Fuck that was the greatest movie I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
I disagree with this for a couple of reasons. First of all, they do keep it on the train; flashbacks are flashbacks, but the tension is still there when they return to the present.
But more importantly, you get the flashbacks when the information is relevant and not before. The story works because you get progressively more and more information revealed as the movie goes on: Character A meets Character B, and once they recognize each other you get a flashback to when they met before. It wouldn’t make sense to have a series of random scenes with characters you aren’t familiar with, and then jump to “…and they all went on a train ride together.”
Quite liked this and didn’t mind the story structure. Brian Tyree Henry and Aaron Taylor-Johnson were the MVPs that carried the movie for me. I really had a good time with any scene that involved either of them. And scenes that had both of them - even better. Good rapport and snappy dialog between Lemon and Tangerine.
I sort of panicked when those two first did a scene because I could not figure out what they were saying. It got easier as the movie went on, but sheesh.
Hate to be that guy, but has anyone read the book? I remember liking it, a lot of Thomas the Tank Engine references. Seems like they dropped a major character/story from the book, the kid that’s super manipulative (the prince?), is that right?
Nope, that character is definitely in the movie! Gender-swapped, but still there.
I watched this last Saturday. I loved it.
The only criticism is that maybe the ending was slightly too long, and maybe Ryan Reynolds should have had a bit more screen time and some lines.
Tangerine van ftw though :)
Heh, for me it’s the opposite - I myself have reached the point of Reynolds oversaturation. Already noticed that when he showed up in Hobbes & Shaw. Since he always plays the very same type of character with the same kind of delivery, it just gets boring for me.
So, you don’t find it deflates the action at all when the movie pauses to give a fucking title card and flashback sequence to a bottle? Because that’s where my last shred of patience absolutely ran out with the movie.
And I’m not saying all flashbacks are categorically useless - the Hornet related ones absolutely work, because they relate to the train shenanigans that have been going on, and she’s not a POV character. But so many of them are excessive and break the momentum. The whole Tangerine/Lemon sequence is something that could’ve been cut entirely and been conveyed via performance and dialogue. The whole sequence with the Wolf could’ve been condensed to 20-30 seconds. I did not need that many flashbacks to the White Death.
Yeah, basically. The Prince is rewritten to be nigh-unrecognizable, aside from the plot beats. I read the book after seeing the movie, and while I liked it a whole lot more than the movie and wish the movie had made a lot more of the choices the book when it comes to tone and motivation (and not having an overblown neighborhood-annihilating action climax), rewriting The Prince the way they did is a smart adaptation choice. There’s just no way you can do that plotline and fit it in a movie without it taking over completely.
I thought it was done intentionally, and it was hilarious! It follows the same flashback structure as the other scenes…but for a bottle. And the flashback was maybe 30 seconds at most, and done near the end of the movie.
What I enjoyed about all the flashbacks is how they conveyed information by repetition, like the wedding scene in particular. The Wolf’s flashback was longer than his contribution to the story, which I thought was another nice touch.
Sure, it was done intentionally, I just don’t find the joke funny. I’m not even sure what it’s about except the movie itself? It might work somewhat if it was the Brad Pitt character having an argument about fate and his bad luck, but the snake already showed how to make that work without a pointless flashback. (Also the book did that particular beat better because unlike the movie, he was going for the trapped gun when the snake got him)
While I thought it was an extremely annoying touch.
Which basically goes back to what I wanted from the movie that it didn’t give me: keep it on the train, keep the pressure on, don’t go on flights of fancy and digressions that take you out of the situation.
Took the wife and boy to see this one opening weekend and we all loved it. Really fun summer movie, probably my fav film of the year thus far.
Like the other flashbacks, it’s about the circuitous path the bottle took to get at the right place at the right time, which is either an example about Pitt being good luck to other people, or a joke in and of itself. But at this point we’re getting to diminishing returns, because if the joke didn’t work for you it didn’t work for you.
The movie is all about flights of fancy and digressions. It’s not Train to Busan or something where they need to keep ratcheting up the tension. And moments of release are a necessary part of building the tension again. But anyway, I’m sorry it didn’t work for you.
I don’t even remember the bottle part…
There’s a bottle that appears near the end of the movie, and then it shows a quick flashback of the bottle’s journey over the course of the movie.
My partner reminded me of it. Started in a vending machine, was used to drug Lemon etc.
When I remembered it, I think i liked it.
Finally saw this. I’m a sucker for whiz bang titles and amusing flashbacks so I loved it start to finish. Sad there wasn’t more Karen Fukuhara. And I wish they’d give Michael Shannon some roles that aren’t scenery chewing villains. But overall had a much funner time watching than I expected. It reminded me a bit of Wanted. Dumb fun.
I liked the part where he runs away from the firecrackers.
Oh yeah, strange Source Code connection.
…Snakes on a Train?
(I’ll see myself out)
We watched this last night, and most of all it reminded me of this ‘old’ (circa 2000) Japanese movie called Versus. Minimal plot, fun action, constantly getting interrupted by the introduction of the next Named Badass and their backstory. Fun stuff.
This was fun. Completely weightless (literally, in the physics-defying finale) and a copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy of 90s Tarantino/Ritchie meta gangsters. But fun. The Ryan Reynolds cameo had me LOL.
(It’s a terrible “bottle suspense movie in a train,” though: they just flat-out ignore all the logistical difficulties the characters’ hijinks would cause in such an enclosed space. What happened to the ticket taker, hmmmm? [adjusts glasses.])