- Joined
- Nov 24, 2010
- Messages
- 25,681
- Reaction score
- 9,933
It was okay. 5/10
There are a lot of plotholes, and things seem to just happen without any logical reason.
Not a horrible movie, but not great either.
There are a lot of plotholes, and things seem to just happen without any logical reason.
So, Affleck's character is autistic, with legitimate ticks and quirks as a child. Off to a good start. Then, when he grows up, he just about loses every bit of his autism, except for his genius mathematician skills and ALITTLE social awkwardness. It's like a completely different person. After some sappy flashbacks of the mom leaving, the dad trains his kids in Filipino martial arts because, why not? Affleck's character grows up to be a super badass genius, who gets jobs from "a voice", doing the numbers and accounting for terrorists, dictators, mass murderers, etc. while using aliases named after dead mathematician legends. He collects fine art, is a master sharpshooter, has perfect memory, is great at hand to hand combat, etc. He will sometimes leak information to the US government because of his "moral code", which he will forget when dealing with all of the other horrible people in his line of work. The director of the Treasury department blackmails someone who lied to the government about their background (because that's really easy apparently), just because he wants someone to deal with the voice after he retires, so why not someone with a rap sheet including attempted murder?
Affleck gets screwed over by the CEO of a robotics org, and decides to kill him because he all of a sudden falls inlove with Anna Kendrick, because feelings? But wait, the CEO hires a private security firm to watch his back. At the climax, we find out that the main guy from the private security firm is actually Affleck's brother! What are the odds, and who didn't see that coming, eh? Oh yeah, and the voice is actually an autistic girl using a super computer.
One of my main issues with this, besides all of the random plot holes and bad storytelling, is that they present Affleck's character as a total good guy. They show him in a wonderful light, the protagonist that just seems to be the victim of "the system", even though he knowingly chooses to work with criminals and evil people. "Who survives this clientele?" Indeed.
Affleck's acting isn't horrible, it's just that he completely ignores the autistic side of the character and is using cheat codes. He's almost flawless, like Russell Crowe's John Nash, but without any actual illness. JK Simmons does a decent job, as always, but is stuck with bad writing. Anna Kendrick is a bit annoying, and doesn't seem to mind that there are contracted killers after her, because fine art is more important.
Affleck gets screwed over by the CEO of a robotics org, and decides to kill him because he all of a sudden falls inlove with Anna Kendrick, because feelings? But wait, the CEO hires a private security firm to watch his back. At the climax, we find out that the main guy from the private security firm is actually Affleck's brother! What are the odds, and who didn't see that coming, eh? Oh yeah, and the voice is actually an autistic girl using a super computer.
One of my main issues with this, besides all of the random plot holes and bad storytelling, is that they present Affleck's character as a total good guy. They show him in a wonderful light, the protagonist that just seems to be the victim of "the system", even though he knowingly chooses to work with criminals and evil people. "Who survives this clientele?" Indeed.
Affleck's acting isn't horrible, it's just that he completely ignores the autistic side of the character and is using cheat codes. He's almost flawless, like Russell Crowe's John Nash, but without any actual illness. JK Simmons does a decent job, as always, but is stuck with bad writing. Anna Kendrick is a bit annoying, and doesn't seem to mind that there are contracted killers after her, because fine art is more important.
Not a horrible movie, but not great either.
