Film Review on Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a 2009 American science fiction action film, directed by Michael Bay and produced by Steven Spielberg. It is the sequel to Transformers (2007) and the second film in the live-action Transformers Trilogy. Revenge of the Fallen was nominated for Best Sound at the Academy Awards and for Best Science Fiction Film at the Saturn Award. It also won 5 Scream Awards for Best Actress, Breakout Performance-Female, Best Sequel, Best F/X, and Scream Song of the Year.
The film was a box office success, achieving the second highest Wednesday opening gross in history, bringing in $62 million in North America and close to $100 million worldwide. It is currently the fourth highest-grossing film of 2009 worldwide (behind Avatar, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs) and the second-highest grossing film of 2009 in the United States, only behind Avatar making it the 22nd highest grossing movie of all time. In less than a month, the film surpassed the all-time earnings of its predecessor.
Clocking in at nearly two and a half hours, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen rumbles into theaters as a slam-bang exercise. Director Michael Bay ups the ante on his 2007 hit Transformers by hurling even more massive amounts of swirling, twirling, machine-crunching robot action onto the screen. Industrial Light and Magic?s photorealistic CGI bots interact seamlessly with star Shia La Beouf and other cast members against a backdrop of huge explosions and military firepower.
The plot revolves around Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), the human caught in
the war between Autobots and Decepticons, having visions of Cybertronian symbols, and being hunted by the Decepticons under the orders of their long-trapped leader, The Fallen, who seeks to get revenge on Earth by finding and activating a machine that would provide the Decepticons with an energon source, destroying all life on the planet in the process.
It?s an impressive display of digital effects, but bigger, faster, louder and longer do not necessarily equal better. Bay?s famous fondness for blowing up stuff threatens to overwhelm the senses in Round 2 of the ongoing grudge match that pits evil, alien Decepticon robots against a fractious coalition of civilians, soldiers and humanity-loving Autobots.
Still, there?s plenty to admire in this fast, furious and frequently goofy sequ el, which opens Wednesday. Within the first 12 seconds, Bay showcases his gift for masterful wide-screen compositions as he sets up Revenge of the Fallen?s 17,000-year back story. Following a manic blur of bot-chasing mayhem that takes place for no discernible reason on the streets of Shanghai, the story catches up with the comparatively docile doings of reluctant hero Sam Witwicky.
Played by La Beouf with his usual hyper charm, Sam heads off for college, leaving behind his girlfriend Mikaela (reprised by Megan Fox) his best Autobot friend, Bumblebee and his robot-slaying past.
But when shape-shifting Decepticons figure out that Sam holds the key to their survival, he hits the road in search of a mysterious matrix with evil bots in hot pursuit. At one point, as a machine prepares to slice into his brain with a circular saw, Sam
protests: “I?m just a normal kid with normal problems.”
Unlike many of its sci-fi brethren, including the grim Terminator Salvation, the PG 13-rated Revenge of the Fallen embraces its inner Joker.
The film received mostly negative reviews by the critics. Actor Shia LaBeouf was unimpressed with the film, stating "We got lost. We tried to get bigger. It's what happens to sequels. It's like, how do you top the first one? You've got to go bigger, Michael Bay went so big that it became too big, and I think you lost the anchor of the movie. ... You lost a bit of the relationships. Unless you have those relationships, then the movie doesn't matter. Then it's just a bunch of robots fighting each other."
The Houston Chronicle called it "A well-oiled, loudly revving summer action vehicle that does all that?s required, and then some". Jordan Mintzer from Variety said Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen takes the franchise to a vastly superior level of artificial intelligence. Entertainment Weekly said "Revenge of the Fallen may be a massive overdose of popcorn greased with motor oil. But it knows how to feed your inner 10-year-old's appetite for destruction". According to The Washington Post, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is Bay's worst-reviewed film, faring even lower than Pearl Harbor. Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter commented in his review that "for the uninitiated, it's loud, tedious, and at 147 minutes, way too long".Roger Ebert, who had given the 2007 film three stars, gave Revenge of the Fallen only one star, calling it "...a horrible experience of unbearable length".He later wrote in his blog about the film, saying "The day will come when Transformers:
Revenge of the Fallen will be studied in film classes and shown at cult film festivals. It will be seen, in retrospect, as marking the end of an era. Of course there will be many more CGI-based action epics, but never again one this bloated, excessive, incomprehensible, long or expensive ".Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers did not give the film any stars considering that "Transformers 2 has a shot at the title Worst Movie of the Decade".
