On Vantage Point

Suarez: "The beauty of American arrogance is that they can't imagine a world where they're not a step ahead."

Rated PG-13 for action, violence, images that have a tendency to disturb, strong language, and an annoying little girl who really doesn't even need to be in the movie in the first place.

Staring: Dennis Quaid, William Hurt, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker and Sigourney Weaver.



Get out the Dramamine, because you will need it after all the rewinding they do in this film. For the sake of my own web page(your welcome) I suffered through the first half-hour, which felt ten times longer. The only possible saving grace this movie has is its story. Typically this isn't the case, as far as recent movies are concerned, and a movie usually needs to be redeemed by special effects(Cloverfield), the action(The Mummy), or spooky surprises(see any M. Night Shyamalan movie, excluding Lady in the Water, Unbreakable, and any that I haven't seen). The plot is pretty good here, and if it were allowed to carry the movie a little more, I believe Vantage Point would have gone further. However, it seemed that instead of banking on the plot, they decided to place their bets on the "star" power of the movie, which in my mind was disastrous, for a lot of the characters in this movie were extraneous. In fact, many could have been left out all together, but instead I was left scratching my head as to why the studio wanted to spend the money on Sigourney Weaver, rather than using other devices, such as dialogue, to manifest and convey the plot-lines for the audience. All her appearance did was trigger a recollection of how much I hated Alien 3.

Dennis Quaid plays US Secret Service Agent Thomas Barnes, assigned to protect President Ashton (played by William Hurt) during a visit to Spain. The President is to attend an anti-terrorism summit, but during a scheduled public appearance, however, a terrorist assassination plot, directed at him, is executed and unfolds, slowly, in front of your eyes and through the eyes of 6 personas. During its duration of 90 minutes, the perspectives of Barnes and the President, are just two of six Vantage Points that will be covered. The movie, thus, becomes extremely annoying, repetitive, and monotonous; all viewpoints masterfully(sarcasm implied) blended, by a riveting 10 second "rewind" segment that brings you back to the beginning of the paradigm. It becomes so bothersome, that it really clarifies the worthlessness of some of the characters and you just may find yourself disliking the fictional individuals for wasting your time.

Other than Keanu Reeves, another of my biggest pet peeves(speaking of clever...) in film, is when there is a completely worthless character, an annoying cliché of cinema who is awkwardly deposited within the movie, contributing nothing substantial to the plot. This is perfectly personified in the portrayal of Anna, an annoying little girl, who alone probably took the movie down a star in my coveted movie rating system. In addition to that, what I found curious, was the indestructible nature of, not only Dennis Quaid, but also his car during a chase scene towards the end of the picture. If the cut scenes didn’t make you motion sick already, then this surely will. The amount of wrecks Dennis gets into is only rivaled by how many viewpoints the movie has, and of course there is absolutely no representation of this in the condition of his vehicle. This happens in movies quite a bit, but in Vantage Point it is to a laughable degree.

In conclusion, the movie could have been terrific, if they just left out some people! It had potential; I liked the story, but they didn't execute and approach it properly. Though I can’t way for the Vantage Point action figures to come out, I still have to give the movie 2 out of 4 boxes of Dramamine Chewables. Sorry Dennis.