Reel Thoughts - Why I don’t watch chick flicks

Someone asked me if I watched only action/adventure/sci-fi/fantasy genres. No. I watch every genre if I think they are promising from the trailers or word-of-mouth referral. All except chick flicks. As you can tell by my choices of films I’ve watched/reviewed this year, it's perhaps less frequent than once a year.

So why don’t I watch chick flicks? The short answer is that I am a guy. The long answer? Well, we have to first look at what we define what is a chick flick, as the few times I have said I sort of liked a ‘chick flick’, it turns out they were actually Romance Comedies, or Romedies as goes the urban slang, and as corrected by some female friends of mine.

Wikipedia defines chick flicks as films “mainly dealing with love and romance designed to appeal to the female audience…typically young women”. The common themes or issues these films tend to deal with include loneliness, peer acceptance, unrequited love, betrayal, vanity and the ambitious ones might also deal with coming-of-age issues, again from the female’s perspective.

There is an ongoing debate regarding whether chick flicks are a genre in itself, or simply a collection of films that fare better with girls than guys regardless of which genre they are really a part of. For example, Titanic is technically Historical Fiction with strong romance/drama elements, but girls liked it far more than guys, who liked it as well but to the point of re-watching it on DVD a dozen times and managing to empty a tissue box every time, so some people often declare it a timeless chick flick.

In fact, I would argue that chick flicks could emerge from almost any genre, even action films. White Chicks is by far the best example of this, as it is a buddy cop film that is more often referred to as a chick flick. If you’ve never seen this film, and told you that the plot of this film was about two cops who go undercover disguising themselves as heirs to a business magnate, you probably wouldn’t have imagined African American guys disguised as a white chicks singing Vanessa Carlton’s “A thousand miles” in a convertible with their girlfriends.

As such, I think chick flicks are not a genre in itself, but rather an emergent trait which is recognised only by a film’s overall appeal to the viewer. In other words, a film that may be considered a chick flick to one girl may not be for another, just as one person may consider a film good when another considers it god awful.

I think I’m sidetracking and getting too bogged down with semantics; I’m here to explain why I don’t watch chick flicks in general, not trying to submit a dictionary entry.

Let me list some films I have viewed in my adolescence that I consider a chick flick, whether coerced by my sister or by female friends who says it’s their turn to pick the movie for an evening hangout (feel free to correct me if you think any of these films aren’t chick flicks):

• Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001)
• Legally Blonde (2001)
• The Princess Diaries (2001)
• The Notebook (2004)
• Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009)
• Twilight Saga (2008-2012)

Films like Bring It On, 10 Things I hate about you, The Girl Next Door, Mean Girls and She’s The Man are often considered chick flicks but they are more teen flicks. They address a generation more than a gender. There emphasise stereotypes and tend not to age well should you try to watch them as a young adult.

And this brings me to the first reasons why I don’t like chick flicks. Until very recent movies and television shows, chick flicks enforces the idea that guys need to be ‘projects’ to be attractive. What I mean is that the guy female protagonists tend to fall in love with are either the school bully with a heart of gold, or a quiet new student who has a tragic backstory or is misunderstood due to his demeanor, or is like 15 years older and thus is a form of forbidden love.

So what is wrong with falling in love and being with a guy who is smart, average looking, a decent person with no significant personality flaws or secret history? Nothing! However in many of these films the girl always chooses the guy who is the cause of most of the film’s drama, thus promoting the idea that if guys want to be the one the girl chooses in the end, they can’t be normal. Perhaps the idea is that the girl isn't normal either but then again she is often sold as the role model for girls to behave and think like.

I speculate that the emergence of a 21^st century phenomenon known as the “Nice Guy syndrome” many guys face in their young adulthood, is a direct result of their female peers being influenced (probably subconsciously) by the desire for their boyfriend to be a project rather than simply a companion who is reliable, loyal and consistent. This effect tends to diminish after the age of 25 when most people mature and gain more perspective into real love, but I feel that before that point, chick flicks has destroyed some girls’ capability to date normal guys for their teen years and young adult years.

Sadly the other extreme of some girls’ ideal boyfriend is something akin to a Disney prince, probably influenced by those catchy songs and mesmerising scenes in Disney films. But even in those cases the male protagonist tends to be a project to the girl (e.g. Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Hunchback of Notre Dame).

So that’s reason number one why I don’t watch chick flicks. I do not really want to support movies that don’t appeal to my gender, and in fact plays a role in undermining the typical guys’ chances at finding love during adolescent and young adulthood years.

The second reason is to do with how small the worldview chick flicks tend to have. I will use Twilight to explain this. In this story we have Bella who is your typical boring teenage girl with no noticeable personality or interests, who becomes deeply embroiled in a secret world of vampires and werewolves when she unwittingly falls for the 120+ years old vampire Edward. This film could have such a potentially interesting universe, but focus is always about Bella’s thoughts and feelings towards Edward, and rarely about her thoughts of vampires and werewolves and lore. The universe is just coincidental, all that matters is the people around her. Even in the final film, which I considered a decent film, we only get a total screen time of less than 30 minutes which involve the Volturi and the other vampires. The rest of the time we have the cameras fixed on Bella and essentially her inner voice.

Compare this saga to Pirates of the Caribbean, where Elizabeth Swan gets engulfed in the clashes between the pirates, the British Navy and the mythical underworld because of her relationship with Will Turner and Jack Sparrow. It is clear that Will and Jack are large factors in her relationship, but she is also influenced by the world of piracy around her. She is able to function and interact naturally and realistically even when the plot doesn’t centralize on her. This is something Bella obviously couldn’t do, since in the second Twilight film (New Moon) when Ed temporarily dumps her she literally shuts herself in the room and we get an extremely boring second act of watching her commit suicide and forcing Jacob to reveal his true nature to provide a distraction.

The climax of each Twilight movie tends to take place in locations that have nothing significant to the audience, such as an abandoned warehouse, some icy plains, grassland etc, places that were neither built up nor significant to the characters; just coincidental.

In stark contrast, the climax of each Pirates of the Caribbean movie takes place in the location that their respective films have built up to. Such as the Isle de Muerta (the location of the cursed treasure) for film 1, aboard the Black Pearl for film 2, aboard all three key ships in film 3 and at the Fountain of Youth for film 4. Nothing was by accident, and thus a large amount of anticipation and suspense can be built up not just because of the characters, but be cause we want to see this place they’ve been talking about or alluding to the whole movie!

