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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
oh, i see. i hadn't heard anything about it before-- i was presented with an ugly disc menu with and 80's font and said "whatever, press play". then the movie started and i was very pleasantly surprised. it wasn't a morality play or a character study-- it was a pretty awesome action movie that happens almost in slow motion. action movies require their own sets of expectations though-- just like horror or murder mysteries.
and a great opening scene can't be sustained for a whole movie. take a masterpiece like "touch of evil". that opening sequence is legendary! can you think of any other scene like that in it? of course you can't. touch of evil is a great movie, one of the best ever made, but the superfantastic first scene stands on its own as a mini-film and a great technical achievement.
anyway-- sorry you didn't like it!
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ps- speaking of my own bias/limits, i generally don't like horror movies. i like some horror movies, and i like them a lot, but not the genre itself.
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Maybe I'll re-watch it with the mindset that I'm going to see an action movie. Might be a better preset. I'm not averse to action movies that are executed well. I just thought it's going to be a character study of some sort. All the reviews and recommendations made it sound like that was its intention.
Yeah, you're right about the fact that great openings can't be sustained for a whole movie. I personally just found it to be a bit misleading. Here we have the stone-faced cold professional in the line of his work - an intense, somehow claustrophobic scene, and then later on the aforementioned montage. I get the reason behind it - it's there to show the viewer that he is perfectly capable of being a caring person as well. In my opinion it was just laid on way too thick. Especially when compared to some of the subtler touches throughout the movie. But maybe I'm analysing it too much again.
I'll re-watch it and let you know what my second thoughts were. But first I'm gonna finally watch the films you recommended to me. I'm really looking forward to that.
And as for horror movies - I used to be really into them many years ago. Nowadays I'm kind of lukewarm towards the genre. I just think the market is oversaturated with subpar output. There's a huge demand for cheap thrills. There are great, even phenomenal horror movies, but they are few and far between. I'm still a sucker for atmosphere-based horror though. For the most part I prefer Mystery to straightforward Horror. But I also enjoy some good old tension buildup.