johnral's Replies


The scene might be artsy and all... but the kissing part of the scene is not very realistic. You don't go smooching if you're in an elevator with someone who wants to kill you. But, putting that aside, the final part of the violence is a somewhat realistic depiction of how that would occur; most movies don't go that graphic. There was a similar scene in American History X. By contrast, I don't find the final stabbing scenes to be very realistic; that's just not how killers go about stabbing people. (A more realistic scene can be found in e.g. I saw the Devil, in the taxi scene, currently available, around 3 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx5IL0P89Zo ) But what troubles me more is that I just don't see the Gosling character as being physically strong enough to take down that guy, nor any hit-man type of guy for that matter. Gosling is just a slim guy. Is he supposed to be an expert driver, expert mechanic, and also expert martial arts skills? I can buy the other stuff, but not the tough-guy stuff. I was also surprised at that point in the movie that the gangster guy was going to kill Gosling. My recollection is that the last scenes simply indicated that they were looking for Gosling, not that they were out to kill him. Perhaps that's implicit, but I found that odd. (And would they want to kill him without knowing where the money is?) Just a few random thoughts on the elevator scene. Good point. Front car is always safer. Plus, everybody knows that you always lock the door on zombies. Right -- he could have easily gotten rid of that guy before he fully turned. The guy was a jerk to begin with, then he'd become a zombie jerk. Why wait? Idiot... (no need for spoiler alert...) I think it was a good twist that they did not kill the survivors (a la other movies). And the singing part was OK, which tied into the earlier scene. But there is no real resolution to this movie as we don't know where things are headed. This is a good point. These zombies just get a taste and move on. There was I think one exception where they gathered around some body, but otherwise they would take a nibble and chase new victims... I tend to agree with this. This is just a typical, stock, standard, run-of-the-mill zombie movie, with perhaps a couple of twists. People become zombies, zombies chase people, people run from zombies, there are a few interpersonal issues among the non-zombies, etc. Been there, done that... Not sure of the high ratings - maybe the Asian thing. No really good answer to this. It's a plot problem. Pretty much nobody wants to be eaten by zombies, die, and become a zombie... Not even to zombify a bunch of jerks. Game of Thrones sort of has a zombie dragon... Yes. Very valid point. They were clearly not zombies. I wondered the same thing. I almost wonder if a scene was cut out of the movie that explained this. At the time, I thought he said it because he had trouble loading the bullets in the gun. But the other comments here to the effect that this was a broader call for help might be right too. In a somewhat different vein, I find this particular line rather weak in the movie. In context, I don't think it makes help that he would say "help" at that moment. Nobody was going to really help him, and he just didn't seem like the kind of person to ask for help anyway,and especially so in that situation. That line ("help") is of course important for the courtroom scene later in the movie. That scene was really not done well either. In reality, the defense attorney (for McKinney) would never have known that Bean would give this statement at the hearing, and thus he could not have asked the question in this manner. The only way he would have known this is if Bean had already made this statement. This is actually quite possible (i.e. that Bean would have made a written statement about the account during the investigation), but Bean's reaction and his lawyer's comments and the reactions of the other prisoners strongly suggest that this was a total surprise to them. (And note that at first, Bean denied that McKinney said anything.) If Bean had made this statement before, then he and the prosecuting attorney would have been ready for it; if Bean did not make the statement before, then there is no way that McKinney's attorney could have asked that question with confidence. (I happen to be a trial attorney, and so I know know these things generally work in a court proceeding.) This is just not the way things really happen. I agree. Too many scenes where US soldiers are just walking in range of enemy shooters, at least as depicted in the movie. Good aim or not, and high or not, you would not to be in the open like that... I think at first it was meant to be ambiguous (when we can just see his face with the sky in the background), but then when he's talking more specifically about cooking hamburgers, that indicates that he's real. But, the scene seemed contrived to me. I wonder if this was an alternate ending if viewers did not like an earlier ending (where he died). Also, based on the multiple stab wounds (which was a good and realistic scene about stabbing someone...), and the passage of time, it's very hard to imagine that he would have survived. (And speaking of which -- why run into the woods and cross a river when he is bleeding internally? Why not call 911 or run to a neighbor etc?) I found this perfume guy a most bizarre aspect of the movie. And when he went in the cave, he seemed to say that it did not smell like anything in particular; hence he had to imagine what it smelled like thousands of years ago. But if this cave does not emit a cave odor (i.e. when you're literally immersed within the cave), then how in the heck would he ever find a cave by sniffing at the ground outside the cave? I thought the film was lacking in that it did not even ask this question. They talk about music, cave bears, alligators, perfume, animals in motion, the chronology of the drawings, whether the boy walked with the wolf, how they hunted animals, the atlatl, etc, but at no point do they even ask the fundamental question of why humans are not depicted in the drawings. E.g. Ancient Egyptians drew people. Some of the explanations given here are that are plausible, but it seems that the issue could have been injected into the movie. As for the one image of a woman, I found it odd that they could not do a better job of depicting this drawing, even if they had to use CGI or something. (Note e.g. that they used computers to replicate every contour of the cave. It's not too much to ask to give us one image of the only human depicted in the art.) Yes, this is a very good point. Also -- in the later scene (out of the city) she and that medical-student guy knew all about him, and the inference I drew is that they knew about his background for a long time. If so, then she would have told him the first time, "Thank goodness I found you. We have been wanting you to help us with an antidote." (I don't think there is anything in the movie that would have educated her as to who he was based solely on their first encounter and chase.) And yes the rescue scene was very clumsy. They were just fortunate to even get out of there. Good questions. As for hunting the Family, you make a good point. Also, wouldn't there presumably be similar people (to the Family) all over the country? If so, then what's the point of killing this one Family when there are many more out there, and he can't kill them all? (And apparently there were no more people in the City for the Family to attack.) As for the gasoline, some people have answered this a little. But doesn't gas go bad after a fairly short period? As for staying at the Movie, I had the same thought. Why would he take a chance on that? (And how in the heck did the family know to wait for him? (They were waiting for him -- and poured gas on his car and burned it etc.) Certainly they can't scope him out 24/7 to know that he's not back home on a given day (especially as they are sleeping during the day and they won't know if his car is in the garage or not). Yes, that was odd. The boy did not do anything wrong. It seems that they were going to kill him regardless of whether he was going to "turn." He went there to help them, he was harmless, and nothing was gained by killing him. Mathias is the same guy who had some sort of principles against using guns and machines, and yet he had no principles against taking innocent life. But of course it was really stupid and unrealistic for the boy to go there to those nuts. I wondered the same thing. One more possibility: they were frozen, and he thawed them. Not sure how good that would be after 3 years tho... Not to nitpick... but this movie (Woodstock) was on the marquee, and hence it was probably the movie showing at the time everything went downhill. Movie theaters don't generally have a stock of movies. (I think this is common knowledge, but I worked at a theater in the late 1980s and so I know this was the case.) This is probably why he watched it over-and-over. But it seems very peculiar that he would do so, unless he was starved for entertainment. (Note also that most movies depict hundreds if not thousands of people in them. Woodstock is obviously peculiar in that it has a lot of people concentrated in one place for a long time; but any movie set in a modern city will have hundreds or thousands of people in it. A few shots on a city street, or at a baseball stadium, or in a mall would do the trick.) It also seems odd that he would have lost track of time in the theater, as keeping an eye on the clock while in town would be a constant concern.