READY SET GO!!!

-

                                                                                    By Tom Pacak 
            Rules for this game: Step 1- Have Manni (Player 2) participate in a crime that gets him 100000 marks that must be paid to his boss. Step 2- Manni loses the money and must get it back. Step 3- His girlfriend, Lola (Player 1) must find a way to find the 100000 marks or get new money. Then were off!! That’s the basic premise for Run Lola Run a taut thriller directed by German director Tom Tykwer.
            Taking the premise of Groundhog Day in video game form, director Tom Tykwer gives us Lola (Franka Potente) a young woman who must embark on a strange and familiar journey each round trying to save her boyfriend. Each round Lola finds a new way to achieve the mission and new information about the people around her. At first, Lola is very clueless on how to achieve this mission. After a couple rounds, she becomes smart and diligent with the environment around her.
            The film opens with an animation sequence, which I really appreciated the originality of. Tom Tykwer is a genius for doing so because the audience would find it harder to see what she was thinking at the time she was running. It also fits in due to the film being video game like because almost all video games are in animation.
            Franka Potente is good in an undeveloped role as Lola. The audience only gets to see her run and we really don’t know that much about her or her boyfriend. All of the other classic films about repeating the same situation over and over again Groundhog Day, Edge of Tomorrow, and Source Code all give us great character development and endings that show the character walked away with something at the end of each situation. I did not really see that with Run Lola Run. Franka Potente’s character is more of a video game character than an actual human being. She becomes smart on how to get from point A to point B but I don’t think she really learned anything from the experience at the end.
            The basic theme of this movie is that our actions have consequences to our environment. Through each trial, Lola causes the events of numerous stranger’s lives. When she gets to the second and third rounds, those lives become happier. Why did the audience have to see what the other character’s lives. They really didn’t help move the story forward and were more just set pieces than people.
            Overall in my opinion, Run Lola Run is a fun popcorn film if you don’t think about too much. It’s got an hour and twenty-one minutes of pure action. If you’re looking for a movie to change your perspective on life, see something else. If you want some mindless foreign action, then you’re in the right place!! The film doesn’t try to be something it’s not.
2.5 out of 4 stars

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paul Thomas Anderson's Lonesome American Family

-
Image
                                                                                  By Tom Pacak All of the works of director Paul Thomas Anderson explore his vision of the American family. This is best seen in three films: The Master , Magnolia , and There Will Be Blood . They explore what it is like to lack a family and how isolation can draw one into a surrogate family. His characters capture this landscape of disconnection. Film critic and poet Geoffrey O’Brien describes the America of Paul Thomas Anderson as, “a country of deep loneliness-that same loneliness that permeates all of Anderson’s films, and against which his characters are forever forcing themselves into protective families or parodies of families, a population of paternalistic strangers, adoptive songs, surrogate mot...
Read more

Kill the King

-
Image
By Tom Pacak “Outlaw King” looks like one of those films that would be good. It’s got a talented cast, talented director (David Mackenzie), and the cinematography is amazing. I’m trying to figure out where this movie fell flat. The story of Robert the Bruce (Chris Pine) launching a guerrilla war on the English army is definitely an interesting story to make a good movie (especially with all the talent involved). David Mackenzie and Chris Pine both teamed up for one of the best crime movies of the 2010s (Hell or High Water) so I was excited to see where this film would take me as a filmgoer. The film has an overwhelming budget of $120 million, so you know Netflix was trying to strike gold. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t evens strike silver. The film is set in 1304 AD and covers the life of Robert the Bruce. Robert the Bruce was the ambitious 14th-century king of Scots who waged a war against the English army. At first, the Scots and English have a pretty civil relatio...
Read more

Houston, We Have a Problem

-
Image
                                                                                           By Tom Pacak  The number one rule I have for reviewing movies is this: don’t review the movie until you’ve seen it. Your opinions about the film are irrelevant until you’ve actually watched it. This rule applies heavily to anyone who hasn’t seen Damien Chazelle’s “First Man,” the true story about Neil Armstrong. Before the movie was released, a bunch of right-wing trolls got in a hissy fit over how the film doesn’t include the famous flag planting. They called for boycotts and decided the movie was garbage before even seeing it.   Look, I’ve seen “First Man” and it’s a pretty good movie, not a great one. I’m a huge Damien Chazelle fan; I stand by my bel...
Read more