Gattaca (Special Edition)
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Movie Reviews of Gattaca (Special Edition)
Movie Review: Triumph of the human spirit
Summary: 5 Stars
In some dystopian future, date unspecified, our descendants are on the cusp of a brave new world in which designer babies become the norm. Shortly before this technological achievement our hero comes upon the scene with all of the normal faults and frailties that mortal flesh is usually heir to. Having forked out for the specs necessary to redress the faults in his vision his parents decide to spend their cash second time around ensuring his brother has no need of such artificial aids. In due course the younger son surpasses his brother in the usual childhood games and is well on the way to fulfilling all of his parents aspirations and repaying their investment when Vincent, the elder and imperfect son, decides that his home life isn't doing his self esteem any favours and leaves to find his imperfect way in the perfect world bequeathed to his favoured sibling. He obtains a job as a cleaner at Gattaca, an institution whose existence depends upon selecting and training only the most ideal human specimens to continue humanity's quest for the stars. Demonstrating that crime is always a corollary of social injustice the movie has Vincent obviously managing to save enough from his cleaner's wage to take advantage of the black market in false identities and we meet Jude Law, the antithesis of Vincent in many ways: the golden boy made bad. They `swap' identities and Vincent becomes the `perfect' Jerome and begins to take pleasure in all the fruits that perfect specimens, or `valids' enjoy as part of their birthright, including those provided by off-screen wife, Uma Thurman in the person of the perfectly lovely Irene. He gets accepted for flight crew training at Gattaca and loses no opportunity to gaze at the stars his soon to be destination if all goes well!
Vincent encounters his brother again, in the form of the senior investigating officer, when a member of Gattaca's senior people gets his perfect cranium clobbered and all of its `employees' become subject to interrogation thereby threatening Vincent's dream.
This is an unusually thoughtful Sci-Fi film which asks all of the usual, who are we, where are we going type questions about human existence and forces an examination of the current preoccupation with genetic engineering, celebrity, `extreme makeover' shows and the type of air-headed celeb mags such as Hello that push the air-brushed perfection to which we are all supposed to aspire. But it's also a masterpiece of film making with superb art direction, the welcome presence of such Hollywood veterans as Alan Arkin and Ernest Borgnine, an intelligent script by director Andrew Niccol and a hauntingly beautiful Michael Nyman score. As such it ranks alongside Blade Runner as an entry into the pantheon of late twentieth century masterworks of Sci-Fi film.
Movie Review: It tells you something about our humanity
Summary: 5 Stars
In the not so distant future, parents can select the best attributes their child will have. You and your wife decide to have a child - you go and get your DNA mixed, you remove all of the bad traits like poor eyesight, short height, autism, heart disease propensity, etc and you wind up with your perfect child, 10 fingers, 10 toes, 180 IQ, the heart of a racehorse, etc. These children are the best that humanity can be and the best that two parents can produce. In the future upper middle class children and upper class children are almost entirely conceived in this engineered fashion and although discrimination based on eugenics is illegal, it is commonly practiced in this future with those who are not born in the genetically engineered fashion being relegated to inferior jobs.
The movie is about two brothers, one who was brought into the world in this accepted fashion and a second who was conceived in the traditional way (though s*x) and the love of their parents. Almost immediately after birth, the parents notice that their engineered son is superior in so many ways to their other son but their god-child has an indomitable spirit so much so that he crawls his way through all obstacles and and makes some of the greatest sacrifices imaginable for the shot at being a member of a prestigious astronaut corps.
In this story Jude Law, a privilaged rich guy who becomes incapacitated overseas unbeknownst to the authorities sells his identity to Ethan Hawke in order for Jude to continue his rich lifestyle while Ethan works at the astronaut corporation. In the story Jude's genetics said he would be the best swimmer in the world but only earns a silver medal and overall Jude is the epitome of that guy whose pedigree says he should be #1 at everything but isn't - probably because he rests too much on that pedigree.
The movie has a murder mystery build into it to keep things interesting as Ethan tries to avoid detection as an In-Valid while still keeping himself as the selectee for the Saturn Mission which he has been selected for.
I won't kid you, this movie is drama. Its fairly slow paced but in a deep way that you can keep up with. The Acting by Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Jude Law, Loren Dean, and Gore Vidal are impressive and first rate.
Overall, the movie is a story about how the human soul and spirit cannot be quantified into the code of DNA and how we as humanity are more. Its definitely a deep movie but if you've ever felt put down by others or that you don't belong somewhere, watch this movie and it will quickly change your mind.
Movie Review: "I never saved anything for the swim back."
Summary: 5 Stars
Ten years after the movie they have gone and done it. We now know how the genetic make-up of human beings. Some Job descriptions even say without consideration of age, race, religion or genetics. We also have electric cars and wrist radios. This is no longer sci-fi; it is speculative fiction. Or at least it is speculative. Anyway I have a friend that had a back problem in his youth. They left some dye in him and it was spotted during a job interview physical for a desk job; you guessed it.
