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Old 06-17-2015, 03:09 AM
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The Lone Ranger The Lone Ranger is offline
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Default Re: Movies that aren't really BAD -- but aren't very good, either

Well, I guess I'll have to respect her choice. I mean, if she really thinks that maintaining the femininity of her character is important enough to make the character behave like a complete moron, that's her business.



Besides, that's just the tip of the iceberg. It really does seem at times like the writers just plain dislike female characters.

For instance, when Clair and Owen first meet, we learn that -- Movie Cliché Alert! -- they have a past. Specifically, they went on a date once. There was no second date, at the insistence of Clair. Owen just will not let that go. And it seems pretty clear that we're supposed to sympathize with Owen and believe that there's something wrong with Clair, because she didn't immediately succumb to The Hero's charms. This, despite the fact that the movie has clearly established that the only thing these two people have in common is that they both breathe oxygen.

I mean, how dare she turn down The Hero's lewd advances? Who does she think she is?


Practically the whole first act of the movie seems to be dedicated to establishing that there's something fundamentally wrong with Clair, because she has put her career ahead of settling down and having a family. Nothing like this is suggested where any of the male characters are concerned, of course.

Indeed, in a telephone conversation with her, Clair's sister (the mother of the two annoying kids) comes this close to saying, "Clair, you aren't a real woman until you've pumped out a kid or two." The notion that Clair might not want to have kids -- and that there's nothing wrong with this -- is never given any serious consideration.



When Owen discovers that Clair doesn't know her two nephews' ages, he's appalled. He acts as if he'd just learned that she likes to barbecue kittens.

This despite the fact that Clair lives thousands of miles away from her sister and nephews, and she has a career that keeps her quite busy. Theres is clearly not a close-knit family, and I don't see how it makes Clair some kind of horrible person because it has been a few years since she's seen her nephews. [For what it's worth, I don't know the ages of every one of my nieces and nephews off the top of my head, either. Somehow, I don't think that makes me a horrible person. Besides, I'd be willing to bet that the movie wouldn't condemn me for not knowing, since I'm a guy and all.]

And frankly, if they were my nephews, I wouldn't want to spend much time with them either. The older one, at least, is just a straight-up jerk. He's one of those movie teens who sulks all the time, treats his parents with barely-concealed contempt, bullies his younger brother, and generally acts like a self-centered, spoiled brat. When he meets Clair, he treats her with no more respect than he'd treated his parents.

But again, we're supposed to believe that Clair is a bad person because she has an important business meeting to attend, and so leaves the two kids in the hands of her assistant. Not a great thing to do, admittedly. But then again, the movie implies that the kids' parents dumped them off on Clair with little advanced warning. If so, I don't see how it's Clair's fault that she didn't have time to rearrange her busy schedule to accommodate them.



There is one point where it's hinted that Clair actually has some hidden depths. She's quite handy with a gun, as it turns out. But immediately after Clair demonstrates that she's actually quite good with a gun, Owen snatches the gun from her, and she doesn't use or even hold one for the rest of the movie. Really? There are dozens of ferocious meat-eaters running/flying about, snatching up hapless park visitors -- and there are plenty of guns lying about for the taking -- but nobody thinks to let the girl have a gun, even though she has just demonstrated that she knows how to use one?

And immediately after that scene the two kids insist that they don't want to be left alone. Clair immediately reassures them that she will not leave them. Instantly, both boys respond, "Not you -- him!"

Really? I suppose that was intended to be funny, but it just seemed mean-spirited and insulting to me.




And of course, in the end, Owen pulls Clair into his manly embrace and kisses her. Because, of course, The Hero must get The Girl in the end -- even when a relationship between them makes no sense at all. Of course, the whole movie has been not at all subtly making this point: what Clair really needs is to get kissed good and hard by a manly man.

Feh.
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