of Fry always wanting Leela and her always turning him down ("so that's why you said you had to go meet that ghost..."). Them being together, at least so far, just seems to just make sense and isn't distracting.

All in all, for me it's like I haven't seen my best friend in a few years, and now we're finally talking again and it's like we never left. Futurama has always been the best, or at least one of the best animated shows ever created, and to make such an incredible comeback just cements that place, and I promise, The Hypnotoad had absolutely nothing to do with that opinion. All glory to The Hypnotoad!

you've lost your...much-ness...

Along with every mallrat Hot Topic shopping teenager, I too was pretty excited about Tim Burton's latest "re-imagining" of Alice in Wonderland. I've always been a fan of Burton and his style, extending into the awesome art he's done (I wish I had a way to get the MoMA in NY to see his exhibit), but lately I've been kind of wishing he would get back to doing more original work. He hasn't put out anything I would say was particularly bad (I even defended his Wonka remake), but it just seems like the inspiration is starting to wane for him.

I will say right off the bat that visually the film is absolutely stunning. All the environments, costume designs, and set designs just ooze Burton's style and it really is beautiful. That being said, I miss Burton's practical effects. With most things I tend to be a big fan of practical effects vs. CG effects anyway, depending on the situation of course. I just love the way real objects draw you into the universe so much more (for example look at the machinery in the lab of Edward Scissorhands...it just makes everything seem so much more real). There are a lot of subtle CG things that he implements very well, like making the Red Queen's head gigantic, and making Crispin Glover somehow even more tall and lanky than he actually is. I understand that nowadays with schedules for films getting more and more demanding that you have to use CG to speed up some processes, and obviously for large-scale things it just makes sense, but it just gets frustrating with Burton because I know he's such a talented artist and to see his amazing trees and things like that not actually existing makes me sad. Also, the Tweedles just look wrong. I don't know how you could make characters that shape and make them look "right," but that is not it. But again, my own personal nitpicks aside, it really does look beautiful.

I think the standout problem to me with the film is that it just seems that it's lacking things. Much the same way as Charlie and the Chocolate factory, Burton based his version of this classic story on the original Lewis Carroll book, but still paid a few homages to the well-known and well-loved Disney cartoon. Now, I admittedly haven't read the book so I can't critique it as a direct adaptation of the book, but even having not read it, I just feel like there was a lot left out. I didn't really get that scale and the scope of Wonderland as a whole. Not that it would be all that exciting to see people traveling from place to place, but it just seemed like they wanted to make sure they hit the highlights, and let the in between things fall through the cracks. For instance I want to know the reach of the Red Queen's power. How did she come to power? If the White Queen doesn't rule anymore, how come she still has a bitchin' castle? You get a hint of the Red Queen using her Jabberwocky to burn one village. How much more did she destroy with that guy? What the hell is a Jabberwocky? Sure they're not necessary plot points, but I think it would add to the depth of scale of the world.

In the same lacking vein, I feel like one of the classic scenes from the animated film (and, from what I've heard, from the book as well), the tea party scene didn't seem to have the intended effect. There were no logical paradoxes, with the exception of "why is a raven like a writing desk?" and it seems out of place without the rest of the paradoxes being there. Those logic problems were a keystone of the whole scene, even the whole story, so it was a shame to see it watered down so much. The scene didn't have the crazy, frantic feel I thought it should have either. I feel like that scene should be the most confusing, sensory overload scene, but instead they just went for confusing. The hare was hilarious, but it just wasn't quite enough. I did very much enjoy the use of the nonsensical Wonderland "language" but for the most part everybody seems to be saying these made-up words under their breath so you find yourself wondering if you're supposed to know what they're saying or not.

It seems like I'm coming down pretty hard on it, but really those are just things that disappointed me, and although I really did still enjoy the movie, if those problems were addressed it could have been a great movie and that's what bugs me. One thing I will say this film actually did better than the animated version was keeping that sense of parallel situations going on in Wonderland vs. what's going on in the real world. Not in a Wizard of Oz kind of way with characters playing the same people in the alternate reality, just situational. It was very interesting and very well done. As I said, visually it was fantastic, and the performances were fantastic as well. Mia Wasikowska was a real standout as Alice, along with Burton's two significant others: Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp. Although I did think it was a bit strange when Depp's mad hatter would randomly become Scottish from time to time.

