#34 World Trade Center


#34 World Trade Center

Year: 2006
Director: Oliver Stone
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Epic Co-stars: Michael Pena (no, that's not Yatzee), Maria Bello
Running Time: 129 minutes
Cage Time: 80%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 2
Skyler's Review: I must admit that it was difficult to get to writing this review, as I have been buried in work, but here goes...

Viewing this film on the 11th anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11/12 made us feel the gravity of the situation on that day. The film begins with Nicolas Cage setting the foundation of the story as a cop for the NYPD, whose face is covered with mustache. After a short scene about confusion when the towers were hit, the movie gives way to the second phase of the film: Nicolas Cage buried under piles of rubble.


Nicolas cage has a dirty mustache.
Seeing Cage completely immobile and covered, completely demolishes any preconceived ideas of what that day was like for first responders. Your heart crumples as you think about all of the people that were affected. As if the screen is portraying one buried man, to show how gruesome it was for the 1000s that were trapped.

Then suddenly, any realism collapses and the plot breaks down into a fantasy story. Some marine feels the weight of the situation and decides to drive to ground zero and walk into the rubble. He then proceeds to fall directly onto the location of mustachio'd Nic Cage. It is also likely that there were hundreds of other marines that tumbled into NYC, walked into the rubble, covered some ground, and found absolutely nobody. Mentioning these marines would have broken the suspended reality, I guess, so they are ignored.


Most of the film is in this dark underground set.
The film then breaks way to the final section of the film. The part seems to drag on, and on, and on, as your attention span crumbles into pieces. You want to collapse in your chair and fall asleep, due to the length of the film. Then you feel this crushing guilt for not being able to stay up and watch this tribute to the day the towers were not able to stay up. Why was the movie so long; why were the towers so long? In a way, that is what they director wanted: to simulate completely the feeling of being trapped and fighting to stay conscious. The only thing keeping this smash hit from completely paralleling the Twin Towers is that there isn't two of them; there is no sequel.


Movie Quotes:
  • "How'd it get burned? How'd it get burned? How'd it get burned? How'd it get burned?"
Plot Holes:
  • 9mm guns shoot themselves sometimes.
  • James thinks yelling at people when you're worried your spouse is dead is a plot hole. Martine thinks he's a dumbass.

CAGEamatic
Cinamatic
Skyler
Poor
Dreadful
Shauna
James
1.83/5
2.46/5
Martine
!Was Reminded (but had never forgotten) in the CAGE!

2 comments:

Steve M said...

There are so many stories that could be told and so many tragedies that it's kind of like watching a movie about the Titanic. You know in the end most everyone will die, so it is all about what details the director chooses to highlight and in this case I think the director did a good job showing some of the better parts of 9/11 without ignoring the pain suffered by so many. Except for getting dirty while still several blocks from the building Cage did a pretty good job, though it wasn't like he had to do much.

Ammunition will go off when it gets real hot, but in this case we're expected to believe that the round in the chamber got hot enough to go off, but none of the others did till moments after they had been chambered. This could only happen if the magazine were kept cooler than the chamber so that each round that was chambered by the previous one going off could heat up and go off. What really is going to happen is that some in the magazine will go off, spewing a fair amount of shrapnel from the gun, but leaving the lead bullets laying and not ricocheting all over. One or two would go off and out the barrel though.

KaBluie said...

#35 World Trade Center (2006) HDNET First Time View. Powerful. Emotional. I was in tears through most of this.

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