Anyway this is a spectacular film. The sound track helped support the movie. They did a good job of picking the actors. The characters were believable. Uma did not even have to show her Thurman's. Ethan did a convincing transformation and Jude was good enough that you almost thought the film was about him. The scenes were breath taking. I was most impressed with the sunrise on the solar panels and the swim competition.
Two points to look for on your second viewing are:
1. Several times the brothers compete physically and logically. Even with his handicapped origin Ethan Hawke" Vincent Freeman" surpasses his brother Loren Dean "Anton."
2. Jude Law "Jerome Eugene Morrow" Was not without ambition. He was disappointed that his advantage was not advantageous enough for the gold and receives his gold thought the actions of Vincent.
Vincent who was conceived in the Rivera, as child of God (taking their chances) must compete in a world where all the negative genetic dispositions are usually removed as was his brother's case. Vincent is tagged for failure at birth. To overcome this social barrier and obtain his goal of going into space, he borrows the genes of an athlete gone astray. The director where he is working (GATTACA) is killed as the last obstacle to the mission. Will Vincent be found out? Irene (Uma Thurman) suspects the number one candidate for the space trip Jerome of the murder. She never suspects that he is really Vincent.
Bottom line is if you aren't genetically correct the movie may scare you.
Keep in mind this is a review of the movie. After all this is what reviews are for to help in buying decisions.
People fascinated with the technology of the product should be reading about technology.
Brave New World
Panasonic DMP-BD30K 1080p Blu-Ray Disc Player the newer generation of Blu-ray
Movie Review: To defeat genetic fate you have to cheat
Summary: 5 Stars
A little masterpiece of science-fiction from and about the time when everything will be governed by the genome of every individual. You will be identified through it, you will be followed from birth to grave by it. Good morning Vietnam, good morning genome-drome, genoism. You will be nothing but a complex DNA identity. Too complex to memorize, but any machine can memorize even more complex things and recognize them. But here we have several couples of interest and rivalry. A child born naturally and whose fate is doomed to be deemed bad and it is supposed to be bad, and life expectancy is as low as some odd 30 years. On the other side his brother was genetically correct and perfect. Unluckily the former has a dream and the latter has none. The former is motivated to do what only the genetic elite can do, and he is not. The latter is motivated to do nothing except be a bureaucrat that will trace out all the "fakes", the non-genetically perfect who are trying to go through nevertheless, frauds in other words, like his own brother. The latter will find a way to go through the genetic selection by assuming the identity of a genetically perfect man who suffered a severe accident and cannot be anything any more. That is hard work, but that is possible because they are only dealing with machines, as long as they are dealing with machines. But there comes a time, and it is a lot earlier in the story than you may think, that one will trace the fraud but will say nothing because he has a personal reason to see if the fraud will go through and that the fraud will go through. Remember: it is a Mark Twain trick: a right handed man normally holds his [...] with his right hand when he urinates, and a left handed man does the reverse. The details of the end are not interesting here. One thing is interesting though. If the future world decides to become genetically correct we are going to cheat a lot because success anywhere depends on only one thing: motivation, first and foremost, and intellectual and even physical qualifications are only second to that motivation. A small prodigious marvel to be seen by anyone who believes man is better and more important than science which is only an extension of man's mental and nervous system, not a replacement, a prosthesis.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID
Movie Review: Excuse me, was that your eyelash or your eye?
Summary: 5 Stars
GATTACA is a deeply personal film because it is one of the first things my wife and I did after getting back together. After a long separation, we immediately said what we wanted to do most was see a movie together again! And this was it!
Firstly, let me spoil the whole thing because I don't know if audiences have caught it yet. We know the G, A, T, C build all DNA. So there's your title, dimwit. I got it the moment it flashed on the screen, yet people still ask me what the title is supposed to mean....
This film is all about the indestructible human spirit. It's in the future, it's set mostly at a space mission complex-corporation...and Ethan Hawke got famous here for playing a little, short-sighted, heart-defective outcaste. This society likes genetic engineering, and you're the winner based on your DNA manipulations. This is done in-utero, I think...I've never been clear about that part. But it has a lot to teach us about intolerance and fascism in surprising ways. It makes A BRAVE NEW WORLD look a little less brave. (And I can't be 100% sure, but I think this inspired A.I.: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.)
Ethan Hawke the outcaste, a janitor at the complex, dreams of astronautical adventures. He leaves his boss (delightful cameo by Ernest Borgnine) and gets a DNA 'stand-in' (then-unknown and supersexy Jude Law). He lands a job at the complex and a place in the astronaut program (with spectacular appearances by Gore Vidal himself as the Boss, and Alan Arkin as the harried police detective).
A murder at the corporation sets the edgy tone of this film. And here I end my synopsis, because it is too good, too deep, to be missed. This movie is yet another that changed the way we want to see films unfold, and like many other films, it continues to inspire today. Even more shocking (to me anyway) was the producer: Danny De Vito.
That much more reason to get this serious yet thrilling adventure.