Carrie 2013 review: Im very glad that I never title my reviews. Giving certain ones a snazzy title could be an easy task, as most of the time I have found that my feelings toward movies are very straight forward. Its either I like this movie, but here are its faults, or This movie existing offends reason, or even OMGZ BUY THIS MOVIE GUYZZ! ... Yeah, not so much here. Im conflicted not only on my feelings for the movie, but for what the title of this review would be if I titled it! Hollywood Hates Fat People? Books on a String? Mean Girls 3 - Kris and a pale of pigs blood? So right away, I will be honest and shock those of you who saw this movie when I say, I dont hate this movie. In fact, I enjoyed it. I am not sure if I dislike parts of it and like most of it for the wrong reasons or if those reasons are justified. To get started, lets give out a quick spoiler about the first five minutes of the movie. They added a scene which was well written, well performed, and added to the character of Carries mother. I was surprised and it made me feel easier about watching a movie that I purposely avoided other reviews of until after. The introduction scene helped set the mood, build and introduce Julianne Moore as Carries mom, and foreshadow the ending all at once. After seeing movies like This is the End and The Conjuring this year, I couldnt help but feel that the bar had been raised, and this one scene met the par. That IS one scene. It develops only ONE character. It lasted five minutes. After that, they play around with introducing a few other characters and get right to the tampon scene, which has a couple things... well... wrong with it. Sometimes Hollywood forgets that subtlety is golden. Sometimes, especially in this age of remakes, the filmmakers deliberately go far above and beyond what was necessary and it doesnt always make sense. Let me elaborate by spoiling something else... The girls throw the tampons. Okay, weve seen that. But while in mid-freakout, villain Kris pulls out a phone and films the ordeal, which is new. This tends to be a running theme with many modern movies, remake or not, that kids are glued to their phone and that everyone is an amateur filmmaker when a camera phone is about... In a steamy shower... when your camera phone wouldnt work very well... (but that is nitpicky). The scene culminates with the Gym teacher slapping Carrie to snap her out of it, caught on the phone, and yet THIS part is never brought up and the girl does not threaten to blackmail the teacher with the footage of the gym teacher slapping Carrie. Now where that would be the logical step to follow, it is backwards in the delivery, when the gym teacher threatens to use Kriss phone to incriminate her with cyber bullying. DID YA FORGET YA SLAPPED THE GIRL?!? Girl misses prom and you lose your job... good plan! This isnt the unforgivable part though. All that I can forgive. When Kris is still filming and everyone is crowded around, part of Carries telekinesis amps up and the tampons scatter from around her. Yep. Everyone saw it. NOBODY thought it was strange. NOBODY questions it. Apparently, this high school, in a Shamylan twist, is the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, and this Phoenix-level display of mutant power is absolutely normal. I hate to use foul language in my reviews most times, as I feel it cheapens what I try to say, but in this particular scene, I call BULLSHIT! I will spare some other spoilers, and use this scene towards the beginning as an example for the multitude of silliness that you can expect all throughout, but I will point out some other traits of this movie to show you that is IS bad... but not ALL bad. Since we are on the subject of what is wrong with it, however, I will start there. The things wrong with this movie were mostly problems with the original and with the book, because aside from the majority of this movie turning out as a shot-for-shot remake in the vein of Vince Vaughns Psycho, they mashed in scenes which were left out of the original from the book - none of which, mind you, make sense. Stephen King is one of those authors that everyone loves because he always has a good, original idea, and always gives enough description to make it terrifying when needs be and always goes for the emotional response. However, Kings greatest flaw, as evidenced so thoroughly in It, is his INABILITY TO END A STORY! His endings are some of the most lackluster that I have ever had the displeasure of reading, and his long awaited sequel to The Shining tells the tale better than I can that even when something does end well, he cannot let it go until he can find a way to end the arc with a terrible climax. His work is the Blue Balls of Literature, and I stand by that until someone can find me a truly acceptable ending to his story that other fans of his work could not make better with minimal skill. All of this hate towards Kings end-sequencing technique does play into some of the absurdity with the ending of THIS movie, as they tried to keep the end closer to the book than the original movie. Another King problem is very apparent in the high-school villains, IE: The cheerleading crowd. Kris and friends are not just mean, bully girls.... they are STOCK mean, bully girls. Not to mention, anyone with the ability of 20/20 hindsight can tell you, High School was NEVER as bad as a King story makes it out to be. His theme with outcasts that goes throughout all of his work is perhaps at its peak with the Carrie story, as its not just the one group of antagonists - it is the WHOLE school against one timid, shy, obviously abused, and pitifully traumatized girl. I didnt grow up in the 60s and 70s, but I know enough people from that era that could tell you that high-school then was more like walking through a sea of mushrooms and pot-smoke. I think Carrie would have had MORE friends back then given her gifts, dont you? Imagine how enamored a tripping acid dropper would have been with watching Carrie lift her book off a desk! Point is, kids were never, and still are not THAT cruel. Some bad apples do not spoil the bunch. Everyone has at least a couple friends, and if it wasnt the stoners in the 70s which would have befriended Carrie, it would be the ever-growing nerdcore crowd now. Yeah, every school has a bully... but come on, the whole school? Guess it is a little strange debating realism in a movie about a telekinetic gone homicidal, so the joke is on me. Some of the effects were awful. Like book on a string kind of awful, but other than that comment, there is not much to say on that subject. Just... yeah, CGI, you know the deal. The times they nailed it, though, they (say it with me) NAILED IT! Even though Carrie was yet again played by the skinny type (because Hollywood Hates Fat People, amirite?) Chloe Moretz is a great fit for the role and plays the part extraordinarily well. For being so young, she has succeeded in several roles now which have required some serious character acting, and I can appreciate her acting in this movie, adapting the character well to the modern setting. The gym teacher is also incredibly well recast, and is every bit as charismatic (if not more than the original) and the rest of the cast, while not necessarily written as three dimensional characters, definitely bring their A-Game. The real show-stopper, however, isnt the main character, the telekinesis, or the supporting roles... Julianne Moore playing Carris Mom is a jaw-dropping performance which was worth the price of admission alone. They added some scenes to further develop the character, and Moores acting is so chillingly convincing that I kind of wonder where she pulled her inspiration from. Considering the original is a beloved horror icon, it is unfortunately hammed up in the original, and was something of a missed opportunity. Not here. Carries mom is the real monster of this film, much like the Doctor Frankenstein being the true monster while his Creation carries the label... albeit, not with the level of clever development. The extended ending sequence does a good job with showing how brutal Carries power can be, although admittedly by now, it may seem tame as we have seen that same power used in force ever since the advent of cheap CGI in movies. Ironically, I do believe this is the first time since Friday the 13th... part something or other... that it has been showcased in the horror medium. While most reviews have been in the resoundingly negative, Im gonna tell you all to give this movie a shot. Weve all seen worse, probably recently, and considering this is the ONLY horror movie this Halloween, we need to show the studios to release more thrillers this time of year. It may not be anything amazing, but for a good, cheap, spooky movie, it does its job at entertaining. If it doesnt, you didnt like the original, and you probably wouldnt like this somewhat altered clone. 6/10. Worth it, but nothing will wow you other than Carries mother.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 16:52:21 +0000
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