Eagle Eye: Movie Reflection

Honestly, I am not so familiar with this movie. As I watched the previews of this movie, eagle Eye is a video game-like string of action sequences aligned together in the service of a plot that defies explanation. Watching the film requires a need to distract oneself, because if you don't, you will likely wind up with a splitting headache as you try to rationalize the plot.

Eagle Eye

The plot here is actually pretty complex. A government program selects a man whose Air Force brother has recently died and pairs him with a young mother whose child is at risk to carry out a super-secret government program. As we follow our duo through the course of the movie, we’ll find out steadily more about each, and about the government program they find themselves roped into working for. By the end, the entire government of the United States will be at risk.
Eagle Eye builds suspense in the initial climb and hits its peak at the first drop of action, but soon becomes tedious and monotonous when the mystery of the caller extends its welcome and the narrative twists and turns fall victim to genre clichés.

Pirates of Silicon Valley: Movie Reflection

The movie is really interesting for it provides the audience the development of the two largest computer companies nowadays but also the dramatic story behind it. This tech-world biopic traces the fortunes of personal-computer companies Apple and Microsoft from their obscure dorm-room and backyard origins to their very public battle for corporate supremacy. Writer/director Martyn Burke follows the parallel lives of Microsoft founder Bill Gates (Anthony Michael Hall) and Apple co-founders Steve Jobs (Noah Wyle) and Steve Wozniak (Joey Slotnick) -- the former a crafty Harvard dropout, the latter a pair of hippies with jobs at Hewlett-Packard and a yen to sell miniature versions of corporate mainframes to small businesses and at-home enthusiasts. Much like the personal-computer industry itself, the action starts with Apple then gradually shifts to Microsoft. The former plot thread recounts how Jobs and Wozniak "borrowed" key concepts from a Xerox computer lab, eked out their success as countercultural businessmen, and finally fell out with one another over the pressure of success. The latter thread focuses on the way Gates learned from, then surpassed, the brains behind Apple and turned his company into the global powerhouse that it is today.

The entire film tries to focus on too many parts of history at once but doesn’t go into anyone of them in enough detail. I have learned a reasonable amount about the history of Apple’s co-founders and Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, although I’d have to know a lot more about Wozniak, Jobs, and Gates before judging them from this film, which is especially hard on Jobs. Wyle portrays him as a selfish and arrogant adolescent, exploiting and manipulating friends and subordinates. Altogether the film is worth watching, but bittersweet and possible slanted.

Wall-e: Movie Reflection

It is a great story. It’s very touching and makes you think about the future. At times, it’s easy to lose interest but the narrative is strong enough that these moments are fleeting despite the pacing issues. It’s enjoyable for the entire family and everyone else. This is a beautiful, smart, touching, hilarious and damn cute movie.

The most significant piece of the movie is WALL-E and Eve’s relationship. It’s a very touching love story that is told with limited dialogue. WALL-E can only say his own name and on the other hand is barely able to say Eve’s name. Eve’s vocabulary is limited too. However, it’s their actions that tell the story. It’s hard to believe the narrative the two animated robots are able to tell with simple gestures. Elaborate live-action movies generally don’t come close to doing as good a job at exploring relationships as WALL-E does. It’s a testament to the notion that sometimes less is more. Just the whole storyline arc surrounding how WALL-E desperately wants to hold Eve’s hand but is let down at every opportunity is better than the entire story for many romance movies. The whole dynamic of the relationship makes this tale very heartwarming.

In addition, the other major overlying themes of conservationism and humanity’s reliance on technology also do a good job at making the audience think about those issues without being annoying or too flashy. The environmentalism theme doesn’t feel like the moviemakers are scolding humanity for polluting the world. Instead, it feels more like they’re trying to tell a cautious tale about the dangers of overconsumption. The same goes for humanity’s trust on technology. It’s doesn’t feel like it’s a lecture. It’s told in a comical way but still feels like it has substance. The whole concept that humans have become so fat due to their insistence on using technology for even the smallest tasks like getting dressed or even getting out of bed is both funny but also sends a strong message to a younger generation who is used to technology doing so much for them. It’s good for a movie to have strong social and moral overtones without being preachy.