So you can see, I like films which places characters in an interesting world, with characters interacting with each other and interacting with the world around them, thus allowing us to experience and immerse ourselves in it through their lenses. If I wanted to see characters interacting with characters, only dealing with small issues and having little to no world awareness, I would watch TV soap like Neighbours which has wonderful sets such as your mum’s kitchen, in the grocery store, at your workplace etc. Chick Flicks don’t sate me because they don’t give me a world I can explore. They give me characters which are just trying to deal with personal issues and have no genuine concern about the world around them; it is all coincidental wherever things happen or people are.

The third and last reason I don’t watch chick flicks is that they are generally poor quality movies to watch anyway. This is how I would test whether a movie is all-round good. If you were asked to run a movie for your work colleagues, would you show it? If you were hanging out in a group with both genders (not just a girls night/slumber party), would anyone seriously object to watching it?

I would dare to say that most people wouldn’t be able to answer ‘yes’ to these questions when it’s a chick flick. While there will undoubtedly be some groups who would have chick flick marathons, and they may love it to death, but it is strictly an in-their-own-world movie, kind of like comic book/superhero movies used to be before Marvel came along, and showed us how to effectively reach a larger audience.

In retrospect, I don’t think I actually like any pure chick flick movies. The chick flick movies that I enjoy tend to have more to offer than just stereotypes dealing with other stereotypes. Suddenly 30 is one that pops to mind now and then because, while it is very girly it does throw her into the world of fashion magazine, and of adulthood which she cannot ignore; she has to learn and adapt to this new environment before she is able to interact with the other characters in the story.

I implied at the start with my short answer that guys in general don’t like chick flicks. And I think the three reasons I’ve given are all gender-related. Guys don’t like being stereotyped in those films and being designated as the one who won’t get the girl, they prefer movies with bigger scopes and larger worlds they can explore and fantasise in (that’s one reason we tend to play video games, especially Role-playing games), and we are less forgiving to films that aren’t executed well or don’t make sense within the context of its own story.

So if you like chick flicks, good for you, but should you be watching one at my place I’ll probably be playing DotA on my laptop or something. :)

Skyfall (2012)

From an objective perspective, this film has successfully captured not only the essence of the James Bond character from back in the 60s, it has demonstrated understanding that spy films are great not because of the villain's plot or the gadgets the agents can use, but rather it is the characters that make it interesting. This film was the first Bond film I really enjoyed on first viewing, but is still my second favorite James Bond-related movie overall. Nothing has yet to trump Stephen Chow's spoof of the character. :D

Skyfall is film I cannot really talk about without spoilers, so I'll give my overall recommendation first before I analyse this movie to death: It is definitely worth the trip to the cinema if you haven't already. The action is great, the dialogue is witty and memorable, there are many beautiful sets that they take their time showing which allow you to intimately embrace the world of Bond, and the characters' interactions are unbelievably enjoyable in many scenes. There are aspects of the climax which I felt was a bit unconvincing and out of place, but the ending is a satisfactory precursor to another 50 years of 007.

8/10

Okay now that I've gotten that out of the way, here comes the real deal.

Spoilers from here on!

Having been brought up in the Pierce Brosnan era of James Bond (Golden Eye, Tomorrow Never Dies and Die Another Day), my first impression of the character was of a boy who fancied himself a playboy with limited moral sense of direction and unexplained, unjustified loyalty to his country. The films were always focused on the high-tech gadgets and increasingly stupid scenarios, as if escalation is the only way to keep an audience.

When Daniel Craig took over, and with essentially a restart of the character from its very origin (Casino Royale). Suddenly the world of Bond became very gritty, very bare, and certainly a lot bolder and much more personal, and so I became much more invested in the characters and less concerned of the action scenes and intricate plots. While I actually liked his take on the character, Skyfall is the film where his personality, character and motivation is fully formed.

M (Judi Dench) was also a delight to watch. Being not only the one responsible for the deaths of many MI6 agents, but also the one responsible for the ruined lives of former MI6 agents, she has lots to work with and conveys those emotions and conflicts well. Indeed her death at the end was a bit of a surprise but I'm glad they took this direction. It felt like the only fair way to atone for her 'sins'.

Aside from Bond and M however the other MI6 characters felt almost unnecessary to this story; it felt at times they were forcefully crammed into the storyline and made to seem important just so they can be set up for future Bond films. The exception is Eve. I liked how we really don't know what her ultimate role will be in the story for most of the film, though nearing the end it was becoming clear she was going to end up being Moneypenny. Maybe some sharper-minded Bond fans may have picked it up instantly, but I actually had my money on her being related to the traitor M was alluding to.

It was nice to see the backstory of this often overlooked character, but I felt almost betrayed to learn her first name. Were fans of the franchise really begging to know her first name, when it's been deliberately omitted and kept as a status quo for the past 49 years (like her close-call relationship with Bond)? In fact this revelation was the same as what the recent reboot of Star Trek did; there they revealed Uhura's first name, which was also a well-kept secret in that franchise.

Q (Ben Whishaw) is kind of uninteresting except his first scene where he introduces himself to Bond and gives him his fairly humble tools for the mission. That first dialogue was a cool way to introduce yourself, though somewhat crafted and a bit inflated. The later scenes where we see those intense computer montages with Q speaking techno-jargon actually annoys computer scientists like myself, as there is so many statements that don't make much sense, and he just doesn't bring much to the table except being a very young Q compared to his predecessors, much like how Eve is the first black Moneypenny in a Bond film. Anyway we'll get to breaking down that IT jargon in the extra nitpicks section :)

Now with the main villain. I have to say I have very mixed feelings about him. For one I really really liked Silva (Javier Bardem), especially with how strange his demeanor was (felt like an awkward Joker). His interactions with Bond are some of the funniest and also most interesting dialogues in recent films I've seen, and his motivation for causing havoc on MI6 and M is not only believable but at times understandable, even if he is mentally unstable.

Having said that, his design also confusing at times. At first he plots to attack MI6 but not hurt M so that she can witness a disaster of her own making, then at the public inquiry he seems to simply want to gun her down. Then when Bond brings her to Skyfall for the final confrontation he first sends a wave of gunmen to take them down first. When that failed he directs a helicopter to shoot non-stop into the mansion, throwing grenades wherever he thinks they are. But finally after all the other bad guys are dead, when it's just him, M and that other guy whose name I can't remember left in the church, suddenly he decides to get all intimate and let her choose kill both of them by pulling the trigger, which gives Bond enough time to catch up and throw a knife into his back. Perhaps this is how they wanted to expose the chaos of emotions within him, but it really made me wonder how anti-climatic it would have been if one of those grenades actually ended up killing them three.

