Red Lights
Red Lights is the new film from Rodrigo Cortés which follows two paranormal skeptics played by Cillian Murphy and Sigourney Weaver, this film has been advertised as 2012's Sixth Sense, which implies twists and originality, it has the twists, but is no way original.
The films opens with a haunted house scene, which with Sigourney Weaver there almost looks like a gritty, adult version of Ghostbusters. The film continues with the skeptics proving how the house wasn't haunted. It's a very strong start to the film, implying many different narrative directions it could go down. It's twisty and there's an underlying theme of impending doom that constantly builds up. Very similar to The Last Exorcism
The characters continue disproving shit with a range of both technology and simple thinking, only then is Robert DeNiro's character introduced, which was something I liked very much about the film, the main story didn't kick in for atleast 25 to 30 minutes, giving us a lot of time to see what our main characters were like before hand. DeNiro plays a blind psychic whose secrets have never been discovered, luckily the audience know someone good enough for the job of finding out! Murphy attempts to find out De Niro's secrets and shit starts going down, shit that makes Murphy question his own beliefs and sanity. That sounds awesome, right? so far sounds like a brilliant film, but the issue is that the second act where Cillian Murphy is being pushed over the edge swaps the slow, interesting pace for awful scare tactics designed to make the audience jump, this was one of the worst attempts at it i've ever seen, jumpy music kicks in every couple of minutes and there are constant false scares, this lasts about half an hour. This 30 minutes is so repetitive, and so uninteresting that it pulled me right out of the film, to the point that I didn't think I could get back into it.
The third act brings to tone of the film back again, bringing back the skeptical side of the film that really made the first act work. However, at some point near the begininning of this act it gave away the ending to me, which both spoilt the rest of the film and also finally hit me where I have seen this film before. It's very much a version of The Prestige set in the modern day. which pulled the originallity factor down to zero (or 100, if you are thinking in terms of the fail factor), if you watch this film with The Prestige fresh in your memory, you quickly realise that the films are extremely similar, except all they have done is swap magic tricks with psychic abilities. Now I knew what was going to happen at the end, I just sat back and waited to see how the film would get us there. And through a very poor crosscutting sequence, too right, I was correct. The ending was very much in the same vain as The Prestige, however this film threw one last curveball where The Prestige didn't, and this curveball is one of the most pathetic, confusing, unexplainable pieces of drivel I've ever seen. I sat there in shock. And not only did that ending blow, it also ruined everything that I actually enjoyed of the story before hand.
Cillian Murphy was excellent, as usual. Weaver and De Niro where as good as they can be these days. It was also great to see Elizabeth Olsen in another film, because she's one of the best rising stars I have seen for a long time. And it was also great to see Craig Roberts, who I am constantly compared to now following his performance in Submarine. All the performances were great, which begged me to question why these brilliant, famous actors even bothered after reading the script.
The editing was pretty messy which is a shame because for the most part I enjoyed the camerawork, it had a very independent feel which helped with the characterisation.
1st and 3rd act scenes taken into account without the ending in mind where very good, but the ending completely ruined everything. The acting was however very good and as was the camerawork. I will be giving it..
75% Fail
Just watch The Sixth Sense
Callum Oakaby Wright
The films opens with a haunted house scene, which with Sigourney Weaver there almost looks like a gritty, adult version of Ghostbusters. The film continues with the skeptics proving how the house wasn't haunted. It's a very strong start to the film, implying many different narrative directions it could go down. It's twisty and there's an underlying theme of impending doom that constantly builds up. Very similar to The Last Exorcism
The characters continue disproving shit with a range of both technology and simple thinking, only then is Robert DeNiro's character introduced, which was something I liked very much about the film, the main story didn't kick in for atleast 25 to 30 minutes, giving us a lot of time to see what our main characters were like before hand. DeNiro plays a blind psychic whose secrets have never been discovered, luckily the audience know someone good enough for the job of finding out! Murphy attempts to find out De Niro's secrets and shit starts going down, shit that makes Murphy question his own beliefs and sanity. That sounds awesome, right? so far sounds like a brilliant film, but the issue is that the second act where Cillian Murphy is being pushed over the edge swaps the slow, interesting pace for awful scare tactics designed to make the audience jump, this was one of the worst attempts at it i've ever seen, jumpy music kicks in every couple of minutes and there are constant false scares, this lasts about half an hour. This 30 minutes is so repetitive, and so uninteresting that it pulled me right out of the film, to the point that I didn't think I could get back into it.
The third act brings to tone of the film back again, bringing back the skeptical side of the film that really made the first act work. However, at some point near the begininning of this act it gave away the ending to me, which both spoilt the rest of the film and also finally hit me where I have seen this film before. It's very much a version of The Prestige set in the modern day. which pulled the originallity factor down to zero (or 100, if you are thinking in terms of the fail factor), if you watch this film with The Prestige fresh in your memory, you quickly realise that the films are extremely similar, except all they have done is swap magic tricks with psychic abilities. Now I knew what was going to happen at the end, I just sat back and waited to see how the film would get us there. And through a very poor crosscutting sequence, too right, I was correct. The ending was very much in the same vain as The Prestige, however this film threw one last curveball where The Prestige didn't, and this curveball is one of the most pathetic, confusing, unexplainable pieces of drivel I've ever seen. I sat there in shock. And not only did that ending blow, it also ruined everything that I actually enjoyed of the story before hand.
Cillian Murphy was excellent, as usual. Weaver and De Niro where as good as they can be these days. It was also great to see Elizabeth Olsen in another film, because she's one of the best rising stars I have seen for a long time. And it was also great to see Craig Roberts, who I am constantly compared to now following his performance in Submarine. All the performances were great, which begged me to question why these brilliant, famous actors even bothered after reading the script.
The editing was pretty messy which is a shame because for the most part I enjoyed the camerawork, it had a very independent feel which helped with the characterisation.
1st and 3rd act scenes taken into account without the ending in mind where very good, but the ending completely ruined everything. The acting was however very good and as was the camerawork. I will be giving it..
75% Fail
Just watch The Sixth Sense
Callum Oakaby Wright
