Escape to the Movies: The Giver - Don't Bother Giving This Movie Your Time

[fnartilter]

Didn't know this movie existed until you reviewed it, MovieBob. Guess I'll forget about it now.

Is the book any good? I'm guessing it isn't actually a teen drama?

 

[LobsterFeng]

Thanks for reviewing The Giver Bob. I wanna believe you did it because I said you should last week.

 

[jFr[e]ak93]

Boy, that "COMMUNITY" gag got old real quick.

Agreed. I liked it the first two times... that was when the joke died for me...

OT - I get the movie sucks, but I got a bit of a negative vibe getting sent toward the book...
I think the book would be a fantastic movie, assuming they respect it. They didn't in this case.

The book is Jonas realizing that he loves people that can't love him back and his reaction to it. It's not some huge sweeping "free people from the tyranny." There is a bit of that. But it's not some one man army rebellion.

That book deserves better.

 

[DirgeNovak]

This is the reason Cameron Monaghan missed the first half of the season of Shameless this year? Ooookay.

 

[lazinesslord]

This had to have been the most obnoxious episode of Escape to the Movies yet. Seriously, that community joke got old after the second time.

 

[klaynexas3]

I feel like you could have gotten away with that community joke like three times at most. The first time of course is fine, the second for a reiterating running gag, the third to drive it home and acknowledge that it was getting old and stop it right there.

As for the movie, I never read the book, I might after I finally finish reading LotR(of course then I still need to finish Dark Tower, and then I'm told to read other books and I've still got those 600+ issues of Spider-man to read), so I have no interest in a shitty movie about a book I never read.

 

[K12]

I don't know about anyone else but I laughed at the Dun Dun Dun every time. Mainly because I kept thinking each one was the last.

 

[Xman490]

The "Community!" gag is so overdone here that I don't remember anything about this review besides Bob stating its premise and saying it's bland.

And at the end, there was... Dragon Quest Warriors? Dragon Quest 3DS? I can't even tell. Stupid cutscene trailers.

 

[MB202]

The Giver sounds like John Carter and Ender's Game, in that it's a story and/or concept that made have been original and unique back in it's day but by now has become cliche so it doesn't feel unique, despite being one of the first to do what it did. Also, thanks for reminding me of Pleasantville, that was a pretty good movie. Also also, yeah, the community thing was funny at first, but rule of thum with running gags, if you're going to do it repeatedly, be sure to change it up a bit as you do so.

 

[teamcharlie]

So...community:
"n . A group of people living in the same locality and under the same government.
n. The district or locality in which such a group lives.
n. A group of people having common interests: the scientific community; the international business community.
n. A group viewed as forming a distinct segment of society: the gay community; the community of color."

Community is not an inherently positive or negative term. None of these definitions say "...who all get together to do something good." It's neutral. It's always inclusive of certain people and always excludes certain people. White people are not part of the community of color, people who identify as straight are not part of the gay community, gay people are not part of the straight community.

It's certainly not always a bad thing: sometimes the 'community' comes together for a bake sale to help buy blankets for their local orphanage. But sometimes the 'community' comes together to lynch somebody for the [sarcasm] horrible crime [/sarcasm] of being black or gay or whatever. Neither of these appears to be an inappropriate usage of the term 'community.' So I think Bob may just be missing the point on the story's criticism of any and all happy communities being inherently good things.

I'd also guess that the 'community' in the movie is guilty of genocide, given that Jeff Bridges and whoever have memories of people of color, but I don't recall a single not-white face in the movie's present.

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

Boy, that "COMMUNITY" gag got old real quick.

Yup!

Especially when I didn't get it.

 

[Callate]

The first time the Community Joke came up, I laughed. And because Community is also my favorite TV show, I got an extra chuckle or two from the next time and the one after that...but then it got reeeeeeal old real fast.

I know there's that comedy rule about if you do something long enough it stops being funny but if you keep doing it it becomes REALLY funny (which is sometimes true) ...I don't think that applied here.

There are ways to make such a gag work, but this wasn't one of them. You can do some slight variations on the theme, allowing the audience a little jolt of surprise that can turn into amusement (which is part of the reason something like Dramatic Chipmunk can get more than one chuckle). You can use timing to make the audience feel like they're "in" on the joke ("...wait for it..."); you can "escalate" the joke until it becomes absurd ("Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!").

But just playing the same joke, more than three times, in the midst of more-or-less "straight" commentary- just begins to annoy.

...Like, well, explaining a joke.

 

[kajinking]

Man you know a movie is going to be bad when Bob's review of it is literally the first you hear of it's existence.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

I always thought the point of a failed utopia as an archetype was it was supposed to be somewhat tragic, showing how a good idea can be be perverted into something horrible (Rapture, The Brave New World society, etc). Not to be confused with a False Utopia, which is basically a dystopia that nobody realizes is such.

 

[GoodNewsOke]

I have never heard of The Giver. Is it American high school material or something? The idea sound alright so I might give the book a look (unless it's too long).

Community gag was good but done one too many times. Just to throw my 2 cents into the ring...

 

[daxterx2005]

Boy, that "COMMUNITY" gag got old real quick.

I was actually coming in here to type that. Uhgggg it was annoying.

On another note what was that game at the end?

 

[Urh]

Boy, that "COMMUNITY" gag got old real quick.

I was on board for the first two horn kicks, after that it just got grating. I guess Bob needed to shoehorn in all seven of them to pad out the running time

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

I have a feeling Bob reused the community joke so much just to pad out the run time, because this film is so boring and stupid there is NOTHING to talk about here.

The Giver sounds like John Carter and Ender's Game, in that it's a story and/or concept that made have been original and unique back in it's day but by now has become cliche so it doesn't feel unique, despite being one of the first to do what it did. Also, thanks for reminding me of Pleasantville, that was a pretty good movie. Also also, yeah, the community thing was funny at first, but rule of thum with running gags, if you're going to do it repeatedly, be sure to change it up a bit as you do so.

I also have the feeling the studio wanted this to be another "Hunger Games" (we also had Divergent and the upcoming Maze Runner trying to take a bite out of that apple) without really understanding the book at all. As Bob mentioned, it was a book stooped in Metaphor, no sign of a "big red plot button" in sight.

 

[Bindal]

Boy, that "COMMUNITY" gag got old real quick.

Yup!

Especially when I didn't get it.

The sound effect should make it sound "dramatic" and the word itself is supposed to take something evil. Usually used in VERY old movies and cartoons - or more parodies of. It's not a joke on the anything called community but on the WORD community being used in a negative context.

 

[Shalok]

Just a thought Bob, why don't you follow Yahtzee and do some classic reviews when the drought is as bad as this?