The other thing is his whole character and his plot seems to be a reference to WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange to a disturbing degree. I mean look at his matching pale skin and long white hair! Not to mention his entire operation consists of divulging national secrets (specifically names of MI6 field Agents) by 'leaking' them onto the Internet. Okay so in this film they also have guns and beautiful women at their disposal which isn't reflective of the real organisation, but it doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to notice the similarities.

In fact, this is something I'm not sure is a fair decision by the filmmakers. Through how the filmmakers set up Silva and his organisation, they have essentially antagonized WikiLeaks as a terrorist organisation too. I'm sure the American government would be in agreement with them, but that big speech by M during the public inquiry seems to not only point out the threat that is WikiLeaks, but by saying that "our enemies are in the shadows" they have potentially attacked Anonymous as being the enemy. I don't fully agree with every operation either of these organisation does, but they are ultimately activists like Greenpeace. Ultimately they are doing it for the people, for the betterment of society (I hope), whereas in the film Silva leaked the details to get back at M, which is a personal revenge; a very different motivation indeed.

Anyway I digress. The last character I want to talk about is Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), who at the end of the film is revealed to be the new M after Judi Dench's death. For those who don't know the actor is, he played John Steed in the film adaptation of The Avengers, another British spy serial (not the Marvel superhero crossover film), which was super boring and ridiculous; you get to see Sean Connery, the original James Bond, tries to talk with his board of directors in a care bear suit. I am not even kidding. I've never watched the TV show before but I hope that he may redeem himself if he is to return in future Bond films.

One thing that I appreciated even more about this film, more than the characters, is the atmosphere and the diversity of scenes we are immersed in. The two scenes I love the most in this film has to be that raft ride to the casino in Shanghai, and the reveal of Bond's childhood home in Skyfall. Both of them are so impractical and unrealistic, but when I was watching these scenes I did not question it (till after the movie). The colors, the tones, the angles, all worked in favor of enabling us to stretch our imagination to the other senses. They were so entrancing I want to visit these locations now!

There were many other scenes which were really captivating. The opening sequence was well done, in fact the very first second of the opening scene already had my heart jump a few beats with that short burst of orchestral notes. Silva's island which he tricked the residents to desert was very realistic, even though the post-war ruins have been overdone in the past decade. It's just a really nice film to look at, and definitely worth the price of admission to a screen bigger than my 15-inch laptop.

So yeah, no significant complaints except for the possibly controversial statements about Wikileaks/Anonymous through the film's villain, everything else in the film more than compensated, and it is definitely a film I will buy when I see it on sale at Big W (the Australian version of Walmart). :)

Extra Nitpicks

1. All their IT security related jargon around the middle of the movie was kind of smart and dumb. "Security through obscurity" and "Polymorphic algorithm" are two terms I picked up when Q tried to gain access to Silva's computers. Both these terms are real computer science concepts, but they are nothing new, and definitely nothing even remotely state-of-the-art in terms of security. I think Google's gmail two-factor authentication security is stronger in some cases since you'll need to get the code off Silva's mobile phone as well before you can gain access.
   
   I guess it's all okay since Silva's intention was to trick Q into successfully opening up his system, but seriously, filmmakers who want to feature high-tech montages should consult with real security experts. Also, people who work on security engineering don't bother with creating fantastic looking but functionally bankrupt visualisations of code/data like we see many times in these type of films.
2. How was Bond planning to leave that casino after dispatching the bodyguards who seems to be employees of the casino. The place is surrounded by water. If Silva is really that powerful he could have just trapped Bond on that island by instructing the ferrymen not to let him cross back to main land. Okay lets assume those bodyguards were just patrons of the casino like that really beautiful lady can't remember her name either, it sounded like Seventeen or something. Even so shouldn't the casino security be stopping him from leaving after injuring two and indirectly killing one (and also carrying a gun)?
3. During the chase sequence when Silva was racing to M and Bond is trying to stop him, he establishes that he has infiltrated some of London's underground and planted bombs in strategic positions. Was he ever planning to use his other bombs? I assumed that wasn't the only one, but we do see earlier that he discreetly receives a package from some fake policemen, which included the fake police uniform and the bomb I guess.
   
   If that was the only bomb, why did he place it in a location that has nothing to do with M? HOW did he place it all the way up in the ceiling which looks unreachable on the third floor, and so quickly for that matter (remembering he was being closely chased by Bond this whole time)? I guess most people won't question this but technically Silva either has more bombs placed around London which is ready to be detonated from his 'radio transmitter', or that bomb was placed in a dumb place and used for a convenient situation.
4. Nearing the climax, after Bond saves M from the assassination attempt during the public inquiry, they drive to Skyfall, a remote-looking town in Scotland and instructs Q to leave a trail of breadcrumbs that only Silva could follow. However he never told Q where he was going, and he even switched from the trackable standard issue car to the old Aston Martin (which is a wonderful car by the way). So by that definition no one knew where Bond and M was going. Maybe Bond still had that radio transmitter turned on from earlier.
5. Who on Earth was that Kincade guy at Bond's family estate? Okay so inside the film they explain he is the caretaker of that property, and knew Bond when he was a boy before the tragic passing of his parents. However quite a number of people were cheering when he first pops up on screen. Did I miss something? Was he in previous films? Suddenly it seems like I had an obligation to like him and care whether he'll make it out alive at the end of this film, when we were only introduced to him over 80 minutes into the film. If he was another reference to earlier films or a character in the novels then that's fine, but otherwise he seems to be a last minute discardable comic relief which actually undermined the intensity and emotionality of the climax. Then again I do like him and am glad he didn't die. :)

Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012)

This movie has left me torn about the whole Twilight franchise. I am not on either Team Jacob or Team Edward, and neither do I hate the previous films (with the exception of Breaking Dawn Part 1). There are definitely strong characters in the films, and at moments the script can be funny, genuine and passionate, even if unintentionally. However the main thing that makes my experience unpleasant is how the whole franchise has handled moral issues, and in my opinion this film is the worst of the lot. But before I get to that, lets have a look at this film on the whole.