In the movie, helicopters, fighter jets and panther-shaped robots take precedence over La Beouf and his exceptionally photogenic co-star Fox. Too tiny to cause much dama ge to the massive Devastator and his fellow killer …bots, the humans do an awful lot of running as the mechanized warriors smash each other to bits.
Though there are many negative comments on Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, personally speaking, I think there are many things should be admitted in this movie. For example, as the director did in the first Transformers movie, Optimus Prime gets the last word amid the wreckage, Revenge of the Fallen?s most soulful character voices the hope that man and machine can co-exist. This is a good hope to be harmonious with the unknown power. It alarms humanbeings to introspect. Besides, I appreciatie the music in the movie. I think Steven Spielberg should thank Linkin Park, cause their songs certainly added coulor to the movie. As the old saying goes “Love me, love my dog”, I like the movie partly because that I am a big fan of Linkin Park.
《变形金刚2》观后感 今天去电影院看了《变形金刚2》，写下观后感。这是小人第一次去电影院看，大屏幕看得我好不习惯，有点眼花。首先说一 下缺点，剧情老套是不可避免的，我也不在乎。 登场人物太多，而描写又不到位（除了擎天柱和大王峰，天火，双胞胎外），反派的描写甚少，威震天也很少，THE fallen那是 很少很少，而小人看好的横炮除了在开头把边路一刀两断之外， 才那一两个镜头。铁皮和女金刚那更可怜，令小人无语。人类过 分强大，后面的大战里，绝大部分霸天虎都是被美军干掉的，堂 堂大力神更是被美军机密武器轨道炮一炮打死。我们要看的是金 刚对金刚，而不是美军对金刚。还有在里面人类的戏份有点多， 小人是来看金刚的，不是来看SAM的历险记的。 说完缺点，再说优点。小人很满意这次的特技，这次的特技 是很好很强大。看点有很多，如擎天柱在丛林一对三的打斗，是 本片最好看的地方之一，柱哥在以一里不敌威震天，却在2里大 发神威，令小人十分满意，可怜的是被老威偷袭至死，柱哥死的 特写令人伤心。大王峰在2里也是一样一打三，很好很强大。老 威这次战栗低下，是在水里泡太长时间了。 大力神出场时的合体画面值得一看。天火这一老爷机满是笑料，走起路来，零件会掉下来，后面和柱哥合体，那可真nb啊， 秒杀THE FALLEN，老威被毁容，小红被断手(看来柱哥一定是相信
了春哥) ，可惜是一次性的，天火请一路走好。这次的霸天虎数 量之多，威力之差，形成很好对比，大概都是量产货（这批量产货大概是小红生产的）。THE FALLEN也不是很多人说的被合体柱哥 秒杀，还是打了一会，才死。新加入的角色里欧，很多笑料，在 场观众很多都是为他笑的，第7区的特工终于当了一下正面角色。好了就说到这。 希望第3部，横炮多点画面，美军不要太强，人类戏份少点，给我变成一套真正的变形金刚。如果100分时满分的话，我给95分。
Journey to the Center of the Earth（地心游记）2008 There is a part of me that will always have affection for a movie like "Journey to the Center of the Earth." It is a small part and steadily shrinking, but once I put on the 3-D glasses and settled in my seat, it started perking up. This is a fairly bad movie, and yet at the same time maybe about as good as it could be. There may not be an 8-year-old alive who would not love it. If I had seen it when I was 8, I would have remembered it with deep affection for all these years, until I saw it again and realized how little I really knew at that age. You are already familiar with the premise, that there is another land inside of our globe. You are familiar because the Jules Verne novel has inspired more than a dozen movies and countless TV productions, including a series, and has been ripped off by such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, who called it Pellucidar, and imagined that the Earth was hollow and there was another world on the inside surface. (You didn't ask, but yes, I own a copy of Tarzan at the Earth's Core with the original dust jacket.) In this version, Brendan Fraser stars as a geologist named Trevor, who defends the memory of his late brother, Max, who believed the center of the Earth could be reached through "volcanic tubes." Max disappeared on a mysterious expedition, which, if it involved volcanic tubes, should have been no surprise to him. Now Trevor has been asked to spend some time with his nephew, Max's son, who is named Sean (Josh Hutcherson). What with one thing and another, wouldn't you know they find themselves in Iceland, and peering down a volcanic tube. They are joined in this enterprise by Hannah (Anita Briem), who they find living in Max's former research headquarters near the volcano he was investigating. Now begins a series of adventures, in which the operative principle is: No matter how frequently or how far they fall, they will land without injury. They fall very frequently, and very far. The first drop lands them at the bottom of a deep cave, from which they cannot possibly