Movie Reviews in Five Dotpoints or Less - Part IV

Forrest Gump (1994)

8.8/10 on IMDb
72% on Rotten Tomatoes

Man, I always hated Jenny as a kid... and I still do!

I absolutely love Tom Hanks

Run, Forrest, Run!

An awesomely hilarious, yet touching and depressing story

Definitely a must see (but you probably already knew that)


Saving Private Ryan (1998)

8.6/10 on IMDb
92% on Rotten Tomatoes

That opening sequence is AMAZING

And that ending is AMAZING

And the middle was AMAZING too

And Tom Hanks was AMAZING

And Steven Spielberg, you are AMAZING


Lincoln (2012)

7.4/10 on IMDb
90% on Rotten Tomatoes

I'll be honest with you, I couldn't finish this movie; I got to about 40 minutes in before I had to leave the living room; I was falling asleep and just couldn't take it any more

Don't get me wrong; I see why it was hyped and Daniel Day Lewis does an amazing job as Abraham Lincoln, the legend of a president who abolished slavery

However, the script is so heavy; I had subtitles on and it was still such a struggle, so around the time that I left I had no idea what had just happened and what was happening then; I had no idea who was who and it was just all too confusing

One of the sickest burns in history though: Thaddeus Stevens: "When will Mr. Wood conclude his interminable gabble? Some of us breathe oxygen, and we find the mephitic fumes of his oratory a lethal challenge to our pulmonary capabilities."


The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)

7.3/10 on IMDb
80% on Rotten Tomatoes

Great film with lots of intertwining stories

Don't want to ruin it, but Ryan Gosling is a stunt motorcyclist whose life gets shaken up and changed early in the film

Bradley Cooper is also in it, and both he and Ryan Gosling do an amazing job

The beauty of this film is in the story and the underlying message of it - how peoples' decisions in life can lead to certain consequences and can even affect other peoples' lives - but that people still have choices and everything can be either righted, or turned into a huge mess

I definitely recommend it if you're looking for some deep philosophical thinking about the human condition, but be warned it's quite slow and I won't be seeing it again in the near future, but it's still very worthy of a watch

Jokes I gotta add another dotpoint: the storyline is great; if you watch the beginning of this movie, then come back 1 hour later, it's almost like it's a different movie, then you come back after another hour and it again seems like it's a different movie, yet it still flows well and has great continuity


Before I Go to Sleep (2014)

6.3/10 on IMDb
35% on Rotten Tomatoes

Imagine 50 First Dates meets Memento

Not sure why it has received such bad views, but I actually liked it; I thought it was a really interesting story with a good plot twist at the end

I guess I understand the criticisms on this film: that it's slow, that it kind of spoon feeds you the information rather than making you think, and that the writing is bad and unrealistic

I'm not too sure if I agree on their criticisms (except that yes, of course, Memento did it better); yes, the film was a bit slow and repetitive at the beginning, but I think there is still quite a bit to consider and think about as the film progresses, and while you sort of half know the ending, there's still that other half that you need to figure out (which I couldn't). Yes, the writing could be improved, but I never went in thinking it would be a realistic film; it still makes sense to me

So I think it's a bit unfair to rate this movie so badly, and I think it is quite an enjoyable thriller