The story continues from where part 1 left off: Bella (played by Kristen Stewart) is now a vampire due to Edward (played by Robert Pattinson) having to change her to save her life after giving birth to Renesmee, a half human half vampire. And Jacob (played by Taylor Lautner) has imprinted on Renesmee meaning they're going to be soul mates for life. The Volturi basically want to kill the child to prevent her from growing up into the unstable monster that history has shown she will be, even though her case is slightly different. So the Cullen family rallies supporters to testify for the child and we finally have the big showdown between the Cullen + Jacob's pack against the menacing Aro and his army.

Without giving away the entire plot, I can say that there are two very incompatible focuses being interlaced throughout.

On the one hand we are given an extremely self-indulging look at Bella and Ed's love for each other, which in the first half of the film is a 30 minute long visualisation of their codependence. But even the scenes when they consummate are shot in such an unrevealing, cocktease manner you feel like the violent wedding night from Part 1 was done right.

Obviously they did that to keep the film at a rating accessible to their biggest tween audience but why put it in at all when we've already spent 4 previous films watching them stare at each other intently and say "I love you" with elementary school vocabulary. If this is love from the teen girls' perspective I am very afraid for teen boys. Of course this aspect of the film I was already aware of since film one and was not a surprise when I entered the theatre.

On the other hand, we have a superhero origin story to deal with in this film, as Bella explores her abilities as a Vampire and tries to hide it from Charlie (her father, who was kind enough to make an appearance in this film to give a very rushed closure to his character arc). This was a very unexpected, and surprisingly intriguing element of the film which kept me awake. Perhaps it's my bias towards that genre, but honestly I feel that this whole vampire transformation should have happened much earlier in the franchise, so that her development as a vampire can be fleshed out in greater depth.

Honestly it is the more interesting part of this world, but it turns out she is a child prodigy and is able to control her urges and powers within the second act, so that it can be displayed in all is glory for the climax. They have talked about the difficulties of becoming a 'newborn' in earlier films through other side characters, but since the story is essentially a narrative from Bella's perspective, I would think that hearing her monologue about her own struggles in managing life as a vampire warrants its own film rather than being squeezed into this final film.

So you can tell by now I am not a very big fan of Bella's character, but which characters did I like? I liked both Edward and Jacob even if they were fairly one-dimensional. I loved moments of clarity that Edward has throughout the film regarding how much problems his relationship with Bella has caused for everyone. I liked Jacob in previous films because he was perhaps the strongest and most developed character of the main trio, but this movie absolutely destroys it due to his relationship with Renesmee. We'll get to that soon.

I appreciated the climax which really surprised me with how well it was executed. Aro (played by Michael Sheen) was so over the top I just couldn't help but smile at his effort. The action was great, though for the entire climax I almost felt like I was watching an entirely different film compared to the first half. The plot twist did catch me off guard and so, while an isolated section of the film, this whole part of the third act was very engaging.

There were also a big bunch of characters introduced that I have never seen before. They showcase their abilities, fight a bit and by the time I left the cinema I forgot half their names. I think there was one vampire who looked like Robert Downey Jr, his son who looks like Guy Sebastian, a few token racial stereotypes who were thrown away as quickly as they were introduced, and a bunch of blondes. But beyond them I have absolutely no recollection of who the other characters were, and especially none of the Volturi army except for the top guys.

Now for the bit of the film that bothered me the most: the morals.

Each of the Twilight movies has had one central theme which generally orients around a morally gray issue. Twilight was talking about forbidden love, New Moon was talking about self-harm, Eclipse was about putting your personal relationship with someone above everything (and everyone) else. Breaking Dawn Part I was about pro-life versus pro-choice. All of them which were handled poorly. However it turns out Breaking Dawn Part II was the worst of the bunch!

The biggest (and arguably the only) problem I have with this film is the 'destined' relationship between Jacob and Bella's newborn Renesmee. This might be a spoiler, but it really bothered me that they were 'meant to be'. There's a word for this type of relationship between a fully grown adult and a pre-teen adolescent. What is it? That's right, pedophilia.

At the start of the film there is some demonstrable outrage showing that it is definitely wrong, but by end of the film everyone was accepting of his part in the family. Pedophilia is not in the queue of social change, but the way the film depicts and gentle-ify their interactions implies that it will eventually be tolerable, even acceptable, like it would be the next thing after same sex marriage. And this is simply wrong.

(By the way, Edward is like over 100 years old when he first starts dating Bella who was still a teenager in the first movie; I'm sensing a common thread here)

This is really unfortunate because, up to "Eclipse", Jacob was my most preferred character in this film. He was good at heart, self-sacrificing, generous and most importantly well developed. However this film completely destroys all respectability and potential for him as a 'role model' by forcing him into being Renesmee's expected partner.

At one point he literally says "I have no choice", with an implication that it is not a medical condition but rather a cultural one. At another point he even went as far as jokingly calling Edward "Dad" after his relationship with Renesmee has been accepted by the Cullens. I was shaking my head at both these scenes. Even if this is all fantasy and not based in reality, trying to rationalise, justify and making tolerable any form of pedophilia in any society is simply wrong. And the fact that this was in the book as well makes me weep for mankind even more.

Fortunately, this is the only moral issue the film addresses poorly. The rest is okay. The music is suitable to the tone of the film, and even though I can't hum any of the tunes right now, I remember them being well composed. The visuals effects are good, the climax was edging on brilliant, and like I said earlier there are many things to laugh at so it wasn't an unbearable experience.

Despite dreading to watch the film at first due to how disappointing and morally concerning Part 1 was, I think Part 2 is definitely a significant improvement, perhaps the best in the franchise as far as watching experience goes. It's still not a good movie per se, but it's not god awful either; just mediocre. And like I said earlier, the best bits of the film are what I didn't expect to be in there. Unfortunately I am still not sold with Bella as a character, even if Kirsten Stewert portrays were really well. And seeing there won't be any more films in this saga, I would say it leaves the fans with horribly twisted concepts of what love is and even more troubling moral sermons. I sincerely hope people know better than to learn how to handle their relationships from these films.


Overall Rating: 5 out of 10.

Recommendation: Don't see it if your morality is shaped by what you see on movies or television. Otherwise, worth a viewing if not just to laugh at it.

The Nitpicks (Spoilers alert)

1. Amongst the Vampires recruited by the Cullens to testify for Renesmee, there are these two vampires with heavy Romanian accents who says they were overthrown by the Volturi about 1500 years ago, which is their motivation to join the Cullens in their expected confrontation.
   
