Dearest Blog, today it was off to the pictures to wage war with Brad Pitt's Fury.
Spoiler level here will be mild, nothing you wouldn't know from the trailers.
As World War II draws to a close, an outmatched US tank crew undertakes a dangerous mission.
Well, dear reader(s), I'll be straight with you: my interest in Fury can best be described as "at least it's not that Nicholas Sparks thing." It looks like my kind of movie, and the cast is (mostly) terrific, but for some reason the trailers did nothing to excite me. Figuring I'm gonna need this one come awards time, though, I set out today hoping to be pleasantly surprised.
Fury is being lauded as an honest look at war, and that may well be, but it's otherwise a total dud.
The characters are broadly drawn caricatures, and the dialogue is so badly written it might as well be Twilight. Every incident, every encounter, every happening is more predictable than the last, straight out of the tear-your-heart-out War Movie Playbook.
The cast actually IS mostly solid and can't be faulted for the film's failings, with the notable exception of Shia LeBeouf.
A great actor inhabits a character so you forget whatever you might know of him, personally, but LeBeouf is so profoundly unlikable that whatever acting skill he possesses is nowhere near up to that task. Even Brad Pitt seems somehow diminished, following so quickly on the heels of Robert Downey, Jr.'s and Denzel Washington's most recent starring turns.
If Fury gets credit for putting the horrors of war on up-close-and-personal display, it also has to take the blame for dawdling overlong on just about everything, resulting in an excessive runtime that could and should have been trimmed by at least 20 minutes. If this mess makes a ripple come awards season, I shall fail to feel even the tiniest bit of shame for keeping I, Frankenstein on my year-end top ten list!
Fury clocks in at 134 minutes and is rated R for "strong sequences of war violence, some grisly images, and language throughout."
I never go into a movie set on hating it, and honestly expected to come out of Fury impressed despite myself, Instead, the only fury to be had was my own, for seven bucks and two hours I can't get back.
Of a possible nine Weasleys, Fury gets four.
Until next time..
You each owe me $1.40.
