Airline Movie Quicky Reviews

On the trip out to the West Coast for Sean's wedding, I had the chance to see two movies on the Delta jet that I rode on. Both films were the airline versions, so I have no idea what got cut or added "for time or appropriateness". But I thought it was worth writing a couple of mini-reviews.



The first movie was HIDALGO, Viggo Mortensen's first film since the LOTR trilogy ended, and his first attempt to step away from the Aragorn character. The basic story is that Viggo's character, Frank Hopkins, was a courier who carried the orders that initiated a Native American massacre. Being half-Indian himself, Hopkins is wracked by guilt, but he assuages it with drink, performing in a travelling wild west show, and winning cross-country horse races. One day Hopkins is contacted by a sheik who proposes he take part in the "Lake of Fire" race across the Arabian desert to prove whether or not he and his horse Hidalgo are the best cross-country horse racers on earth. Aside from the unfortunate choice of naming Viggo's sorta-kinda-love interest something that sounds like "Al-Jazeera", the movie is a nice, innocent adventure in the tradition of the golden age epic. There is no real romance to speak of, no real characters to speak of, and no real doubt about the ending of the movie. But it is still a nice film to watch while trying to not think about the reality that somehow humans have figured out how to trick gravity into letting a thousand-ton bus fly.



The second movie was LAWS OF ATTRACTION starring Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore. The plot is simple: two divorce lawyers, opposite genders, one is a slob, the other is a control freak, they hate each other... so naturally they are meant for each other. Hilarity ensues, somehow they get from New York to Ireland whenever a romantic foggy setting is needed, and alcohol jumps in whenever a character conveniently needs to act out of character. Obviously, I was not impressed with this film, but it is mostly harmless. Brosnan is brilliant as always, and Moore does a great job playing Meg Ryan. Basically, I got the feeling this film was written for another Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan pairing, but when they couldn't sign the pair, the studio just asked the lawyers who else was under contract at the time. Not a great film, but not a bad one. Moore is cute, and Brosnan is hunky, the script has a few good lines, and what more can you really ask from a romantic comedy like this?



As for me, I am looking forward to seeing my next few movies on the ground.