climb, but they remain remarkably optimistic: "There must be a way out of here!" Sure enough, they find an abandoned mine shaft and climb aboard three cars of its miniature railway for a scene that will make you swear the filmmakers must have seen "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." Just like in that movie, they hurtle down the tracks at breakneck speeds; they're in three cars, on three more or less parallel tracks, leading you to wonder why three parallel tracks were constructed at great expense and bother, but just when such questions are forming, they have to (1) leap a chasm, (2) jump from one car to another, and (3) crash. It's a funny thing about that little railway: After all these years, it still has lamps hanging over the rails, and the electricity is still on. The problem of lighting an unlit world is solved in the next cave they enter, which is inhabited by cute little birds that glow in the dark. One of them makes friends with Sean, and leads them on to the big attraction -- a world bounded by a great interior sea. This world must be a terrible place to inhabit; it has man-eating and man-strangling plants, its waters harbor giant-fanged fish and fearsome sea snakes that eat them, and on the further shore is a Tyrannosaurus rex. So do the characters despair? Would you despair, if you were trapped miles below the surface in a cave and being chased by its hungry inhabitants? Of course not. There isn't a moment in the movie when anyone seems frightened, not even during a fall straight down for thousands of feet, during which they link hands like sky-divers and carry on a conversation. Trevor gets the ball rolling: "We're still falling!" I mentioned 3-D glasses earlier in the review. Yes, the movie is available in 3-D in "selected theaters." Select those theaters to avoid. With a few exceptions (such as the authentic IMAX process), 3-D remains underwhelming to me -- a distraction, a disappointment and more often than not offering a dingy picture. I guess setting your story inside the Earth is one way to explain why it always seems to need more lighting. The movie is being shown in 2-D in most theaters, and that's how I wish I had seen it. Since there's that part of me with a certain weakness for movies like this, it's possible I would have liked it more. It would have looked brighter and clearer, and the photography wouldn't have been cluttered up with all the leaping and gnashing of teeth. Then I could have appreciated the work of the plucky actors, who do a lot of things right in this movie, of which the most heroic is keeping a straight face. 1
Seven(七宗罪)1995 David Fincher's classic tale of inventive serial killing and urban degredation, with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman on excellent form Who'd have thought? An absurd-sounding tale of a serial killer basing his crimes around the seven deadly sins, directed by the man behind the mess that was Alien3, turning out to be one of the most chilling and original thrillers of the 1990s. From the outset, through the film's brilliantly designed deliberate under-lighting - we see very little blood and guts - and muffled sound, the audience is encouraged to lean towards the screen, immerse itself in the film's unbearably grim world. Pitt is in career-making form as Mills, a simple cop moving with his sweet young wife (Paltrow) to a grim, anonymous city, determined to make a difference, to do some good. He is assigned to track down a vengeful killer, and works alongside Somerset (Freeman), a jaded, wise policeman on the verge of retirement. The two are that modern movie cliché -the mismatched pair thrown together by circumstance, who gradually learn mutual respect. But Fincher and Walker take these hackneyed ingredients, play with them in the context of a brilliantly cohesive plot, and present something consistently fresh - the police finding themselves with too much evidence, the premature unmasking of the killer - and very, very dark. 1