   If they wanted to take vengeance upon the Volturi, and given how fast the Cullens rallied 18 vampires to their cause (I think it was less than a week in the movies' timeframe), how have they not at least attempted to usurp the Volturi in all those centuries!?!? So based on their motivations, they should have either been destroyed for trying some time in the past, or have taken over the Volturi by now. Their presence baffles me.
2. Renesmee being a half human half vampire, grows at an accelerated rate, and so within the movie we see her grow from a newborn infant to a young adolescent. Lets say the time lapse was about 6 months before the conflict with the Volturi begins. How on Earth does she learn so fast!?!? I mean she knows how to walk, speak, use her abilities and comprehend concepts like testifying in defence of someone and stranger danger? Maybe being a half vampire it means your brain never tires and functions at 100%. Maybe she's like her mother the prodigy vampire.
3. The J. Jenks guy just makes me laugh. He is the mysterious "man in black" ally of Alice and Jasper who helps them forge passports for Renesmee and Jacob in case things turn for the worse (I think). He is obviously not a vampire, and obviously he is very aware of the Cullen family.
   
   He claims to have worked with Alice and Jasper for a total of 35 years, and it is clear he does meet his clients in person. So shouldn't he somewhat know that the Cullens aren't exactly human? Doesn't this violate the vampires secrecy act? Well maybe he's like Charlie; he sort of knows but not exactly so he's exempt from persecution.
4. Were those passports and the whole sherlock holmes clue trail for Bella necessary? In the final confrontation Alice shows Aro the future should he choose to attack the Cullens, which involves most of his army being dispatched, including himself at the end of the vision.
   
   In that alternate future Aro simply sends a few men to chase after Renesmee, so you could argue that by helping Bella know her daughter will be safe with Jacob, she can focus on the battle at hand and so they would claim victory within the vision so that the Aro in reality would hesitate to turn hostile and retreat instead. But I think Bella would've asked Jacob to take Renesmee to safety either ways if they knew a battle was about to break out, so the whole passport subplot was entirely pointless. Maybe Alice just wanted to show off what a mastermind she was.

Taken 2 (2012)

Action movie villains are stupid. And this pretty much summarizes the major problem with this film. I was a fan of the first movie, primarily because it provided a strong protagonist with a convincing character backdrop to suspend your disbelief despite how formulaic and cliche it really was. This film gave us exactly the same story, same tone, same tempo but delivers poorly in comparison, a large part due to the reduced scope of the antagonists. Also, this movie relies heavily on the fact that you've already seen its predecessor to understand the character motivations and most of the interactions in the first half.

In the first film, we had a story where an former CIA operative Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) straining to re-establish his relationship with his naive daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) and ends up having to save her as she gets herself entangled in a large scale human trafficking operation in Europe. Thus the difficulty of the rescue operation was more sophisticated and genuinely required his past skills and contacts to make his mission possible (and plausible). The second film was a revenge story played very straight, and there was no thrill; from about halfway into the movie any action film lover could already recite the remainder of the plot.

What are the positives? I'd say the daughter was the most interesting character in this film. I guess partly she had a lot more material to work with. She was kidnapped, drugged, sold as a high-price sex slave and saved by her dad at gunpoint in the previous film. Having to move back into a regular life after this type of trauma is not easy, and Grace does portray these challenges convincingly. It also gives her strong motivation to step up when her family needs her to.

The scenes with Grace in bikinis was a bit of naughty fan service. Unnecessary and inconsequential to the story, yes, but the marketing people decided they needed the sex appeal to fill more seats in the theaters (especially for the trailer). At least she is now over 16 and of legal age I guess (or over 18 since the film's set in Turkey).

Neeson delivers a similar performance as in the first film but with no memorable one-liners; a let down by action movie standards and this franchise's standard. The mother receives no character development in this story. She is just a damsel in distress like her daughter was in the first film. In fact I would say she was less convincing in this film despite having a lot more screen time, as we don't see her have any meaningful interactions other than "I miss you".

But the biggest negative ultimately is the antagonists in this film. While their motivation to hunt Bryan's family is understandable, their capabilities to track down and find Bryan's family is comparatively superior to their gun-power  Seriously, it's been over 40 years since action films of this flavor has been around, and no villains decides to take proper fighting/shooting lessons? This type of formula makes me want to skip all action films altogether because it's so predictable and unsuspenseful. And just like how the mother is very one-note, the villains also only have one dimension: "He will pay!"

I think the only time the bad guys within Hollywood films are anywhere near competent is when we the audience are expected to be rooting for them. Here I am talking about films such as Ocean's 11, Inception, and to a lesser extent Entrapment, where the protagonist are actually bad guys or do work that is ethically wrong. Funnily, these are all heist films; I'm sensing this is the other action film formula Hollywood producers alternate to try and camouflage how little credit they give to their audience.

The only exception to these rule I can think of right now is The Terminator series, and perhaps that is why it is considered such a great franchise by both moviegoers and film critic standards, because they worked hard to make the villains genuinely threatening and memorable even if the end result is the same. Times like these I turn to independent films to help push the envelope on how to make a different action flick with fresher ideas.

Anyway I digress. So what's my overall verdict? I loved Liam Neeson and Maggie Grace's performance, the action was standard, and the villains are too plain and painfully cliche. If you liked Taken and hoped this would be another great addition to the franchise, I recommend you just re-watch Taken instead. If you haven't watched either films before, just the first one.

4.0 / 10

P.S. I referred to this film like it was a Hollywood production: I know this is actually a French film, but this film uses their formula, so I still label it as "made by Hollywood".

The Nitpicks 

(Spoilers alert!)

There aren't too many nitpicks this time. I assume moviegoers have accepted the common cliches no matter how farfetched or ridiculous they really are. So I've only listed more serious ones, or the ones that bothered me:

• Near the earlier part of the film when the Albanians first tried to chase and kidnap Bryan, they shot at his car through the front window, which could have killed him, when their boss specifically instructed them not to. Perhaps they were just shooting to scare and slow him down, but given how bad they shoot in the rest of the film they probably could have killed him.
• After Bryan and Lenore gets kidnapped, Bryan secretly calls Kim and asks her to throw a grenade so that he can estimate their distance from each other using the delay in sound. The first explosion takes about 4, maybe 5 seconds to reach his ears, and he determines they are 4.5km apart. Firstly, the speed of sound is actually much slower than that, and should have taken about 13 seconds if they are that far apart. Secondly, unless that's a custom made sound grenade, the explosion of standard granades are hard to hear even at 1km away. Thirdly, those throws are pretty good for someone who has never operated a grenade before. Sign her up as the main star for Taken 3; she's got her father's genes!
  
