O-dot wrote:OK, so, Blackhat.
This is a weird one. The first 30-45 minutes or so are so flat, so un-Mann-like that you'd swear the studio retook control and had a journeyman do reshoots. It's just talky, uninteresting dross. I was getting worried.
But then at some point (I'd have to re-watch to pinpoint exactly where) we re-enter Mann Land: HD nighttime digital photography, brooding antiheroes, dialogue swapped out for tech jargon, explosive shootouts and chase scenes, the works. The last two-thirds isn't flawless, but it's a solid enough B entry from the director of Manhunter and Miami Vice (movies this one echoes, sometimes quite explicitly). Blackhat is exploring how small the world has become, with both borders and language barriers quickly being rendered irrelevant. People shed their citizenship to survive. Some critics have complained that Blackhat doesn't slam the Chinese enough, which seems to miss the point entirely.
I ended up liking Blackhat well enough, but coming nearly six years since Michael Mann's last movie (Public Enemies) and close to a decade since his last great one (Miami Vice), it can't help but carry a whiff of a disappointment. If he had released this in 2011 or 2012 I wouldn't have minded so much.
Re: the box office. Boy, did this one crash hard. But perhaps unsurprisingly. It was placed in direct competition with the patriotism-affirming American Sniper. A movie about alienation from national identity didn't stand a chance.
saw this yesterday. i tend to agree. the first 20-30 minutes are odd and clunky. how many instances of "3D CGI flying bits" do we need? once he gets out of prison, it becomes basically any other mann thriller/action film. i mean, yes, there are computers, etc., but it isn't really the main thing. i have some specific issues with some of the things done and said from a security perspective, but it's not awful. what they show isn't bad, probably more accurate than just about anything else i've seen re: "hacking" on screen, but the things said are silly and the way/speed things happen is crazy. outside of that, it is a pretty cool flick. wasn't nearly as laughable as i thought it would be/wanted it to be. that ending though - holy shit, multiple murders, automatic weapons shot many times, crazy bloody stabbings, all in front of a literal parade of people, and there are no consequences? literally the next scene is them walking out of the airport? what the fuck is happening in malaysia? ending just kind of wrapped up very, very quickly after everything. feels like it could have been longer at the end and shorter at the beginning. also, another question - i'm not a market guy, but is tin really volatile enough to make this whole thing worthwhile? seems like a very thin thing to hinge the entire film on. anyway, it was entertaining.