科幻电影《变形金刚》观后感500字 《变形金刚》是美国科幻动作系列电影，改编自起源于20世纪80年代的变形金刚品牌系列。该电影系列由派拉蒙影业公司和梦工厂发行。这里给大家分享一些关于科幻电影《变形金刚》观后感500字，希望能帮到各位。 科幻电影《变形金刚》观后感500字1 一直觉得新西兰这个破地方没有TF氛围，作为AC的一员，我号召了同是TF迷的两个朋友(AC潜水男A，男B)一同去看了首映式。首映式很简单没有韩国那里那么轰轰烈烈，为了营造点气氛。我们一行3人佩戴了2个OP头盔(男A没买。被BS了一顿)，在电影院里来回乱串，很多老外都向我们伸出了大拇指。等我们进入了影院，发现里面也有几个老外也戴了头盔，顿时觉得找到了组织，一阵闲聊。发现对方也是TF狂热迷，很是差异~不过还是感到了欣慰。电影开始了。自动屏蔽剧情)。让我感到意外的是，等电影结束之后全场都没有马上离席，反而报以了热烈地掌声。可见这部电影还是很受老外的喜欢的。 已经订了这周日的电影票，打算再去体会一下电影带给我的那种TF意境。至少，我非常喜欢这部电影。心情变化很大。从无比的期待，到静下心来慢慢体会。然后被某些剧情所感染，被打动，差点随着男主角sam一起流泪。这些就是大电影带给我的感觉。即便很多人报以不屑的态度去看电影，带着挑刺的有色眼镜对电影指指点点，我还是喜欢它。面对着桌子上的电影TF，思想又一次进入了电影的情节。 感受颇多啊。首先让我对狂派有了很明显的改观，以前一直以为狂派都是胆小鬼，自私自利的那种，电影里面绝对不是，全部效忠威震天。毫不含糊。，博派也不是以人类为第一保护对象。而是以博派利益为主。对里面的每个人物都产生了好感。大黄蜂的改观最大。绝
Tess(苔丝)1979 Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, which Roman Polanski has turned into a lovely, lyrical, unexpectedly delicate movie, might at first seem to be the wrong project for Mr. Polanski in every way. As a new biography of the director reports, when Tess was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, the press pointed nastily and repeatedly to the coincidence of Mr. Polanski's having made a film about a young girl's seduction by an older man, while he himself faced criminal charges for a similar offense. This would certainly seem to cast a pall over the project. So would the fact that Hardy's novel is so very deeply rooted in English landscapes, geographical and sociological, while Mr. Polanski was brought up in Poland. Finally, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is so quintessentially Victorian a story that a believable version might seem well out of any contemporary director's reach. But if an elegant, plausible, affecting Tess sounds like more than might have been expected of Mr. Polanski, let's just say he has achieved the impossible. In fact, in the process of adapting his style to suit such a sweeping and vivid novel, he has achieved something very unlike his other work. Without Mr. Polanski's name in the credits, this lush and scenic Tess could even be mistaken for the work of David Lean. In a preface to the later editions of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Mr. Hardy described the work as "an impression, not an argument." Mr. Polanski has taken a similar approach, removing the sting from both the story's morality and its melodrama. Tess Durbeyfield, the hearty country lass whose downfall begins when her father learns he had noble forebears, is sent to charm her rich D'Urberville relations. She learns that they aren't D'Urbervilles after all; instead, they have used their new money to purchase an old name. Tess charms them anyhow, so much that Alec D'Urberville, her imposter cousin, seduces and impregnates her. The seduction, like many of the film's key scenes, is presented in a manner both earthy and discreet. In this case, the action is set in a forest, where a gentle mist arises from the ground and envelops Tess just around the time when she is enveloped by Alec. Alec, as played by Leigh Lawson, is a slightly wooden character, unlike Angel Clare, Tess's later and truer lover, played with supreme radiance by Peter Firth. Long after Tess has borne and buried her illegitimate child, she finds and falls in love with this spirited soul mate. But when she marries Angel Clare and is at last ready to reveal the secret of her past, the story begins hurtling toward its final tragedy. When Tess becomes a murderer, the film offers its one distinctly Polanski-like moment—but even that scene has its fidelity to the novel. A housemaid listening at a door hears a "drip, drip, drip" sound, according to Hardy. Mr. Polanski has simply interpreted this with a typically mischievous flourish. Of all the unlikely strong points of Tess, which opens today for a weeklong engagement at the Baronet and which will reopen next year, the unlikeliest is Nastassja Kinski, who plays the title role. Miss Kinski powerfully