  I'm sure no one would bother doing the maths during the film, but that first grenade throw was a major distraction for me. The most important aspect of this film, in fact what holds it together and keeps our suspense of disbelief, is that Neeson's character pays extreme attention to details, and so he shouldn't and wouldn't make such a miscalculation. In fact if we were factually correct his daughter should have failed to find them.
• Around the middle of the film, Bryan and Kim, after losing their trail of Albanian mobsters, crashes through the US embassy's gates with a stolen taxi to drop off Kim so she can protected. The next scene is literally Neeson just back on the streets of Istanbul trying to backtrack his way to the mob's base. Why didn't the soldiers or diplomats stop him? He just barged into the embassy terrorist style, endangering the lives of many american soldiers and also having to explain to Turkish government the series of deaths and car accidents he left behind. It's really hard to accept that his friends could buy him out of the political complications he just caused.
  
  Also later on in the film we see Kim finally getting her driver's license, despite having gone on a road rage earlier without any license and breaking hundreds of road rules in the span of 3 minutes. Maybe Bryan convinced the soldiers he was the one driving, but either ways I think the US government would have a few more questions before letting her take the exams again.
• At the end of the film where Bryan had killed off all the low ranks and now confronting the big shots, why didn't Murad (the main boss) carry a gun? Before we arrived at this confrontation they already established their intention to simply kill his wife. When they knock her unconscious to use her as bait so he would go towards her, they could easily have finished them both off at point blank range, which is a much bigger win according to their plan. Instead they have a fist fight, where the big boss could have easily shot Bryan while he was distracted with fighting the surprisingly skilled torturer. Action movie villains are stupid.
• They didn't make anything of Kim's boyfriend! He has two scenes, one early on and one at the very end. He does look slightly Albanian and have some semblance to Murad. Wouldn't it have been more interesting if he was secretly the fourth son of Murad, managed to trick Bryan with a clean-looking background, and tries to kill Bryan at the very end of the movie when he was invited along to their fish and chips dinner? Fake outs are common in action films, but it's a potentially awesome way to end the film! Maybe they'll save it for the next film (if there is one). Maybe there will be an alternative ending with this twist, but I'm still not going to buy the DVD.

Film in 2012 so far

Having started this blog late into the year I feel a bit bad as I did miss out on reviewing some of the bigger films during their run. But rather trying to accomplish the overly time-consuming task of writing the 2000 word essays for every movie that came out this year, even just the ones with wider (Australian) release, I'll just do a single paragraph overall impression of the ones I have seen this year. And just in case you're wondering, they are in the order that I saw them at the movies, not from worst to best.


The Vow

I am not a big fan of romance comedy or romance drama and only watch maybe one a year at the big screen. Most of the time it's too cheesy, too emotionally manipulative or just not interesting, and only a handful of exceptions did I enjoy. The Vow was one of those exceptions. I think the whole 'based on a true story' or 'based on a real person' sub-genre is very unpredictable because Hollywood loves to make all sorts of changes to make the film more marketable. And so the real story may be lost in scripting and direction. However, this film was sincere, and even though there were definitely some changes to the actual events and dumbing down of the christian elements, I think it has some warm moments and heartbreaking scenes/dialogue that captured the reality the real couple went through.

Rating: 8.5/10. Recommendation: Watch once or twice, and also read the story behind the movie.


The Secret World of Arrietty

This was the first of Hayao Miyazaki's films that he did not actually direct. I've actually already looked at it in 2010 when the Japanese language version came out (finally putting my Dip.Lang to good use, sort of). However, I watched the English one as well since the dubbing effort is critical in transferring the effectiveness of the film to western audiences without losing the Japanese touch. I liked how intricate the movie was, seeing how all the borrowers interact with the relatively giant worlds, there was quite a bit of thought put into all the details and daily life routines which in my opinion is what made Miyazaki's earlier work so successful. However the story is a bit too quirky, sometimes hard to follow and the setting much more contemporary, which makes the film's world harder to buy. The translation/dubbing is okay but I would say the Japanese version is superior. And why are they called Borrowers? They never return anything!

Rating: 6/10 for English version, 7.5/10 for Japanese version. Recommendation: Watch once, then watch the Miyazaki's older works (Howl's Moving Castle and earlier)


The Lorax

It sucked. The animation was nothing new, the character was more annoying than whimsical simplicity. I think Dr Seuss is rolling in his grave. It doesn't treat children with much respect and thinks they aren't smart enough without being littered more visual 'clues'. The only thing I would say is a plus is that they did manage to stay faithful in the design of the visuals and the main character, but barely.

Rating 4/10. Recommendation: Don't bother.


A Thousand Words

I think Eddie Murphy has really really past his prime now. All his more recent films, especially the comedy ones, are just not funny. The jokes are recycled, his movies' premises are interesting but not exploited well, and a lot of the scripts seem very forced. This movie is no exception.

Rating 3/10.

Recommndation: Don't bother.


The Hunger Games

This was actually a really well crafted film. Initially it did not appeal to me for its similarity to Battle Royale in its premise. However looking back I have to say they are very different: the children in Battle Royale were high school classmates, having known each other, dated each other and studied together for years (in Japan subject teachers move around classrooms so you have all the subjects with the same group of people). In this film Katniss only barely knew Pete prior to selection; the rest were all strangers and so killing each other was a slightly less big deal. Thus the stakes are different, and the psychology of the whole game is also different.

I did appreciate (but not exactly like) how bizarre and extravegant the elites are, but I don't agree with most of the professional critics who said Jennifer Lawrence did a spectacular job portraying Katniss. She's definitely more expressive than Kirsten Stewert in Twilight (Bella), but falling far short of many other young actresses (Emma Thompson and Chloe Grace Moretz to name a couple). I liked her work in X-Men: First Class a bit better. But nonetheless the movie actually passed the tests in my opinion, and is definitely a better brain food for teens and young adults than a few other franchises in this 'niche'.

Rating: 7.5/10. Recommendation: Watch once or twice, then read the 3 books before the sequel comes out.


The Avengers

I don't care whether Peter Jackson's Hobbit movie is going to be good or not. THIS WAS MY FAVORITE MOVIE OF THE YEAR!!! And judging by online polls and many other critics' reviews, the favorite movie of millions of other moviegoers as well. I didn't actually grow up reading Marvel comics (was more into Manga/Anime) but I think that there has never been a movie that was as anticipated as this one in my lifetime. They literally made 6 other movies to build up to this one! That's not just a huge gamble financially, but also sets an example of whether using smaller movies to promote bigger movies is a feasible franchise strategy.

