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Taking Lives (Full Screen Edition)Rating:
Release Date: 17 August, 2004 Retail Price: $19.96 OUR Price: $17.99 You SAVE: $1.97! Cast: |
Taking Lives (Full Screen Edition) Reviews
A Complete Reason For Seeing This Movie
Well as all my acquaintances know I'd go to see anything Angelina Jolie appeared in, even if she's in it for only two minutes. Years ago Pauline Kael pronounced that "By now Jane Fonda has become a complete reason for going to the movies" (probably around the time of KLUTE) and it's been apparent for some time that Jolie is the spiritual descendant of Jane Fonda. Think of them, each one the wild, tormented daughter of a great matinee idol with a cleancut image. And neither one with a super great range, but both excellent at what they do: Jane was terrific at denoting "modernity" (to Kael, she carried forth Bette Davis' attitude of purring like a perfectly kept motor), while Jolie is all about being the "wife's worst nightmare."
TAKING LIVES is only about one inch deep, and the trailer tells it all, but why not see it anyhow? Either you're in thrall to her giant lips and long arms, her downcast gaze and humungous tattoos (here covered up for the most part)--or you're not. Playing Ileanna Scott, ace FBI profiler in serial murders, isn't much of a stretch for Jolie, for nowadays all you have to do is immerse yourself in a room filled with horrid photos of the killer's crimes and then drift into a trance state where you become the killer; then you wake up gasping like a fish and you shout out, "He uses toothpaste to sedate them!" and everyone goes on the alert for Crest sales.
Ileanna's pregnancy is a dilly especially watching the film in early 2006, a time of great world strife during which no magazine cover appears without a mention of Brad and Angelina's forthcoming baby. One of the few shock moments of the movie involve a threat to Ileanna's baby, too gross to go into here.
I remember during the filming of this movie the paparazzi caught a tender moment between Jolie, her son Maddox, and her French co-star here Olivier Martinez, best known for dating the Australian pop star Kylie Minogue. Angelina and Olivier took little Maddox to his first ball game, and the next thing you knew, Kylie was flying across to Montreal to pay an impromptu set visit. Well, I suppose Angelina was innocent that time, or as innocent as she gets. She waited until MR AND MRS SMITH to play her full ace of hearts. And Olivier and Kylie are still together as of this writing, hooray!
He Would Kill To Be You!
A serial killer has been operating in eastern Canada for some 20 years, killing young men and destroying their identities, then living their lives for a while. Montreal police unaccountably send for FBI profiler Angelina Jolie. Preternaturally smart and perceptive, as all movie profilers are, Jolie feels her judgment cloud as she begins to fall for Ethan Hawke, a witness to one of the murders, and a potential target himself.
The prologue, where Paul Dano takes his shy geek persona (also on display in The Girl Next Door) in a chilling direction, is intriguing. But then the credits appear, shamelessly ripping off Se7en, and everything is downhill from there. For once, Montreal gets to be itself, so naturally half the time it is played by Quebec City. All the Montreal cops are played by imports from France (Olivier Martinez, Tcheky Karyo, Jean-Hugues Anglade), as if there were no good actors in Quebec. As for the mystery, it isn't much of one, and the plot, lacking real suspense, plays out in very meandering and predictable fashion. Though not incompetent, the film suffers from a pervading, crippling sense of déjà-vu.
The "Taking Lives Crime Lab" is a documentary split into four featurettes. The combined running time is only 21 minutes, so that should tell you just how in-depth this largely promotional exercise gets. Otherwise, all you have is a gag reel and the theatrical trailer, so the features are pretty unimpressive. The menu's main screen and intro are animated and scored.
Been there, done that, over and over and over again, even if the location is a bit different this time.
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