resembles the young Ingrid Bergman, and she is altogether ravishing. But she's an odd choice for Tess: not quite vigorous enough, and maybe even too beautiful. She's an actress who can lose her magnetism and mystery if she's given a great deal to do (that was the case in an earlier film called Stay As You Are). But here, Mr. Polanski makes perfect use of her. Instead of a driving force, she becomes an echo of the land and the society around her, more passive than Hardy's Tess but linked just as unmistakably with natural forces. Miss Kinski's Tess has no inner life to speak of. But Mr. Polanski makes her surroundings so expressive that her placidity and reserve work very beautifully. Even at its nearly three-hour running time, Mr. Polanski's Tess cannot hope for anything approaching the range of the novel. But the deletions have been made wisely, and though the story loses some of its resonance it maintains its momentum. There are episodes—like one involving Tess's shabby boots and Mercy Chant, the more respectable girl who expects to marry Angel—that don't make the sense they should, and the action is fragmented at times. That's a small price to pay for the movie's essential rightness, for its congruence with the mood and manner of the novel. Mr. Polanski had to go to Normandy and rebuild Stonehenge to stage his last scene, according to this same biography. As is the case throughout his Tess, the results were worth the trouble. 1
《黑衣人》3观后感 《黑衣人》系列可能属于内种拖拖拉拉让人着急的系列电影，从横空出世票房口碑双赢影响全球时尚潮流跟阴谋论话题的诞生于1997年的第一集，再到踉踉跄跄二换编剧输了口碑遭人诟病票房小胜的第二集，直到今日的三部曲尾声，这一路的拍摄周期似乎有越拉越长成倍数递增的趋势。然而十几年的等待却是地地道道的情结养成，一路从后vhs录影带时代迎来vcd大爆发的迷影小子们，从没在大银幕上得以享受过黑超特警组为人们的带来的诸多乐子，以至于那些b 级片范儿的外星怪形跟谐趣十足的动作场面只能一遍遍的在电脑跟高清电视中温习，哪个科幻宅不能随口说出关于黑超的段子，神马wormguy的插科打诨，各种武器道具载具的性能优势，客串嘉宾的名单都是乐此不疲的地道谈资。不过现在我们可以告别温故流传的苦逼等待，在拯救世界与穿越得瑟之间尽情的乐呵下去。 在赶上一个好年代的方面，《黑3》也许比前两集都要幸运。一来这个品牌已经有了地球人都知道的认知度，一老一少一黑一白的经典搭档也曾经是风靡全球的时尚文化icon;二来傍上3d跟imax大普及，影片虽然也是由后期转制3d，但是在处理景深跟层次感上却效果不错，一些专门为3d视
效所打造的段落基本都得到了绝佳的展示，而像高空坠楼的穿越戏这些也十分适合imax观看;三来拜服于近几年天朝各大字幕组的神译，中影此次制作的字幕也极为应景：地沟油，瘦肉精，唐宋诗词，“你丫穿越剧看多了吧”等这些与时下社会热点，网络文化十分贴合的翻译均一一跃上银幕，既不会让观影者觉得突兀生硬也做到了跟剧情以及角色的无缝对接。除此之外，本片更是搭上了近年来滥大街的穿越题材，虽然这并非多么新鲜的设定，但早在第二集上映的XX年就由史密斯最先提出，只不过等到影片出炉上映，却也是十年后的事情了。跟第二集寻找k探员出山重归黑超局类似，本片还是以k探员的“消失”为线索推进，其最大的看点就在于穿越的年代-1969。至于这个年代在整个人类历史中有多么重要与别样，那你光是看看这些关键词也许就能窥见一斑：嬉皮，摇滚乐，波普艺术，安迪沃霍尔，阿波罗11号，文化爆炸等等。影片最大限度的还原了这一特殊时代，无论是服装建筑还是文化风潮，都被尽情的展示出来，并紧扣剧情需要融入到每一个环节中。像进入安迪沃霍尔派对的口令-janisjoplin，前者的真实身份跟创作灵感，“地下丝绒”的背景音乐，对种族歧视的戏谑等。 说到搭档出演，其实本片中真正的对手戏是威尔史密斯同乔什布洛林。前者继续着嬉闹犯贱的嘴风，而后者则如老汤米附体，举手投足间都是活脱脱的k探员翻版。同上集糟
Optimus Prime,Transformers inside of Justice Party (Autos, also known Optimus Prime is well equipped with the enemy situation, time to repel the enemy. Optimus Prime's leadership and good heart, he is trust people on the planet,his work also Prime was a regular car, and his longing for peace, some- Tiger fighter days make him truly believe only a revolt in order to survive. Titanium chef after he transformed into a perfect fighting robots, he invested against the Decepticons in ambition, fight for The fallen transformers CYBERTRON planet gods creation one of the elements of a collection in one corner of the Earth, and the fallen are trapped in Egypt under the pyramid. tasks to perform not less than others. He and the human boy Sam formed a strong friendship, in the second episode of Bumblebee in the shadow image very successful, than the original cartoon also impressive, Director small stature, warm-hearted, have the gift of the gab. Every word he said joke, Autobots as Optimus Prime, a police vehicle. He was a competent information and important logistic support personnel. As the cars were the most trustworthy robot doctor, ambulances must be now the most dangerous sites, as any car brothers hit oil spills, tires cross flies must rely on him to solve the problem. Therefore it can be said that no ambulance the top mechanical repair engineers, car guy and fighter-day tiger that insidious battle may end sooner. Emergency-ambulance is behind the deformation accelerate reflecting reassuring, often like a donkey's hardworking, saying: "you break my fix. " and Skids（刹车）Mudflap（挡泥板） Principal figure （Hero）