What can I say everyone else hasn't already said? The action was great, the story is well written, the characters are surprisingly developed even if you didn't watch the other films, it's just so so funny I almost feel like there is no way they could top it in the future films! I sincerely hope this isn't their peak and now it's just sequel downhills, but for one brief moment, I think I've witnessed brilliance in the comic book/superhero genre that even non-geeks and non-nerds could appreciate and enjoy.

Rating: 10/10.

Recommendation: Watch it to your hearth's content. I'm waiting for the collector's edition. :D


Men in Black 3

This was a pleasant surprise given how disappointing MIB 2 was. This film re-captured the style and charisma of the first film, but also giving a very touching story which I think developed Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones' characters a lot more than the first two films combined. The aliens were fun as usual, the jokes were updated, although the villain was really bland, straightforward and predictable, I think the rest of the movie makes up for it threefold. John Brolin does an excellent job being young Agent K, and honestly I thought that it was some pro CGI effort to make Tommy look 30 (maybe 20) years younger. A satisfying experience, though this movie being the one I watched after The Avengers I may be more generous and in a cheerier mood when looking at this film ^_^

Rating: 8/10. Recommendation: Watch once or twice, then wait for Blu-Ray, then MIB marathon time!


Snow White and the Huntsman

The movie itself isn't half-bad. There's virtually nothing to do with the disney version and from what I heard is better than the other snow white movie that came out this year, but it's just really really hard not to watch this film and imagine Bella and Thor.

I think it was just too distracting because their character's personality is virtually a copy of their more famous roles. This made it super hard to judge this movie without drawing comparisons, but like I said it's not bad. At least it kept my gaze for the entire screening unlike some other movie.

Rating: 6.5/10. Recommendation: Watch once.


Brave

I think this is one of Pixar's weaker movies, but given how high their bar has been in the past decade, I think it's still pretty good. The story is very reminiscent of fairy tales/folklores, it's nice to see a strong and realistic heroine + family, and I think there's plenty of fun and moral lesson for kids and adults. Of all the Pixar movies I would say it's slightly better than Cars and Cars 2 but slightly worse than Monsters Inc. I don't remember the details of the movie which is rare, but the emotions I felt watching the movie was definitely positive, though I was slightly disappointed because they've been on a roll between Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3.

Rating: 7.5/10.

Recommendation: Watch once, and buy Pixar collection when it comes out.


The Amazing Spider Man

I think Andrew Garfield's spiderman is definitely closer to the comics than Tobey Maguire and a lot more interesting to watch. However, I liked the original spiderman series more. I thought they were the ones responsible for opening the doors for big production companies to explore the superhero genre again since the box office and/or critical failures in the 90s. Spiderman 2 in my opinion is one of the best 5 superhero movies ever.

Also this movie had to compete against two other bigger superheros films Batman and The Avengers, and I think it's a clear loser in that respect. Having said that I did enjoy the film on its own it was just hard to embrace it when it wasn't even 10 years since I saw the 'original' one, a term I use lightly because most ideas are recycled and repackaged in Hollywood these days.

Rating: 7/10. Recommendation: Watch once or twice, but don't buy until we see how good the sequels are.


Hmm now for the real challenge: should I resort to doing Top ## lists for movies from past years/decades? Guess we'll see in the coming months!

Looper (2012)

Looper is basically the love child of Inception, Back to the Future and Bruce Willis, though a slightly inferior product. It has the intelligence and the 'continuous revelation' style of storytelling as Inception, it tries to tackle the semantics of time travel, all the while delivering the virtually mindless action of people shooting at Bruce. I think by this movie he has probably starred in the same role over 50 movies, the only difference this time is that he used guns more than his body for the fights. In fact he's basically just playing John McClane in this movie, though he actually does die. I am growing tired of his character in the genre, but I don't see many better alternatives in the horizon so I'll just smile when the director subtly pokes fun at Bruce's other movies.

<Spoiler Alert>

I enjoyed the film during the screening though the second and third act felt really uneven in its pacing as well as the overall atmosphere. The opening shot was brilliant, and was just that: Young Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) shoots his mark right on schedule, no hesitation; like a boss. Those first 2 minutes of the movie basically set the tone for the first act. It was shocking, it was cold, it was exactly what the trailers indicated the film would be like.

Unlike Total Recall, which shows us its vision of the future, Looper tells us through Joe's monologue, and through an almost POV approach to establish the environment where the fights and climax are (where we expect) to take place later. The future portrayed is perhaps closer to home but we mostly see two extremes: the slum-like, crime-infested underworld of urban city, and the traditional farmland lightly fashioned with hovering watering systems that would make FarmVille enthusiasts (addicts) jealous.

In this respect I think the film doesn't do very well, at least in the sense of creating a conceivable future. There is little explanation of why the future from the perspective of the plot's setting becomes seemingly totalarian where no one can escape the eyes of the government or law enforcement (imagine Google becoming the world leader and abolishes privacy). I say this because the whole purpose of the Looper program as described by Joe is to get rid of people in the past where killing and hiding corpses is much easier.

Unfortunately we only had one fast-tracked view of Joe's first time through the story's space time continuum (where he does kill his older self and enjoys his 30 years before being captured and sent back). It happens so fast that most people were trying more to follow Joe's 30 years than to appreciate details of the world as it progresses to the future from which old Joe is sent back. The rest of the future is left for us to imagine after a very basic description, mostly describing the crime syndicate than what the rest of the world is like. Maybe that's the idea but lets move on.

Both Willis and Gordon-Levitt's performances were good, though not great, and I honestly felt they could have shared some more dialogues and played around with the whole "how will I become you". I guess the idea was that Willis is a reformed, reborn man after having met his Chinese wife some time in the future, having been rehabilitated from recreational drugs and also ended his life as a hitman. That's another thing, if he's stopped fighting for like 7 years prior to being sent back into the past for his execution how is he still so good, taking down not only his younger self but also the entire looper organisation? I guess it's because he's BRUCE WILLIS! Ahh, beautiful 80's action cliches.

While I enjoyed this film, the movie does have problems.

