Movie reviews: Lucy and Guardians of the Galaxy
First off, I should point out that I feel lousy. I guess I've overexerted myself this last week. My energy level is low and many of my attempts to pull together complex thoughts are not working. My typing is requiring LOTS of corrections. Plus I'm sore in a lot of places and have a muscle spasm in my back that is NOT.FUCKING.GOING.AWAY. So understand that I'm cranky.
We went to the theatre and saw Lucy. It's good. I was glad to see a movie with a female lead and a multi-ethnic cast featuring different actors than the same ones you see virtually every movie (okay, well, it still had Morgan Freeman, but whatever). I liked how they handled her ability. I liked how they spliced in Morgan Freeman's narration to make her storyline more understandable. That was all good. I could have done with fewer CGI shots of what was going on in her bloodstream, but whatever. Maybe fewer exploding, flipping/flying cars, too. But the plot was good and gave a neat explanation for God or the divine. Pretty good stuff. My main beef is the persistent idea that people only use 10% of their brain. That's bunk. What might be true is that we use 10% of our brain at any given time, but the same could be said for muscles in the body. I've been told that the main limiting factor in brain use is our body's ability to power the brain with energy, oxygen, and cooling action. But if you ignore the details of that and assume the mystery drug's effects are to make the entire brain able to operate all at once, then it works better. (Well, it doesn't explain any of the metaphysical stuff, but I don't sweat how Thor manages to call lightning, so I'm not going to get worked into a lather about how Lucy transcended.)
The other movie I saw today was Guardians of the Galaxy. I'm sorry to say I wasn't all that impressed with it. The effects were fine, the plot was okay, the acting was good, the 'verse it was set in was interesting. The characters ... not so much so. None of them showed any growth over the movie. They were introduced to us in one form and they were the same at the end. The most you could say is that that Drax became okay with working with a team. That's about it. If you wanted actual character growth, it wasn't there. (If you want to compare-and-contrast 'character growth', look at the arc for Lucy in the other movie.)
Also, can we talk about how Guardians of the Galaxy had more red, blue, and green people than it had black or brown ones? What the hell is going on there? Are there no black people in space?
And why did Drax call Gamora a whore? It looks like blatant sexism on the part of the writers. Drax was specifically and repeatedly explained to be a very literal person. I must have missed the part of the show where Gamora sells her sexual services, or even offers to sell them. I recall the part where Rocket suggests she seduce guards, but she refuses, staunchly. She also refuses to be seduced by Peter. She doesn't have sex with anyone as far as I know, and I hardly think a daughter of Thanos would prostitute herself like a 'common whore'. She was rebuilt as a weapon of WAR, not as a sexbot. Drax could have called her a number of other true but derogatory things - a mercenary, a traitor, a betrayer, etc., but instead he chose to call her 'whore'. Why? I'd love for there to be a defensible reason for this that I missed.
We went to the theatre and saw Lucy. It's good. I was glad to see a movie with a female lead and a multi-ethnic cast featuring different actors than the same ones you see virtually every movie (okay, well, it still had Morgan Freeman, but whatever). I liked how they handled her ability. I liked how they spliced in Morgan Freeman's narration to make her storyline more understandable. That was all good. I could have done with fewer CGI shots of what was going on in her bloodstream, but whatever. Maybe fewer exploding, flipping/flying cars, too. But the plot was good and gave a neat explanation for God or the divine. Pretty good stuff. My main beef is the persistent idea that people only use 10% of their brain. That's bunk. What might be true is that we use 10% of our brain at any given time, but the same could be said for muscles in the body. I've been told that the main limiting factor in brain use is our body's ability to power the brain with energy, oxygen, and cooling action. But if you ignore the details of that and assume the mystery drug's effects are to make the entire brain able to operate all at once, then it works better. (Well, it doesn't explain any of the metaphysical stuff, but I don't sweat how Thor manages to call lightning, so I'm not going to get worked into a lather about how Lucy transcended.)
The other movie I saw today was Guardians of the Galaxy. I'm sorry to say I wasn't all that impressed with it. The effects were fine, the plot was okay, the acting was good, the 'verse it was set in was interesting. The characters ... not so much so. None of them showed any growth over the movie. They were introduced to us in one form and they were the same at the end. The most you could say is that that Drax became okay with working with a team. That's about it. If you wanted actual character growth, it wasn't there. (If you want to compare-and-contrast 'character growth', look at the arc for Lucy in the other movie.)
Also, can we talk about how Guardians of the Galaxy had more red, blue, and green people than it had black or brown ones? What the hell is going on there? Are there no black people in space?
And why did Drax call Gamora a whore? It looks like blatant sexism on the part of the writers. Drax was specifically and repeatedly explained to be a very literal person. I must have missed the part of the show where Gamora sells her sexual services, or even offers to sell them. I recall the part where Rocket suggests she seduce guards, but she refuses, staunchly. She also refuses to be seduced by Peter. She doesn't have sex with anyone as far as I know, and I hardly think a daughter of Thanos would prostitute herself like a 'common whore'. She was rebuilt as a weapon of WAR, not as a sexbot. Drax could have called her a number of other true but derogatory things - a mercenary, a traitor, a betrayer, etc., but instead he chose to call her 'whore'. Why? I'd love for there to be a defensible reason for this that I missed.