变形金刚2 Two years on and it's much more of the same, in fact probably too much with director Michael Bay running riot with all of his warrior “toys.” Less definitely would have been more—yet that is probably not going to harm its prospects. The original grossed 700 million dollars worldwide and this sequel should do equally well, never mind all the ancillaries. And, of course, Shia LaBoeuf since his first outing has acquired a whole legion of fans to swell the ranks. It is something of a relief that despite its protracted running time Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen does not take itself too seriously. There is a neat and jokey atmosphere that pervades throughout which helps any poor viewer trying to make narrative sense of it all. My advice is to switch off your brainpower, get in touch with your inner juvenile self and go with the flow for this feast for the senses, orchestrated by the undoubted maestro of the genre Michael Bay. The prologue pitches us into Shanghai where a strike team lead by Josh D uhamel’s Captain Lennox is hunting down the leftover baddies from Decepticon who are on the way to cause even more trouble. Meanwhile, back in suburbia Shia LaBoeuf is about to go off to college, leaving behind Megan Fox as his girlfriend and his rather endearing but mad parents (Kevin Dunn and Julie White). He has forebodings that the evil Megatron (voiced by Hugo Weaving) is about to make his presence felt. His suspicions are well founded. Soon Megatron is causing mayhem in multiple locations, including a stunning sequence atop the Brooklyn Bridge, another in Paris, the Pyramids at Luxor, the Nevada Desert and many other equally spectacular backdrops. The action is as noisy and in-your-face as ever—and just as deafening for those of a delicate (or even normal) hearing disposition. The machines of course hold center stage while the actors are mere players trying to avoid the hardware. Shia LaBoeuf sports a bandage, the cause of which was worked in to the plot to explain away his infamous accident during filming. LaBoeuf has enough of the innocent charm to inhabit a character caught up in circumstances that are way beyond anything his imagination could conjure up. Fox looks suitably delectable as eye candy for what will be the predominantly male audience
The Pursuit of Happiness（当幸福来敲门）2006 With a title like The Pursuit of Happiness, you expect the characters to get to the promised land. They do, but if the journey matters more than the destination, this is a movie to skip. The Pursuit of Happyness is long, dull, and depressing. It expands into two hours a story that could have been told more effectively in one. This is not the feel-good movie of the season unless you believe that a few moments of good cheer can redeem 110 minutes of gloom. Sitting through The Pursuit of Happiness is a chore. Downbeat movies aren't inherently bad (in fact, many are powerful), but this one provides artificial characters in contrived circumstances. How is it that movies "inspired by a real story" often feel more fake than those fully embedded in the realm of fiction? Will Smith has generated Oscar buzz for his portrayal of Chris Gardner, the real-life guy whose rags-to-riches story forms the basis of the movie. (Impoverished guy becomes capitalist poster boy.) While it's fair to say that this is one of the best straight performances of Smith's career, it didn't blow me away. In and of itself, the acting, while effective, is not Best Actor material, but it wouldn't surprise me if the movie's prestige factor and Smith's popularity earn him a nod. Meanwhile, his female co-star, Thandie Newton, isn't going to be considered for any award. Newton spends about 90% of her screen time doing an impersonation of a harpy: screeching, bitching, and