The first problem I had was this whole idea of the "Rainmaker", who is basically a kid born with exceptional telekinesis ability mostly drawn out during emotional situations. I think his name was Syd or something. So old Joe, after dispatching his executioners in the future, still chooses to travel back in time so that he can kill the Rainmaker, who in 2044 was still a kid living on a farm with his stepmum/aunt. By the end of the film we learn that it is because old Joe kills his mother during the confrontation that he harbors anger and hatred, thus motivating him to step up the crime ladder and creating the Looper program. This closes the continuum's loop and prompts young Joe to kill himself to rid everyone of the horrible future that would have eventuated.

Putting aside the farfetched idea of '10% of people mutating to have telekinesis' (X-Men ripoff), if the Rainmaker does become so powerful that he not only controls all criminal activities in the future, but also destroys entire cities using his telekinesis, why didn't he send more protection for his own younger self? Or save his mum from old Joe? The science in the film's world indicates it follows the self-consistency principle of time travel the closest, so he knows whatever he changes in the past will immediately affect his future rather than branch off to another parallel timeline (i.e. there is one reality, one spacetime continuum and all paradoxes created by time travellers will resolve itself). I mean if they were okay to send back Abe permanently (head of the present day looper organisation), I would assume the Rainmaker could have given instructions to Abe to keep an eye out for, well, the film's equivalent of the anti-Christ. Just saying.

The second problem, and probably a more serious problem from a storytelling point of view, is the disconnection between the young Joe's life and the old Joe's life, especially the love interests. There were zero attempts to try and reconcile them. First we are shown Joe has a lover in the present day, whom later we discover had a child old Joe hesitates to kill. Then we are shown that Joe has a wife in the future (different girl), but then as the story progresses in the second half Joe meets and gets in bed with Sara (farm mum). We get a brief scene showing that old Joe's memories are being modified to include these encounters and yet somehow still end up meeting his future wife, but this is never addressed in the busyness of dealing with the other loopers and trying to kill Seth (the kid version of the Rainmaker).

Through most of the second act as young Joe becomes acquainted with Sara I was honestly led to believe old Joe's life was gradually eroding due to the decreasing likelihood he would follow the same retirement path. Also he was fairly clean of drugs by the climax so there wouldn't be a need for old Joe to have someone clean him up 25 years down the track! Also the fact that young Joe made out with Sara I basically assumed that old Joe would not have a future with the Chinese lady any more. I think Rian Johnson (director) was aware of this flaw in his final cut, as he does add a scene at the end where Sara closes young Joe's pocket watch without revealing the photo side. Hmm actually young Joe wouldn't have that photo yet since it's only the old Joe who has encountered her in the future, so this scene might have been pointless. Never mind.

The third and biggest annoyance to me (before I move onto nitpicking) was Kid Blue, the young looper who is head of the "gat-man" and also tries desperately to impress Abe. This character was fairly pointless in the first half, seems to be young Joe's lesser rival and a relatively high up in the organisation. Through the entire film he is ridiculed, undervalued and tossed aside by Abe because of his incompetency. He later tries to earn Abe's approval by capturing old Joe on his own, which in turn led to the death of everyone in the looper organisation except himself. And furthermore, he pursues young Joe near the farm and ends up dying. And that's his story arc finished. In fact we don't even see him die with any dramatic facial expression. He is literally gunned down and the next scene is his corpse lying somewhere in the bottom left corner of the scene since our cameraman is focusing back on both Joes. Almost like "gosh that guy was a nuisance, now back to business."

There were a few scenes which hinted at a possibly deeper relationship between Abe and Kid Blue, suggesting either that Abe is Kid Blue's older self, or that Kid Blue was Abe's first pick. However this is neither explored nor confirmed, and even when he finds Abe dead there is no establishing shot of what their relationship might have been or were. This really really bugged me because aside from the main characters he was the only other character that had strong motivations, significant dialogue and screen time, so I wanted him to be more critical to the story's development.

Actually, Kid Blue reminds me of that Andrew Brandt from Equilibrium. He basically brings the protagonist (if I can call old Joe a protagonist) into the headquarters to their detriment. However in the larger picture he is neither remembered nor important from any of the characters' perspective. But thanks to his overzealousness we managed to get Bruce Willis in the middle of a group of bad guys. He will not leave without an incident.

But most of these problems are relatively minor compared to the enjoyment the film did bring me. The idea is cool, the acting is well done, anything that replicates Inception successfully deserves respect, and having Bruce Willis single-handedly take down all the bad guys, always a pleasure. I would say I enjoyed this more than the other films I've seen this year (except The Avengers), though far less than the films I believe it to be inspired by. Ultimately, time travel stories are hard to get right, if ever, and when you put Bruce Willis in the middle of it you know things are going to get ugly, but mostly in a good way.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Recommendation: Watch once at the movies, then wait for the DVD to go on sale.


Extra nitpicks:

• there are a few nudity/sexy scenes that were completely unnecessary, especially the one that helps establish the intimate relationship between young Joe and his stripper girlfriend. It actually complicated the story in a bad way since we discover later that she actually has a son. Is that son young Joe's or some other guy's. If it's the latter did Joe know about it? They don't resolve this arc and so it becomes one of many questions that is neither philosophically nor socially challenging. It becomes more like a TV soap's episodic cliffhanger to try and reel you in for the next episode, which there won't be any since young Joe is dead.
• the film's future world is confusing. We get told that it's virtually impossible to dispose of a body and not get tracked. Technically sending someone back in time is the same as kidnapping them and shooting them into space on a one-way rocket, right? I mean their phyiscal presence seems to be what's being tracked and even if they can't be found the fact that they're missing means an investigation would still be underway. Weird.
• the film's future world is really confusing. If the Rainmaker has such a powerful crime syndicate why can't they change how the tracking program works so that the people they want to eliminate are not tracked/monitored by the police or something? I mean if they can level cities at will I'm sure changing a few government policies isn't too much to ask for!
• the film's future world is also kind of dumb. Why would they send the people they want to eliminate back in time by only 30 years!?!? Yes, technically they don't exist yet so there's a legal looperhole. But if the bodies aren't disposed of properly, or if one of their marks escapes (like in the movie), they would leave something that could be traced, recorded, documented etc. Then 30 years in the future when the person goes missing they could just dig up the archives to look for anomalies in the past.
  
  If I were this crime organisation and needed to eliminate people via time-travel I would just send them back 100000 years before civilization was around, so that no matter what they did they were dead, and you'd save the money you spent paying those hitman whose job was just to shoot whatever popped up on the rug. But I guess if they did that, we wouldn't have this movie :)