Did anyone else not like "The Hurt Locker"?

So it won Best Picture? Yeah...hmm.

I've never seen a movie that was so hyped by critics and ended up being so disappointing. Usually when a movie is so critically-acclaimed, I can at least see what people liked about it, even if I didn't personally enjoy it. Kind of like going to the opera; you can appreciate the skill and art of it while still thinking it's pretty boring to actually watch. But with this movie, there was just nothing there. There wasn't really any plot to speak of. Interesting battlefield action kept happening, with lots of interesting shooting and explosions, but for the most part the events of the movie never tie together into any sort of cohesive narrative. Most of the story, such as it was, was very silly and unbelievable. The main character was incredibly shallow and went through zero development throughout the story. You know everything about him about three minutes after he's introduced, and you never learn anything else or see him change in any significant way.

So what exactly is everyone else seeing that I'm missing? Don't get me wrong, it wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but it was very very mediocre. At best, it was a shallow and repetitive character study on addiction and obsession. Oh, and it was horribly inaccurate as to how real EOD teams work...which I could easily forgive, if they were distorting reality for the sake of telling some sort of compelling or interesting story. But so far as I can tell, they aren't.

 

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AVATAR > HURT LOCKER end of story

 

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Yes, I saw it and I agree with what you are saying. It did lack.

 

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but as far as i know a grammy has never been given out to a scifi movie for best picture

 

Well, as soon as I read the plot (I haven't watched the Hurt Locker, only watched Avatar), it seems to me that it's just a political vote. Avatar sent some kind of anti war message (not to attack the native blue people), whereas the Hurt Locker sent some kind of pro war message (supporting war in Iraq and Afghanistan), and the Oscar is organized by Americans (who are supposed to be pro war). Kind of like why the latest Nobel peace prize goes to Obama. At least that's my opinion. Not sure though, cause I only read the movie plot

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Overall, me thinks Avatar should have won the award. The way I see the Oscar now is a bit the way I see the Noble prize, not as prestigious as it used to be.

But then again, without the visual effect (3d/ imax effect), Avatar is a bit cliche. SOme people on the other thread say it's almost similar with the Dance with Wolves or the Pocahontas. So maybe there is just no better movie than the Hurt Locker at this time.

 

it seems to me that it's just a political vote

Bingo

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The Hollywood establishment, however, is generally though to be very anti-war. Personally I wouldn't say that THL was overly pro or anti war. The main character was presented as being addicted to it, but the movie also made it clear that he was addicted to danger and pretty screwed up mentally, so I'm not sure you could take a message away one way or the other.

 

Well, as I said, I haven't watched the movie, really, so maybe I have to take my comment back

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The wiki article says....
"The idea is that it's the first movie about the Iraq War that purports to show the experience of the soldiers. We wanted to show the kinds of things that soldiers go through that you can't see on CNN, and I don't mean that in a censorship-conspiracy way. I just mean the news doesn't actually put photographers in with units that are this elite"...,
and then something about Afghanistan as well, that's how I draw my conclusion.

 

*** possible spoiler alert below ****
I agree with Nasor except maybe we don't know everything about the main character right away. Maybe we're sopposed to wonder why he's so fearless and acts like he has nothing to lose. Maybe he lost a wife or a child and went "crazy" not caring about his own life. Maybe a traumatic experience when he was 5..

but no. Nothing like that.

The reason he does that is to get away from the excruciating mundane life he has back home with a good wife and a good baby. They show him strolling the endless grocery store isles and cleaning gutters and helping his wife in the kitchen… He actually prefers the excitement of defusing bombs. .. Yeah.. how profound.

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It was an OK movie. worth watching but not worthy of the best of the year award, IMO

 

I haven't seen the hurt locker yet, but since it won I want to. I had never even heard of it before.

 

I remember thinking it was a good movie, but hardly revolutionary. It was better than Avatar in some ways.

 

Yeah, that's basically my biggest complaint. If you're going to do a character study about a messed-up guy who's addicted to something (and admittedly they have a pretty original premise concerning what the guy is addicted to), there are a lot of interesting ways you can go. Maybe you can explore how he got to be that way, what turned an otherwise-normal guy into a semi-deranged danger junkie. You can have him come to terms with his addiction and make it a story about redemption and overcoming problems, with the character realizing he's screwed up and fighting to better himself. Or you can just use the screwed-up character to tell a really interesting/entertaining story, with the convenient excuse of "well, he's kind of crazy" to explain why he's doing things that most people wouldn't plausibly do. Or, hey, it's not like I'm unwilling to be open-minded about a movie's point or how it's structured. Maybe there's some really interesting and original way you could make a movie about addiction and obsession that hasn't occurred to me.

Spoiler alert: But none of that happens; we never find out what went wrong his is psyche, he never has any moment of redemption or self-realization, and no cohesive "story" ever develops. At first when they were having the drunken "man talk" after getting shot at, I thought we were going to find out how he got to be so messed up - but we never find out. Then when the stuff with the missing "Beckam" kid and the body in the warehouse happened, I thought maybe some sort of interesting plot-based story was going to unfold about this guy bringing down a ring of child-killing terrorists. But no, nothing like that ever happened. It was just "Oops, I was wrong about him being dead! The last 20 minutes or so of screen time are now irrelevant. Well, not totally irrelevant; they show you that I'm a psychotic danger junkie who looks for excuses to do risky things. You hadn't figured that out yet, had you???

Instead of anything interesting, they just beat you over the head with the fact that he's addicted to adrenaline over and over and over again. It especially annoys me that various "serious" critics have gone out of their way to applaud the very end of the movie, where he can't fit in at home, as if this was somehow deep or profound or moving. Umm, for the last hour and a half you've been showing us that he doesn't fit in well even with other combat troops. OF COURSE he's not going to fit in at home. If he had fit in at home, it would only have made the movie even more meaningless and nonsensical, because it would have contradicted the one and only thing we really know about his nature.

Ok, I guess my rant is over. For the moment...

 

Star Wars won in 1977.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in 1982 recieved best picture.

 

didnt lord of the rings and harry potter win as well? or is he just counting scifi alone rather than with fantasy (as people usually do). If this is the case then star wars shouldnt really count because its not scifi, its a fantasy story

 

Who cares it was a piece of shit? It was directed by a woman, and according to the sign of times, we need to recognize a woman director, so she might as well be her...

 

Ummm....isn't a grammy given out for music?? So, no. I doubt one has ever been given to a sci-fi movie...or any other kind of movie for that matter. :shrug:

 

the hurt locker was just not all that

 

Neither was Avatar. Seriously, the special effects carried it. The story was predictable

 

Neither Star Wars Nor E.T. , nor any other sci-fi movie has ever won Best Picture

 

I really enjoyed "Up in the Air"....

I just though I would throw that here....

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