Lately, it seems that I haven't been very good at picking out movies to watch. My buddies are probably getting tired of it, but for some reason they keep leaving it up to me to make the choice. At first I liked that, but now I'm not so sure. I don't trust my judgement like I used to. Before I go any further I just want to state that this review isn't meant to completely bag on the new movie, "The Cold Light of Day." However it is meant to criticize it, hopefully in a constructive manner.
The trailer for this movie looked great, a common problem that I've been dealing with a lot lately. It's not to say that the trailer looked fantastic, but it did make it look like it had the potential to be fantastic. The problem is that Hollywood is churning out way too many movies too fast. They're not giving enough attention to detail. They usually bank on things like special effects, star status, and beautiful people. Those three things are all visually stimulating. A car hits another car and blows up. They do it right and it looks awesome. A leading man shows up with his quick wit, and charming smile, and people are drawn to watching him. And of course, a beautiful person shows up and you just want to watch them, of course. Why? Because they're beautiful. I mean we could get into a discussion about Fibonacci and perfect symmetry and all that other good stuff, but I think you know what I mean.
I used to be blind to most of this stuff. I used to just love movies. Then I decided I wanted to become an actor and I quickly learned that everyone has strong opinions about everything in movies and television, especially acting. I've heard and learned a lot from teachers, and other actors, and reading reviews among other things. It comes down to this, I prefer to not be critical. Especially if I want to act and act professionally one day. I don't want people always criticizing my work, but the fact remains that as a customer, I was not satisfied with watching, "The Cold Light of Day." Having said that, there are always going to be varying opinions among people and some people may absolutely love the movie. I honestly hope they did.
There were definitely things that I liked about it, but let me first point out what I didn't like. I felt that Sigourney Weaver's character was a little... well, annoying. I like the bad guys/girls that are interesting and fun to watch. She seemed very robotic, almost like the terminator from the second terminator movie, except I like watching that character. Now I'm not sure what she could have done, and I think that at least some of it has to do with the script. The script just didn't seem very well thought out, and Sigourney's one liners were the worst of it. The parking garage seen made her seem a little too powerful. She simply walked around shooting one person at a time while there were a lot of people that could have shot her. She stayed right out in the open. Truth be told though, I haven't seen very many of her performances. I know thought she's been heralded as a tough girl from her Alien's performance, and I don't want to nor do I think it's my place to criticize her overall acting ability.
I really don't think that they should have killed Bruce Willis' character. It just doesn't feel right to have Bruce Willis killed in a movie, it felt wrong. I know it was bound to happen now that he's getting older, and in this he's making room for his son to take lead, but it just seems wrong. Besides, from the trailer, I was thinking that this was going to be a cool father-son team up. It would've been cool to see the dynamic between the father and son play out more, because they were definitely different people. Which brings me to the main character, Will, played by Henry Cavill. I haven't seen much of Henry Cavill, I don't think many of us have, but soon he will be a household name. He's going to be the next Superman in the "Man of Steel," produced by none other than Christopher Nolan. I thought Cavill was good in Immortals, but there were some things that bothered me in this movie. I guess that they were going for a more sensitive character versus the tough character that his dad his, but it didn't really work for me. The crying on the bus, maybe a realistic response for some people but I think it would have been better if we saw more of his anger rather than his whimpering vulnerability. However, I'm not giving up on him yet. I look forward to seeing what he does with his performance as Superman.
Anyway, not that we've got all that other stuff out of the way, let's look at the good stuff. The girl that he ends up teaming up with that turns out to be his sister, she's one of those beautiful people I was talking about. I also liked the actress' performance. Played by Veronica Echegui, Lucia was a tough but vulnerable character. Veronica Echegui is from Spain and looks like a mix of Penelope Cruz and Natalie Portman both of whom are very beautiful as well. Although the action scenes were not bad there was another visual element that stood out. That is the location of Spain. Since I don't know for sure, I am assuming that a good part of the movie was actually filmed in Spain. Wherever it was, it was fascinating to look at. The beach area with the cliffs, and out in the water, it was amazing. They also showed a great deal of the city area which has beautiful landscape and architecture. It made me want to visit Spain, or at least travel more often. Overall, I was left with a slightly disappointed feeling in my movie loving heart. But hey, at least it wasn't as bad as Haywire.
