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Never thought I'd say this, but...
Nov. 9th, 2007 12:00 am...I walked out of a movie starring both Christian Bale and Russell Crowe. Of my own free will.
I wanted to like 3:10 to Yuma. I really, really did. In fact, I certainly expected I would. A film with Crowe and Bale, plus Alan Tudyk (a great bonus; I hadn't read the cast list), not to mention horses, guns, and the Old West in the late 19th century. Add that to all its good reviews (which I hadn't read, not wanting spoilers), and what could go wrong?
My suspension of disbelief snapping about halfway through was what went wrong. I won't go into detail now, but the first twenty or so minutes seemed to go well, and then I grew increasingly frustrated as it gradually but inevitably became clear that I was watching a group of characters who, collectively, appeared to possess the amount of instinct for self-preservation roughly equivalent to that possessed by a small dried peanut. The entire plot, at least as far as I managed to watch it, consisted of one easily-avoided, forehead-slapping, "duh, this wouldn't have happened if you hadn't been so boneheaded/naive/careless a few scenes earlier" troublesome situation after another. Problem was, according to the script, these were more or less sensible characters who supposedly knew what they were doing, and the troublesome situations they found themselves in were just misfortune and not the direct result of their own utter thick-headedness.
I walked out about an hour twenty in. Everyone else, and it was a pretty decent-sized audience for a dollar theater, seemed to like it fine.
I'm baffled by all the positive reviews. Honestly, completely baffled, despite my love for Bale and Crowe. I must have been watching an entirely different movie.
I wanted to like 3:10 to Yuma. I really, really did. In fact, I certainly expected I would. A film with Crowe and Bale, plus Alan Tudyk (a great bonus; I hadn't read the cast list), not to mention horses, guns, and the Old West in the late 19th century. Add that to all its good reviews (which I hadn't read, not wanting spoilers), and what could go wrong?
My suspension of disbelief snapping about halfway through was what went wrong. I won't go into detail now, but the first twenty or so minutes seemed to go well, and then I grew increasingly frustrated as it gradually but inevitably became clear that I was watching a group of characters who, collectively, appeared to possess the amount of instinct for self-preservation roughly equivalent to that possessed by a small dried peanut. The entire plot, at least as far as I managed to watch it, consisted of one easily-avoided, forehead-slapping, "duh, this wouldn't have happened if you hadn't been so boneheaded/naive/careless a few scenes earlier" troublesome situation after another. Problem was, according to the script, these were more or less sensible characters who supposedly knew what they were doing, and the troublesome situations they found themselves in were just misfortune and not the direct result of their own utter thick-headedness.
I walked out about an hour twenty in. Everyone else, and it was a pretty decent-sized audience for a dollar theater, seemed to like it fine.
I'm baffled by all the positive reviews. Honestly, completely baffled, despite my love for Bale and Crowe. I must have been watching an entirely different movie.
