Gone Girl

2014 - 0/5

Gone Girl, aka Garbage!

And the exclamation would have been apart of the title because it explains the movie very well: you’re supposed to get something exciting, but in actuality, its just trash. I’m not sure what movie other people have seen, but this movie was just awful. I guess I never got the memo that notified the masses that trash like this is considered to be acceptable entertainment.

Here I was thinking this could actually be good. The book has been getting rave reviews, and the movie is directed by David Fincher who also directed Fight Club (1999), Se7en (1995), Panic Room (2002) , Zodiac (2007) and The Social Network (2010); he also directed The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011), but we’re all trying to forget about that one. The odds were in my favour! I was supposed to like this movie!!!

For a movie that was 149 minutes long, I felt every single minute of it go by.

***SPOILER ALERT*** 

So how’s about I start with the somewhat only redeeming quality about this movie: Ben Affleck (Nick Dunne), who seems to have put on a couple of pounds. No great acting could save this movie.

You could tell that the whole cast was trying to work with what they had, but it fell flat. The characters came off as one dimensional. The only character I actually didn’t mind was Margo Dunne (Nick’s twin sister). She was the only likeable character and that sucks because you don’t care about any of the characters so you don’t feel any sort of connection to them.

I keep hearing people say how believable the characters were, and I am beside myself. Every character was just so over the top, that it took out any sense of realism.
How cliché was it to have a lead female detective (who always had a coffee in her hand) with a puppy-dog partner who followed her around like a tail and had nothing to add.
The newscaster Ellen Abbott who took everything to the extreme; I’m glad Nick called her out on it when she went to his house; but even that amounted to nothing.
As for Tyler Perry, it seems as if he was added into the movie (I mean the character and the actor picked) to be an on-screen-laugh-track. What I mean by this is that he could be the visual queue for people to know when to laugh. He was just there to guide the audience to laugh like “Ya guys, c’mon and laugh with me. It’s funny. Really!”. It did not work.

Speaking of comedy… I love it when a director can sprinkle in a bit of comedy in a movie that has a heavy/sensitive plot. It’s nice when there’s a bit of comedy to lighten the mood, but this movie did not do that. There were some parts in which several people in the theatre laughed and it wasn’t because the scene was intended to be funny. It was one of those awkward moments when you had no other option but to laugh. And when it comes to the tense parts, Fincher thought it would be a good idea to add the score that he did. It was terrible. It was supposed to add to the tension on screen, but it came off as comical.

It was just too convenient to for Amy to live next to 2 hill-billy’s who eventually rob her (which I was happy about) in order for Amy to have to contact Desi Collings (Neil Patrick Harris); and I’ll admit, that aside from seeing his ass, he added nothing to the movie.

Its baffling to think that the FBI would take Amy’s word for it with regards to the events that she claims to have unfolded. Would the FBI really be that stupid when they search for evidence that would corroborate with her account of what happened? Even as a viewer, are we supposed to believe that Amy was actually capable of doing what she did (even if she was a psycho)? Just because she read a few books, watched a few documentaries and TV shows, that now all of a sudden, she knows exactly what to do, and how to get away with it!? How dumb did the author and director think their readers/viewers are? How insulting!

***SPOILERS DONE***          ***SPOILERS DONE*** 

If someone tells you that you should watch this movie you should punch them in the face. If a friend recommends this movie to you, they are not your friend. You don’t need people like that in your life.

If this was supposed to be a psychological thriller, it failed.
If this was supposed to be a comedy, it failed.
If this was supposed to be good, it crashed and burned and destroyed everything it came into contact with.
If you’re looking for a psychological thriller, I’d recommend you watch Don’t Say A Word (2001) and Double Jeopardy (1999).

This movie was sloppy. It didn’t know what it wanted to be. I haven’t read the book, but I have to make the assumption that it was written by an amateur if this is the storyline that she came up with.

This is the worst movie I've seen this year; and yes, I've seen Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

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Mom’s review:
It was pointless.
The movie as a whole amounted to nothing.