Escape to the Movies: The Road

[MercenaryCanary]

Man, I was actually kind of hoping that this movie wouldn't suck. Ah well. Where, oh where can I get more apocalyptic scenario movies?

...

Yeah, I know thats a stupid question.

 

[oliveira8]

The beeping is The Escapist decision not the authors of the videos. You telling me that you didn't notice the beeping in ZP?

Do you have any proof of this or is it speculation? I didn't hear any beeping over the cursing in the most recent ZP review, where he said such things as "skull fucked".

EDIT: looking over it again, methinks you may have been being sarcastic. It's hard to tell in text.

I was not. I remenber them being bleeped. And people complaining about it last week. And there was a user that posted Russ Pitt response over the censor thingie that The Escapist had to keep the content to a PG-13 level. Let me scour the forums!

 

[snitchy]

I felt that the Road -- the book version -- was overly pretentious and fell flat due to the lack of sympathetic characters and real plot. Run-on sentences and the lack of punctuation should not win you a Pulitzer Prize. I haven't read it in a year or so but from what I remember, the two mains just wander around observing the horrors of the post-apocalypse without ever truly getting involved. There are snippets of terrible things in the world at large -- the people being harvested in the basement, the troops marching off to war -- but we had to focus on these two main characters that refused to get involved.

I suppose that that was the point of the book: to be a showcase for the set-piece of the apocalyptic world. I was really hoping the movie would turn out good -- bad book = good movie right? -- but it looks like this just wasn't the case.

On a side note, I agree with all the posters here about the beeping. It was really jarring to hear it the first time a few videos back and I wish MovieBob wouldn't put it in his videos. The only reason I could think of for the beeping is if the videos are being broadcast on TV somewhere. Even then, you could use a softer beep or just cut the word out at F-.

 

[Fritzvalt]

Wouldnt LEON (The Professional) be considered a lone wolf and cub homage/rip off? Did that miss the point too. Shame if it did as i thought it was an awesome film.

out of curiosity do you have a plan to review Pirate radio as it looks like a real fun movie about a great piece of British radio/music history....

and I will remedy the fact i have not seen 12 angry men or the seventh seal.

The Professional is vastly different from Lone Wolf and Cub. I've never heard the two compared, but if they were meant to be, it missed the point aswell.

Kinda wanna go see Pirate Radio, myself. It looks fun and odd and cool.

I warn you now, The Seventh Seal, while a fantastic movie, is three hours of a man playing chess with death. It's Ingmar Bergman's finest work, and he was an outstanding director, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't get boring.

 

[MowDownJoe]

I take it Fawful is going to become a bit of a running gag now...

 

[TwistedEllipses]

...wait...wasn't this posted last week?

 

[TZer0]

Was I the only one who heard a USB-disconnect sound 17 s into the movie?

 

[ZombieGenesis]

This video makes a good, if not rather worrying point. To adapt from a source material primarily set to convey mood and emotion a film can deliver the same content in a manner infinitely faster than the written word. Something that might take pages or even chapters in a novel can be displayed visually in seconds, which is a problem in terms of content priority. For the movie it may have actually been a better idea to include some overall story arch and narrative, instead of a 'walk down apocolypse lane', since then as a movie it would have something to follow and could still convey the same attitudes as the book - albiet in a much smaller matter of time.
I myself write frequently and the focus on description tends to weight heavily on my work to the point I worry it's not interesting enough from an event perspective to read, and to find the same problems in a feature film... well, it kind of proves that the art-house genre is more spectacle orientated than much of the narrative mainstream. Focused on mood and attitude then story content, but does that mean the mainstream has more depth than the arthouse?

Maybe I'm reading too much into this. After all, Metropolis 1927 can still kick the pants off 90% of modern films in terms of both spectacle and story.

Note: Adaptation's monologue there is one of the best I've seen in a film, rarely need to stop and reflect on something said in a movie.

 

[Brotherofwill]

The kid looked annoying from the trailers, even more than in the book.

I'd still probably enjoy it. I tend to enjoy slow films with little happening.

 

[hyperlasers]

Hey Bob-

As somebody who isn't much of an internet junkie and doesn't really like internet junkies, but watches your reviews anyway because they're both more entertaining and more insightful than the stuff you get from Joe Morgenstern, I have a recommendation: cut the F-word. There are some people complaining about censorship here, but it seems to me the bleeps are less about the word itself and more about the astounding frequency with which you use it. From where I'm sitting, it looks like ever since you got to go ANGRYBob on Transformers 2 and especially since you got to do it again over Jennifer's Body, you've gotten more and more comfortable replacing cleverness with F-bombs. I don't have any fucking problem with people screaming fuck, but it should make a point instead of just filling empty space in your sentences.