Again, I did really enjoy it, and I recommend checking it out. It's just a bummer when just some minor tweaks and maybe making the film slightly longer could have turned it from 'pretty good' to 'great.' Hot Topic should still probably make out ok though.

Why are you all wet, baby?

I was pretty excited about Shutter Island, but I got worried when it got delayed by so long for "budgetary" reasons. It just makes you wonder why the studio couldn't come up with the money to promote the movie. Did they feel like it wasn't worth supporting? So because of that, I went in pretty wary and prepared for it to disappoint. It didn't.

By this point everyone can at least agree that Martin Scorsese is a brilliant director, so I won't even bother going into how beautifully shot the movie is. He did make some strange selections in the way of music, however. It's interesting because everything visually on the screen is being used to create this moody, sullen atmosphere, but then at times you're just beaten over the head with this overly dramatic Psycho-esque music. It almost makes you want to find the orchestra playing off screen and tell them to chill out.

The film follows our main character, Teddy Daniels, a U.S. Marshall, who is played by Leonardo DiCaprio. I was very afraid that his attempt at a bah-ston accent would kill it for me but it really didn't bother me too much. I got too wrapped up in the rest of the plot. Anyway, Teddy is coming to the mysterious Shutter Island which houses Ashecliff, a mental institution for the criminally insane, to investigate an inmate (patient) who has apparently escaped under very...unorthodox...circumstances. He is on this mission with his partner, Chuck, played by Mark Ruffalo. Throughout the movie I couldn't figure out why Ruffalo had become such a stiff actor, but once you get to the end you realize his character is probably just bored with the situation (it makes sense, I promise). When the Marshalls get to the island, they are greeted by Sir Ben Kingsly, who plays the chief psychiatrist Dr. Cawley. He then explains the situation to the Marshalls. It really is great to see Kingsly in sort of a return to form. He's been kind of picking some strange projects as of late, but he really shines in this role.

After a short time, the disappearance of the patient takes a bit of a back seat to the real intentions that Mr. Daniels had in coming to the island. I won't go into those reasons for fear of spoilers, but it has to do with Teddy's now deceased wife. Once we get to that point, the pace really takes off and becomes a real thriller mystery movie. It's interesting to me because I felt like the whole cast and the film itself had to kind of settle into itself for maybe the first third of the movie during the exposition. Everybody (not just Ruffalo) seemed a little stiff, or maybe just a little off to me for a little while but then once they settled in the film had my undivided attention. Especially when Teddy makes his way to the mysterious 'Ward C' where the most violent patients are kept. There's some really intense stuff going on in Ward C (including a kickass cameo by Rorschach himself, Jackie Earle Haley...that dude is everywhere right now!) but it never strays into that horror cliche of "gotcha" moments. There are a couple jumpy things but they certainly fit in and don't seem out of place with the rest of the mood.

Throughout Teddy's searching for whatever it is he's searching for, he is constantly having to butt heads with Dr. Cawley and his associate, Dr. Naehring (played by Max von Sydow, who's awesome), and they always seem like they're hiding...something. There's a great side story of the internal battle in the field of psychiatry that Dr. Cawley is involved in between pharmacotherapy (using drugs to treat mental illness) and simply talking to the patients as a way of therapy. It seems like a tacked on bit of information at first but again, by the time you get to the end you realize it is very, very important.

Speaking of that ending...is it the greatest twist ever? Not really, but the execution is expertly done. It's one of those things that you see coming pretty early but they drop so many other little tidbits that make you second guess yourself and wonder about what's really going on right up to the reveal. That's vague I know, but I don't want to be the guy on here saying Bruce Willis was dead the whole time. So, with an odd musical selection and a story that will keep you guessing until the very end, Shutter Island is a beautifully executed film that I really can't wait to check out again to see what kind of little things I missed the first time. I kind of wish I would have read the book it was adapted from, but with stories with twists in them, what's the fun of knowing what's coming, right?