All over the film, Wall-E makes serious observations about us as a society, and all done in such a way that none of it seems unrealistic. Hundred years from now all humans are fat beyond reason, almost without the ability to walk at all. They are so connected into their technology that they become oblivious to simple observations about the world around them in which they live. They engorge themselves in their modern conveniences while destroying themselves at the same time. It’s difficult to go into too much without crossing into spoiler territory, but for now I’ll just leave it at that.

Surrogates: Movie Reflection

It was a movie that snowed under by too many problems to overcome, a pretty ridiculous plot being first and foremost on the list. I could never wrap my mind around the idea of a world in which people just want to lie there obsessed up to a computer all day long for days on end. And that's all they do. Every single day, it all seemed so pointless.

In addition, Surrogates doesn't even get the action scenes right. Surrogates movie is not bad, but it’s not good either. It’s another movie that tries to sell us that overuse of technology may be the downfall of humanity. That’s fine, but if the movie wants to make that argument, I’d like to point out the amount of CGI poorly used in Surrogates may add to the downfall of movies.

This movie was ruined for me when it was obvious that just about anyone with a gun could break into the mainframe controlling all the surrogates. The other thing that bothered me is the robots. They had HUGE similarities to the recent movie iRobot which was surely a copy of something else but still played out much better in my mind as a whole. This of course is a warning about how the current state of the Internet could evolve, from people able to do many things online they previously had to do in person, to being able to do their daily tasks from the comfort of their computer.

Eagle Eye: Movie Reflection

Honestly, I am not so familiar with this movie. As I watched the previews of this movie, eagle Eye is a video game-like string of action sequences aligned together in the service of a plot that defies explanation.

The plot here is actually pretty complex. A government program selects a man whose Air Force brother has recently died and pairs him with a young mother whose child is at risk to carry out a super-secret government program. As we follow our duo through the course of the movie, we’ll find out steadily more about each, and about the government program they find themselves roped into working for. By the end, the entire government of the United States will be at risk.

Eagle Eye builds suspense in the initial climb and hits its peak at the first drop of action, but soon becomes tedious and monotonous when the mystery of the caller extends its welcome and the narrative twists and turns fall victim to genre clichés.

I, Robot: Movie Reflection

When I saw the previews for the movie I, Robot, I expected the worst. The image of robots in rebellion, attacking humans. The plot wasn’t too complicated, but it did have a few interesting twists and a few unexpected turns. Honestly, it was a great film even though I was not able to saw the full movie. It’s quiet interesting. I, Robot’ strikes a fine balance between the amazingly expressive computer generated imagery used to create its legions of robots, and the all too human presence of Will Smith whose typical wise-ass delivery keeps things grounded. The plot makes good sense only so long as you do not think about it too hard, but as a summer crowd-pleaser with edge-of-your-seat pacing and spectacular stunts, ‘I, Robot’ would be hard to beat.

The movie is an excellent example of what great direction, very good acting and a decent plot can do – add in the excellent animations and the blood pumping action scenes and you have a classic sci-fi thriller. Then add to this the way in which the movie makes you think and you have a very compelling and subtly frightening movie that appeals on many different levels. It deals with many difficult subjects such as the essence of a soul, and whether humanity is the only ‘being’ capable of anything other than following a simple program – can a robot move beyond programming into the realms of love and caring? Can a robot be capable of hatred? The movie also deals with injustice in many subtle ways, making a social commentary but not making any judgments.

The movie comments on how ‘directives’ are likely to be very restrictive and often lead to complications not thought of when the rules were created – essentially they leave no room for growth and interpretation. The movie is a thought provoking one at many levels, it comments on insecurity, alienation, racism and injustice. In a way this is a direct commentary on some of the arbitrary rules society has placed on itself now.
The way in which the movie portrays the future as simply a higher tech version of our own is very clever, and makes the settings very familiar and believable. While perhaps not as sinister as AI, the movie still has an atmosphere that is creepy at times, and is creepier because of the believability.
The animations and special effects of the robots, the cars etc are simply stunning. While you expect this these days with blockbuster movies, the way in which they blend into the movie seamlessly and make you really believe that they are real is uncanny – some of the scenes where there are literally hundreds of robots on the screen sends shivers down my spine – this again adds to the believability factor and makes you think what life could be like if we are not careful in the way we progress with technology.