Maybe this is just the common language of the internet. I have a pretty prejudiced view of online addicts as socially-inept loners who don't know how to make a point or draw attention to themselves except by being as crude as possible, and I'm sure that bleeping one in every five words is something these people get. But you're better than that. In fact, you're one of the best working critics in the nation today because you place movies in the context of film history, bother describing what works and what doesn't work, and make it all fun to watch with wit and cleverness. Wit and cleverness don't go well with tons of profanity; the one adds emphasis to a point be being thoughtful, while the other attempts the same by being thoughtless. These last couple of reviews have felt really watered down because every time you're about to say something genuinely funny you cut yourself off with a (blee-eep). Instead of having an original and insightful new critic, all of a sudden we're left with just another guy spewing F-laced anger onto the internet, and I hate that. So if you want your audience to be limited to loner teenage guys who think that being able to blow profanity at anonymous people on random forums makes them Jesus Christ, you keep doing what you're doing and I'll go elsewhere. But I really, really, really think you're better than that.

 

[Falseprophet]

I felt that the Road -- the book version -- was overly pretentious and fell flat due to the lack of sympathetic characters and real plot. Run-on sentences and the lack of punctuation should not win you a Pulitzer Prize.

I tend to agree with you. If it wasn't so short, I would have put it down long before finishing it. And this was after a lot of people told me what a good author Cormac McCarthy is. (Though I still plan to read Blood Meridian some day. That one actually sounds good.) I'm not surprised in the slightest that the movie isn't great either.

2)Lone Wolf and Cub is really, really bad. Exceptionally cheesy (Gun in pram...come on...)and lack of any bonding with the characters. I watched the film on 2x speed as it's subtitled. Missed out on nothing other than a waste of 1hr 15 or however long it took to watch.

I haven't seen any of the film versions, but I liked the manga. Ogami and his son are pretty one-dimensional characters throughout, but Koike and Kojima really flesh out the characters around them. You tend to have more sympathy for the villains, a cast of interesting, imaginative and conniving people who are slowly mowed down one-by-one by the emotionless force of nature Ogami Itto. Like watching Steven Seagal make his way through Batman's rogues gallery, but better.

 

[RagnorakTres]

If I recall, this is the first time MovieBob didn't say "See you next time." at the end.

[HEADING=3]Dun Dun Duuuun![/HEADING]

Damn it Red Mage, the next time you do that, you get the stabbity.

 

[Charlie_Brown]

FFS Escapist / Movie Bob, please can you stop with the beeps and censoring? Or give us a reason why it's happening? There's swearing all over The Escapist, we're all adult enough to cope with some shits and fucks, so why is this censored?
Failing that, can Bob just stop with the swearing altogether? The beep is ear-jarring and flow-disrupting, and it makes it harder to enjoy the bloody review.

That said, good review, the film looked pretty meh in trailers. I'm off to go find 12 angry men.

If I recall, this is the first time MovieBob didn't say "See you next time." at the end.

Yeah, I noticed that too

 

[ZombieGenesis]

FFS Escapist / Movie Bob, please can you stop with the beeps and censoring? Or give us a reason why it's happening? There's swearing all over The Escapist, we're all adult enough to cope with some shits and fucks, so why is this censored?
Failing that, can Bob just stop with the swearing altogether? The beep is ear-jarring and flow-disrupting, and it makes it harder to enjoy the bloody review.

That said, good review, the film looked pretty meh in trailers. I'm off to go find 12 angry men.

If I recall, this is the first time MovieBob didn't say "See you next time." at the end.

Yeah, I noticed that too

Maybe The Escapist has started censoring friendliness as well as swearing?

The only place bleep-censorship has ever actually been appropriate as I've seen is Marik in YGO:TAS, with the funny voice yelling "EEF" over all his swearwords. Besides, MovieBob/TGO used to use the F-Bomb as a weapon, why no more?

"Allow me to respond in the most dignified manner I can muster given the circumstances.
You're fucking wrong!"

 

[HomeAliveIn45]

Its called "The Road".. it doesn even sounds intresting! There are books that need to stay books.

I agree wholeheartedly, but I don't think this is one of those books. I saw this film at a pre-screening a few months ago and was pretty impressed. It was very true to the book and adapted well into a film. Hell, Cormac McCarthy wrote it as a screen play before he wrote it as a novel!

 

[Starke]

That was rather thought provoking... I think it's a symptom of my sleep depravaiton. Good job though.

 

[dwoo21]

I've never heard of the movie and book until now but I guess the book is something to to read. No "The Road" movies for me!

 

[puhctek]

I'm gonna be the person who points out that the Mona Lisa is painted on wood. Therefore it probably could not be made into a paper airplane...