Is it as good a Christmas movie as Die Hard?

Is it as good a Christmas movie as Die Hard?

Rosario Dawson gets lots of screen time, which makes one grateful for the gift of eyesight.

Just saw it. It's surely a chick-flick masquerading as follow-me-to-the-end-of-the-movie flick. Not really impressed. Will is kinda boring in it and it took too long to "get going". The extreme close-ups started to get on my nerve as well. The ending was kinda over-the-top with the whole "aquatic" angle. It would have been better as a Tv movie, maybe Oxygen or Lifetime.

MuthaFunka said:

Kinda?

Mofo is [u]ALWAYS[/b] boring.

But your post sealed it for me I love Rosario,,,,but not enough for me to sit for 2 hours through fluff.

How come Jada doesn't ACT anymore I would love to see more of her and less of that bland husband of hers.

Tell me if this is correct from what I've seen in the trailer and what I've read:


He's suicidal and decides to kill himself and donate 7 organs to 7 people? In a nutshell

Harlepolis said:

Well, in THIS flick he was TRULY boring. And Jada was in a flick called The Women this year, it's on DVD now. However, jaden, their son, was pretty good in The Day The Earth Stood Still.

Harlepolis said:

Well, in THIS flick he was TRULY boring. And Jada was in a flick called The Women this year, it's on DVD now. However, jaden, their son, was pretty good in The Day The Earth Stood Still.

MuthaFunka said:

Yeah I know that calamity



Some movies should be LEFT alone, dammit I truly hope nobody fucks around and think about remaking All About Eve that will destroy me

Not that I consider them the final word, but the critics are generally panning this film. For those of you who didn't like it, why not? Is the plot just too depressing, when you expected a feel-good movie? Is the story implausible? Is the directing or acting poor? What's wrong with it?

Not that I consider them the final word, but the critics are generally panning this film. For those of you who didn't like it, why not? Is the plot just too depressing, when you expected a feel-good movie? Is the story implausible? Is the directing or acting poor? What's wrong with it?

Just saw it. It's surely a chick-flick masquerading as follow-me-to-the-end-of-the-movie flick. Not really impressed. Will is kinda boring in it and it took too long to "get going". The extreme close-ups started to get on my nerve as well. The ending was kinda over-the-top with the whole "aquatic" angle. It would have been better as a Tv movie, maybe Oxygen or Lifetime.

http://www.annistonstar.com/entertainment/2008/as-movies-1218-0-8l17t3539.htm


By Roger Moore
The Orlando Sentinel
12-18-2008

The rules for a weeper, a movie tear-jerker, could not be simpler. Touch us. Make us fumble around in the dark for a Kleenex. But earn those tears.

Seven Pounds is a weeper wrapped in a mystery centered on an enigma. But whatever pains cast and crew go to preserve its mystery, the movie's tears are righteous, as is its message.

Ben Thomas (Will Smith) is a serious, sad-faced stranger who walks into people's lives like some sort of angel. But is he the Angel of Death or a guardian angel?

Ben's an IRS agent, so he has access to people's entire lives. He shows up, unannounced, and interviews folks — interrogates them actually. He's tactless, a little rude. Who is he? What does he want? What is his mission?

"No questions," he fires back to one and all.

Emily (Rosario Dawson) is one who won't take that for an answer. She has congenital heart failure. She's deep in debt. And this callous Fed seems to be stalking her, seeking to discover, as he does with a blind musician (Woody Harrelson), kids' hockey coach (Bill Smitrovich) or nursing home operator (Tim Kelleher) , if she's a "good person."

Director Gabriele Muccino gives us enough glimpses to guess the big mistake that Ben is atoning for in meeting these people and studying their lives. And since the opening moments of the film are a 911 call, we know where this might go if love, joy or happiness don't intervene.

But forget the puzzle, the cryptic touches and the bracingly sad little music montages that Muccino packs in as filler. Seven Pounds sinks or swims on the Ben and Emily connection; Dawson (Eagle Eye, The 25th Hour), rarely used on film in this way, simply will not let it sink. She lets the camera see what Ben sees in her eyes, the good humor and hope that mask the weariness of a deadly illness. Harrelson and Barry Pepper (playing Ben's best friend) make the case that they each deserve more work than Hollywood offers. Smith usually plays such awards-bait roles with a sullenness that robs him of his movie-star qualities. Not this time.

It's not a masterpiece, but Seven Pounds is perfect in at least one way — its timing. An emotional movie at the most emotional time of the year, it works to keep its secrets. But more importantly, when the tears do come, it has earned them.

”Intricately constructed so as to infuriate anyone predominantly guided by rationality and intellect.” - Film Critic Todd McCarthy from VARIETY

Wall Street Journal:

It takes the soggy cake for multiple layers of sentimentality topped by indigestible grandiosity.

New York Times:

I would tell you to go out and see it for yourself, but you might take that as a recommendation rather than a plea for corroboration. Did I really see what I thought I saw?

Houston Chronicle

The film closes on a meeting between two characters that’s now wayyyy high on my list of weirdest moments in cinema. It is, I think, supposed to be touching.

Philadelphia Inquirer

A case study in overkill.

Newsday

The script, by Grant Nieporte, seems to fundamentally misunderstand its moral themes.

Dallas Morning News

It's impossible to talk about the movie without revealing the least little thing about its secret. And the secret is so flimsy, absurd and obvious that, if we write about it at all, you could figure it out from almost the moment the movie starts

New York Post

The sad truth is that if you laid this movie out chronologically -- and maybe if you don't -- not a whole lot of it makes any sense.