contorting her face into unpleasant expressions. Smith's son, Jaden, is okay as the movie's child protagonist; it's unclear whether his occasional deficiencies are the result of his acting, Steven Conrad's writing, or Gabriele Muccino's direction, but there's not much personality behind the cute features and curly hair. Chris Gardner (Will Smith) is down on his luck. It's 1981 San Francisco and his self-employed business of selling portable bone density scanners isn't doing well. His wife, Linda (Thandie Newton), does nothing but yell at him and give him a cold shoulder, and the lack of domestic harmony is impacting the disposition of his beloved son, Christopher (Jaden Christopher Syre Smith). That's when Chris' life turns into a country song. His wife leaves. He is evicted from his home. He goes to jail, neither passing GO nor collecting a much-needed $200. He gets hit by a car. He is robbed. He makes his son cry. He alienates a friend over $14. He gets to spend a night in the cleanest public restroom in the history of public restrooms. But there's a bright spot, although you need a dark-adapted eye to find it. Despite having no experience, Chris applies to enter an internship program at Dean Witter. He would appear to have no chance to get in until he amazes the head of the program (Brian Howe) by solving the Rubik's Cube puzzle in the back of a taxi cab. It's a blessing that the movie doesn't use a stock villain to impede Chris' herky-jerky trip to the top, because that would have tipped the movie into the empire of the unwatchable. However, the lack of a strong conflict makes the two-hour running length seem very long. Thankfully, there's also not much in the way of overt melodrama, but that could be a byproduct of having characters who are not deeply realized and have narrow emotional ranges. It's tough to connect with Chris and his son. Although they are played by a real-life father and son, there's no chemistry between them. We're constantly told how desperately Chris loves Christopher, but it takes a long time before we begin to buy it. Most of the time, Christopher seems like an annoying piece of baggage that Chris drops off at daycare when he has other things to do. The film's most compelling scenes are those that show Chris struggling to enter the rat race. Granted, this is no Glengarry Glen Ross, but it shows the pressure these salesmen are under and how important the contact lists are. In the overall scheme of things, however, these sequences are background noise. They are neither plentiful nor lengthy. The movie spends more time following Chris on his futile sales rounds for the bone density scanner than it does accompanying him during his broker training. The moral of the story is as trite as they come: don't let anyone convince you to give up on your dreams. Disney animated films have been doing this better for decades. The Pursuit of Happyness concludes with a caption that tells us what happens to Chris after the end of the movie; it promises a better story than the one we have just watched. The film is also marred by a persistent (although not verbose) voiceover that adds nothing to the story while frequently jerking us out of the experience of watching it. I don't need Will Smith telling me: "This part of the story is called 'riding the bus.'" This is the English-language debut of Gabriele Muccino, who has made a name for himself in Italian cinema. The Pursuit of Happiness has the kind of slow, drab tone one occasionally associates with a director raised outside of the Hollywood system. What can be an asset in some circumstances is a detriment in this one. The Pursuit of Happiness isn't enjoyable, and its meager pleasures, including the eventual "payoff," aren't enough to justify the unrelenting misery. The Pursuit of Happiness is competently made and gets lots of the details right, but when it comes to the emotional core of the story, it loses the pursuit and misses the "happiness."