Jacob's Ladder
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Movie Reviews of Jacob's Ladder
Movie Review: Wages of war, from a different perspective.
Summary: 5 Stars
Amazing film. It is nothing like it looks on the surface. The scarely images and nightmares are not the real horror. Rather, it is about a horror of war. ( I am neither pro or anti war. I try to have an academic view of war and peace in general ) This is the best movie about Vietnam, in my humble opinion. First time, I was so surprised at that ending I had to see it again soon. It really got to my head. I strongly urged my husband to join this time. He somewhat guessed, but was totally blown away. Everything became clear at second viewing as if entire background came in front. The ending is profoundly sad. My favorite scene is Jacob finally lifting his head slowly on the sofa in the morning sun. When I think of what went through his head all night ........ ( sob ) It is also a strangely calm moment.
This film is truly spiritual and enlightening. I watched Jacob as he went through his painful journey for two hours. This is only a story of one soldier's life, out of tens of thousands. Yet it dwells on my heart heavily with devine light reflecting on it.
Movie Review: Very Profound Movie About Accepting Your Past
Summary: 5 Stars
It's a very moving movie that's more than just about Vietnam. It's a movie about accepting the past and letting go.
Throughout the movie Jacob Singer, a Vietnam veteran, played greatly by Tim Robbins, one of my favorite actors, suffers from a series of horrifying nightmares. He sees demons everywhere: horrifying creatures with tails, horns, and faceless heads. He is nearly run over by a train and sees these faceless heads looking at him through every window and by a car. He also sees repeated visions of a night in Vietnam he has trouble remembering.
The movie shifts from these nightmare visions to the real world in which he lives with his girlfriend, a post office worker, to one vision in which he still lives with his wife and son who died in an accident.
As he's able to accept the truth of what happened in Vietnam and what happened to his son he, as his angelic doctor Louis tells him, is able to see the demons as angels helping him to let go of his life.
It's a great movie.
Movie Review: One of the most astonishing films of the past two decades
Summary: 5 Stars
I may be a bit biased because Jacob's Ladder is my favourite piece of cinema ever produced, but it truly deserves 5/5. The screenplay floated around Hollywood for a while because no one was quite sure how to actually bring to life Bruce Joel Rubin's wonderfully conceived script. Adrian Lyne managed to create a surreal and encroaching world out of urban NYC and drew excellent performances out of Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Peña, and Danny Aiello (albeit brilliant actors unto their own right).It's not a horror movie as some would like to presume, but a movie that tells two tales simultaneously of a man suffering from experiments from the Vietnam War, as well as the journey of his spirit as he must learn to let go of the material world of the flesh so that he may move onto the beyond. It's beautifully conceived and brilliantly executed; I've never had the fortune of seeing anything like it since it came out a decade ago. And chances are there will never be anything that will ever compare with it. A true cinematic masterpiece.
Movie Review: A solid psychological thriller!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an amazing piece of work by director Adrian Lyne. I don't think I have ever seen a more chilling film since Shutter (original Thai version). This is not a simple "blood and gore nightmare in the eyes of the hero" where everything is predictable. This is a solid psychological thriller with some disturbingly vivid imagination (the supposed hallucinations are downright creepy). The amount of graphic content is not much compared to the horror movies of today, but I don't think that's the point of the movie. The real reason why this movie is so good is that we as the viewer can feel what the main character (Tim Robbins) is experiencing. Even WE don't know what's real and what's not in the film. It's a very challenging movie that makes you think. I'm not going to reveal the ending, but I will say that it's very unexpected. It's the kind of ending that you would find in M. Night Shyamalan's earlier films. Jacob's Ladder really is a deep and complex thriller, and I'm glad that I discovered it now.
Grade: A-
Movie Review: But if you've made your peace, the devils are really angels.
Summary: 5 Stars
The 'surprise' ending to this movie is, to anyone who has read Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge, visible coming a mile off. But that's okay, because the real surprises in this film, the terrors and mysteries and jewels of meaning, go far beyond simply determing the time of a character's death. Like 'Barton Fink', this is a movie that you can watch over and over, extracting layer after layer of meaning. Indeed, it really needs to be watched at least twice, in order to put some events near the beginning in of the film in their proper context.Some thoughts to ponder: Why does the movie change its opinion about Sarah's love for Jacob? What separates one of the children's names from the other? And why does Jezzie not like Biblical names?
Why is the bike that causes Jacob to call out Gabriel's name adult-sized? Why does the chemist who supposedly created 'The Ladder' save only Jacob? Why does he look like Jacob - but not exactly?
And if the devils are really angels, what are the angels, really?