the burning stupid, part deux
so yeah, I'm watching the second half.
Already annoyed by the stupid plot tricks (the ancient "don't do such and so or this will happen" followed by that very thing happening the following second... it was annoying the first fifty thousand times it was used) and more dumb stuff that would not fly in real life (a claustrophobic FBI agent? he'd never pass the psych exam!) and glaring continuity errors (a village buried in Pompeii-like volcanic ash ten feet deep... except for the church which somehow exists in a bubble complete with courtyard? What is this, selective eruption?) and the nauseating hot sex in the cold desert sequence. And the total ripoff of the Indiana Jones fight on a moving car through the desert sequence.
How the heck do they get such perfect clear cell phone reception in the middle of the Turkish desert? And what stupid boat owner would take a bunch of tourists out in the middle of a horrific storm (which looks oddly enough like the Perfect Storm...) or attempt to dive during it and bring up a piece of a ship? And that priest would make good company for Velasquez, that's for sure... absolutely no moral qualms about killing someone in the name of the church. At least Velasquez believes in what he's doing... I mean, jeez, I'm a cranky old athiest and even I'm tired of the evil priest schtick!
And come on, the writings of Jesus of Nazareth? The writings?? Son of God notwithstanding, he was illiterate! He couldn't write! None of them could write! All the gospels were oral for the first hundred years or so before someone ELSE wrote them down!
And of course the coup de grace, washing ashore on the one little island where everyone prays and is holy and the Valjeaniest guy is phoned in by Omar Sharif. And the medium bad guy shows up and there is the worst fricking cinematography on a guy allegedly falling off a cliff. And the archaeologist throws the artifacts she's been looking for off said cliff and finds religion in one swell foop and the dumb cop miraculously recovers from a horrible injury that was killing him a moment ago, and they all get back to New York in time for intrepid adventurewoman to make her daugher's martial arts competition (remember she's a single mother? Didn't think so). And then they all got hit by a bus the end.
And now I'm going to bed and forgetting these stupid, stupid characters. I know it's my own damn fault for watching. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Which is what the creators of this stupid monstrosity on film should say fifty times a day for the next seven years.
Already annoyed by the stupid plot tricks (the ancient "don't do such and so or this will happen" followed by that very thing happening the following second... it was annoying the first fifty thousand times it was used) and more dumb stuff that would not fly in real life (a claustrophobic FBI agent? he'd never pass the psych exam!) and glaring continuity errors (a village buried in Pompeii-like volcanic ash ten feet deep... except for the church which somehow exists in a bubble complete with courtyard? What is this, selective eruption?) and the nauseating hot sex in the cold desert sequence. And the total ripoff of the Indiana Jones fight on a moving car through the desert sequence.
How the heck do they get such perfect clear cell phone reception in the middle of the Turkish desert? And what stupid boat owner would take a bunch of tourists out in the middle of a horrific storm (which looks oddly enough like the Perfect Storm...) or attempt to dive during it and bring up a piece of a ship? And that priest would make good company for Velasquez, that's for sure... absolutely no moral qualms about killing someone in the name of the church. At least Velasquez believes in what he's doing... I mean, jeez, I'm a cranky old athiest and even I'm tired of the evil priest schtick!
And come on, the writings of Jesus of Nazareth? The writings?? Son of God notwithstanding, he was illiterate! He couldn't write! None of them could write! All the gospels were oral for the first hundred years or so before someone ELSE wrote them down!
And of course the coup de grace, washing ashore on the one little island where everyone prays and is holy and the Valjeaniest guy is phoned in by Omar Sharif. And the medium bad guy shows up and there is the worst fricking cinematography on a guy allegedly falling off a cliff. And the archaeologist throws the artifacts she's been looking for off said cliff and finds religion in one swell foop and the dumb cop miraculously recovers from a horrible injury that was killing him a moment ago, and they all get back to New York in time for intrepid adventurewoman to make her daugher's martial arts competition (remember she's a single mother? Didn't think so). And then they all got hit by a bus the end.
And now I'm going to bed and forgetting these stupid, stupid characters. I know it's my own damn fault for watching. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Which is what the creators of this stupid monstrosity on film should say fifty times a day for the next seven years.