Ignore the Know-Nothing Populist "Film Critics"...

[brotherriparius]

...except Ebert, who's right-the-fuck-on on this one:

Knowing is abso-bloody-lutely astonishing.

And I'm bothering to post about it on LJ, so you know I ain't kidding.

Edit: Avoid spoilers - especially the lousy second trailer - as completely as possible.

Edit 2: For maximum entertainment value, attempt to approach the picture with preexisting

Comments

[kusoyaro]

I will now see this movie.

[actionjbone]

But the previews make it looks like horrible, bullshit trite.

You mean it's actually good? Not just worth seeing, but good?

[brotherriparius]

Didn't actually see any of the previews before seeing the movie, for which I can be grateful; I went into the picture pretty cold, having only read one spoiler-free four-star review (Ebert's) and about four spoiler-free negative reviews (although I'm given to understand a majority of print reviews were negative).

The movie is - in my not-necessarily-modest opinion - not good but great, four stars out of five, and easily the best film of 2009 so far.

[brotherriparius]

*That is, best film I've seen.

[ryan_speck]

I don't ususally find them to be populist so much as pretentious.

I was interested to see it anyway, since it's Proyas. He usually delivers.

[brotherriparius]

Agreed on both points.

Most populist (read: major-market press or national-publication) film critics always think they're doing the general public a favor by warning away from non-Oscarbait films that might involve some thought or interpretation - or films they don't want to admit they just don't understand. Nuts to them.

[ryan_speck]

Will seeing a lot of TV spots probably ruin it for me? Because I'm pretty sure I've seen the TV ads dozens of times now...

Though not as much in the last week or two, as Cheria hasn't been home to watch evening TV, so I've been playing Fallout 3 instead (which I hope you're knee-deep in, as it blows Morrowind and Oblivion out of the water).

[brotherriparius]

Need to pick up F3; only just finally got around to replacing my video card, so my gamer hat's been off for a while.

I haven't seen any of the TV ads, so the best I can recommend on general principle is trying to keep them out of mind in watching the film should you choose to do so, which you should.

[ornithorhynque]

Now if only it actually was about religion. Or, indeed, came down on one side of the angels/aliens fence. At all.

THAT IS NOT A STRONG ENOUGH ARGUMENT!

[cursive_arts]

I haven't seen this yet, but would like to, religious themes or no. I'm going to try to make a point of catching it before it gets out of theatres.