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seriousficFinally, a movie that dares to ask the question: Who are the real monsters, giant alien land-octopi that eat people, or people who are against immigration?
Okay, so this movie starts off with Random Douche in Mexico to escort Poor Little Rich Girl back to America. You wouldn't know it, but that sentence? Has fifty plot holes. What's Rich Girl doing in Mexico if it's such a urine-soaked hellhole (and it has monsters in it. *ducks rotten vegetables*)? Why does she need Random Douche to hold her hand? Did he just happen to be in Mexico or did they buy him a plane ticket and send him down there? Because here's the thing, you hear he's a freelance photographer and you're thinking Indiana Jones, knows-a-guy-who-knows-a-guy-in-every-hole-in-the-wall, haggles like a champ, carries a gun up his sleeve. This guy? Is the biggest fuck-up ever. He doesn't even speak Spanish. HE DOESN'T EVEN SPEAK SPANISH. Basically, 16-year-old-me, fresh out of Spanish II, could do a better job than this guy. At least I'd know better than to lose my passport. Yes, that happens.
Anyway, this is all to get the story to the point where they have to go through the infected zone. Because apparently Mexico doesn't have planes. Or boats. In fact, there's no planes or boats anywhere south of Mexico either. You have to walk through monster country or you can't get into America. It doesn't matter if your dad is rich (because they don't have wire transfers in Mexico either).
You know, maybe it would just be easier, in this big metaphor for immigration, to just have the heroes be immigrants? They don't want to live in a monster-soaked hellhole, so they're going to America. There. I already sympathize with them more than THE GUY WHO CAN'T SPEAK SPANISH.
I appreciate what the movie is trying to do, in delivering the subtext with a semi-light touch and having a show, don't tell approach to the characterization. But this is stuff that you have to think about and carefully construct. You can't just improv it. So, naturally, the entire movie is improvised. And you can tell. Like, there's this subplot about how Random Douche is a monster because he takes pictures of tragedies for a living. Then, later on, I'm pretty sure the movie is filmed in places hit by Hurricane Katrina to pass for landscape devastated for an air strike. That's not hypocritical at all. Did I mention the hero can't speak a word of Spanish, but the heroine can, yet for some reason she needs his help to GET OUT OF A SPANISH-SPEAKING COUNTRY. That doesn't make any sense and it's the premise! It's the first thing they wrote! Or improvised, whichever!
Also, wouldn't you know it, those bastard Americans built a wall at the Texas border to keep the giant hell-squids who smell fear out. As our heroine notes, "it's like we're boxing ourselves in."
Building a wall to keep out illegal immigrants: Controversial.
Building a wall to keep out kaiju-sized hentai beasts: GOOD IDEA. UNEQUIVOCALLY GOOD IDEA. YOU FAIL METAPHOR FOREVER.
Then, in a "deep" line, someone says that "the wall looks a lot different from the other side." NO IT DOESN'T, IT'S A WALL, IT LOOKS THE SAME FROM BOTH SIDES.
Okay, so this movie starts off with Random Douche in Mexico to escort Poor Little Rich Girl back to America. You wouldn't know it, but that sentence? Has fifty plot holes. What's Rich Girl doing in Mexico if it's such a urine-soaked hellhole (and it has monsters in it. *ducks rotten vegetables*)? Why does she need Random Douche to hold her hand? Did he just happen to be in Mexico or did they buy him a plane ticket and send him down there? Because here's the thing, you hear he's a freelance photographer and you're thinking Indiana Jones, knows-a-guy-who-knows-a-guy-in-every-hole-in-the-wall, haggles like a champ, carries a gun up his sleeve. This guy? Is the biggest fuck-up ever. He doesn't even speak Spanish. HE DOESN'T EVEN SPEAK SPANISH. Basically, 16-year-old-me, fresh out of Spanish II, could do a better job than this guy. At least I'd know better than to lose my passport. Yes, that happens.
Anyway, this is all to get the story to the point where they have to go through the infected zone. Because apparently Mexico doesn't have planes. Or boats. In fact, there's no planes or boats anywhere south of Mexico either. You have to walk through monster country or you can't get into America. It doesn't matter if your dad is rich (because they don't have wire transfers in Mexico either).
You know, maybe it would just be easier, in this big metaphor for immigration, to just have the heroes be immigrants? They don't want to live in a monster-soaked hellhole, so they're going to America. There. I already sympathize with them more than THE GUY WHO CAN'T SPEAK SPANISH.
I appreciate what the movie is trying to do, in delivering the subtext with a semi-light touch and having a show, don't tell approach to the characterization. But this is stuff that you have to think about and carefully construct. You can't just improv it. So, naturally, the entire movie is improvised. And you can tell. Like, there's this subplot about how Random Douche is a monster because he takes pictures of tragedies for a living. Then, later on, I'm pretty sure the movie is filmed in places hit by Hurricane Katrina to pass for landscape devastated for an air strike. That's not hypocritical at all. Did I mention the hero can't speak a word of Spanish, but the heroine can, yet for some reason she needs his help to GET OUT OF A SPANISH-SPEAKING COUNTRY. That doesn't make any sense and it's the premise! It's the first thing they wrote! Or improvised, whichever!
Also, wouldn't you know it, those bastard Americans built a wall at the Texas border to keep the giant hell-squids who smell fear out. As our heroine notes, "it's like we're boxing ourselves in."
Building a wall to keep out illegal immigrants: Controversial.
Building a wall to keep out kaiju-sized hentai beasts: GOOD IDEA. UNEQUIVOCALLY GOOD IDEA. YOU FAIL METAPHOR FOREVER.
Then, in a "deep" line, someone says that "the wall looks a lot different from the other side." NO IT DOESN'T, IT'S A WALL, IT LOOKS THE SAME FROM BOTH SIDES.
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-25 10:01 pm (UTC)Maybe there's a mural on it, or a big Palin/Bachmann 2012 sign. You don't know! They're on the Bad Side, ie Mexico.
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Date: 2011-03-25 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-25 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-25 10:30 pm (UTC)I hated both of them, he was an asshole and she seemed high or brain damaged, the whole scenario was dumb, their total lack of urgency in fleeing Monster Land was dumb, the idea that the military was struggling to deal with the Godzilla monsters was dumb (there are lots of things that a modern military has difficulty with. Blowing up giant slow moving unhidden things that don't have the cooperation of the local populace would not be one of them.) Alien roach infestation? Sure. Alien kudzu? Sure! Alien Giant Land Squids? The only question would be if they're good eating or not.