In my opinion, the two best series of trailers for 2014 have been Unbroken and American Sniper. These were two of, if not the, most anticipated movies of the year for more. I apologize to Foxcatcher, which had a fantastic trailer and was a movie I was looking forward to. It not only met but exceeded expectations. These two Christmas Day movies have had me buzzing for months. Unfortunately, as the reviews began pouring in, I realized these movies would probably fall short of expectations. American Sniper is currently in the 70% range on Rotten Tomatoes, while Unbroken was way down at around 50%. I have not yet seen American Sniper, but based on the small reviews I have read, I believe I know where it was going to fall short. I think that if outsiders had screened this movie before its completion, there could have been some influence on the film’s sequencing that would better tell Chris Kyle’s story after his tours of duty. Again, this is my prediction before viewing the movie, but I have a feeling I’m going to say that it was a good movie that could have potentially been in my top ten of all time. Unfortunately, I did not feel the same way about Unbroken. The trailer didn’t live up to the movie, and I’m not sure any editing could have changed that. I found this movie to be very disappointing.
This was a good story that probably should have been told. I don’t know. There are thousands upon thousands of great stories that could be said that never are. This one certainly had stuff to offer, but I don’t know if it needed to be shown on such a grand stage. I’ve heard the book was excellent. I did not read it, but I’ve talked to a handful of people, and no one has said anything. But maybe it should have stayed a book. Or perhaps it needed to be in the hands of a better director. In just her second effort as a director, Angelina Jolie (Girl, Interrupted, Changeling) underwhelms. Her first film (In the Land of Blood and Honey) didn’t have the same commercial expectations, but it was expected to fair well with the critics. It did not. It earned similar marks as Unbroken. Perhaps Jolie will figure it out, or maybe the movies she has the most success in will continue to be the ones in which she is front of the camera. Whatever the case may be, this movie missed its mark.
Telling the story of Olympian and World War II war hero Louis “Louie” Zamperini (Jack O’Connell – ’71, 300: Rise of an Empire) who, after crash landing in the Pacific Ocean, is marooned on a life raft for 47 days with his crewmen Phil (Domhnall Gleeson – About Time, Anna Karenina) and Mac (Finn Wittrock – Noah, Winter’s Tale). Surviving dehydration, starvation, sunstroke, and shark-infested waters (to name a few), Louie is eventually captured by the Japanese Navy. He becomes a prisoner-of-war where he is specifically singled out by an up-and-coming Japanese Officer Watanabe (Takamasa Ishihara) because he is an Olympic athlete. As a result, he puts Louie through much more treacherous circumstances than the other prisoners in the camp. Watanabe wants to look tough, while Louie and his fellow prisoners want to survive.
Now I think there are many problems with the movie. The first is that it contains very little drama. I never felt like Louie wasn’t going to make it. He never felt broken to me. I never felt the hardships he was made to endure were anything worse than many of the other films I’ve seen. A few that come to mind are Rescue Dawn, The Shawshank Redemption, and Murder In the First. Even movies like Brothers or The Wrestler evoked much more emotion from me. All five of these movies had directors who knew they had to bring out the best in their leads. And frankly, Jolie was not able to do that with O’Connell. Granted, a young Jack O’Connell is not Christian Bale, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Toby Maguire, or Mickey Rourke (all but Maguire and Bacon have Oscar nods, and even those two have Golden Globe nominations). Jolie took many risks with this movie, with one of her bigger ones being who she cast as her lead. He did a fine job, but it wasn’t gripping. He wasn’t awesome. He did his best, and it’s not like he was awful. However, the drama wasn’t there, and I felt that would have been the movie’s most significant selling point.
The second problem was the other characters in the movie. They were nearly indistinguishable from one another. Not a single one of them stood out for me. I mean, Phil and Mac in the raft were memorable because it was just the three of them for a good 45 minutes. But even their personality traits didn’t come out. Mac was the pessimistic one. Phil was the one who was easily influenced. Louie was the one who had to hold them all together. And then, when they were in the POW camp, I wouldn’t have been able to pull one of them out of a lineup. It was like they were just there as background noise as Louie’s story was being told.
Now I did like the flashbacks to Louie as a boy and how he went on to compete in the Olympics. I’m a sucker for good flashbacks in a movie, and Unbroken did an excellent job with this. The relationship Louie had with his older brother and his entire family was special, and that was evident. There might have been a little too much racing, but maybe not. I felt like Jolie didn’t overdo it but could have told the same story with fewer flashbacks. And for as many flashbacks as there were in the first half of the film, they all but disappeared in the second half. She got away from the way that she was telling the story.
Ultimately though, this movie failed for me because it just wasn’t interesting enough. It barely held my attention, and by the time they reached the POW camp, I was checking my watch to see how much longer I had to go before he persevered through his hardships and was rescued. I don’t think I’m giving away anything that the movie’s title, Unbroken, doesn’t already give away. He lives. But I knew that going in without even doing a single bit of research on him. It was a pretty darn easy movie to predict, especially if you watched a single preview.
Plot 6.5/10 (a drama with very little drama…maybe I’ve seen too many quality dramas, but this didn’t compare)
Character Development 6.5/10 (Louie could have been developed much bird…same with “The Bird”…same with every other character in the movie)
Character Chemistry 6.5/10 (you hardly even get to know any of the other characters in the camp…they are virtually indistinguishable)
Acting 6.5/10 (surprisingly below average)
Screenplay 6/10 (I believe it was a great book, but it didn’t translate to the big screen)
Directing 6/10 (Angelina Jolie might prove to be a great director, but she’s not there yet)
Cinematography 8.5/10
Sound 7/10
Hook and Reel 7/10 (three acts…first one isn’t bad… the second one is a little worse…by the time they get to the prisoner-of-war camp, all interest is lost)
Universal Relevance 7/10
67.5%
Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie
- Rescue Dawn
- Hart’s War
- Hacksaw Ridge
- Amistad
- Foxcatcher