A Geeky Guy's Guide to The Amateur
At this point, I think I actually like it more when I hate a movie or TV show. That way I get to prove I have some credibility and standards and don't just love everything.
Well thank you The Amateur for providing me an opportunity to show that I'm not just all puppy dogs and ice cream all the time! I hated this movie. It suffered from some of my biggest pet peeves in a movie. First, it was based on a book. Obviously that alone is not enough to sink a movie for me. After all, Lord of the Rings is one of the greatest trilogies ever and it is based on a book. But that is the exact point. Lord of the Rings spent over three hours (four if you watch the extended versions) making sure to tell the whole story. When a movie based on a book is too short, it always feels like an incomplete story to me. Characters and their actions don't make sense because we only have part of the story. Even with a two hour run time, it still felt incomplete.
But I'm honestly not complaining. What they kept was so boring that I don't think I could have handled another minute let alone another hour. I have heard some people comment that the movie should have been a limited run television series. Perhaps that would have worked if that extra time allowed anything to make sense... but I doubt that would be the case.
Even though I hated the movie and would never recommend anyone spend time on it, I realize people have different tastes and may love it. Therefore, I will stick to my no spoilers rule. I will only stick to things that are in the trailer for the movie or that can't spoil anything. The first example of something that made no sense was why Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead, the Punisher) is listed as being in the movie. He is literally in the movie for less than five minutes and he does absolutely nothing. I mean nothing. If his scenes were cut entirely, there would have been zero difference to the movie. It was actually kind of weird how little he was in it. In his opening scene, it seems like he will be a major factor... and poof... then he's gone.
WARNING! He's not really in the movie.
The second example of something making absolutely no sense is the pool scene that is in the trailer. Our "hero" played by Rami Malek wants to kill a guy who took part in the murder of his wife. he approaches the man at the deserted rooftop pool... OK wait. I need to explain that they made a very big deal about the fact this bad guy rented out the entire top floor including the pool. they closed it to the public and somehow Rami Malek just strolls up to him. OK whatever. And then, Rami decides to use some crazy device to decompress the air between the glass of the pool shattering it and sending a ton of water... AND GLASS falling on to a beautiful courtyard 200 stories below. Luckily the courtyard was empty on this beautiful night so no innocent people were killed. I'm not sure why no one was in the courtyard aside from them being blocked by plot armor... but whatever. I get that Rami's character can't kill anyone with a gun or a knife. He's no murderer so he needs some distance and technology. But a device to depressurize and break glass? Has he ever heard of an extension cord? Just drop that in the pool and walk away. Why risk any innocent peoples' lives below?
As soon as that happened, I asked my wife "Do you want to keep watching this?' Sadly she said yes. Then the two of us proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes scrolling on our phones while absurd spy shit happened on the TV. I was bored out of my mind. Its honestly the most bored/annoyed I have been by a movie in quite a while.
That's too bad because typically Rami is pretty good in stuff. I'm guessing it was more the writing than him in particular. I started Mr. Robot at one point but never circled back to it.
The first season of Mr. Robot is one of my favorite shows of all time. I liked all the others as well but man season one was incredible. I like him. He was fine. The movie was just ridiculous.
My wife and I just started watching season one of Mr. Robot a few weeks ago, enjoying it so far!
For me, he's not bored/annoyed, but rather he felt offended by seeing all those senseless things that happen in the movie. Honestly, in all the time I've been reading your posts, this is the first time I've read them and he has no qualms about telling us that he doesn't like a certain series or movie.
The Pool scene does sound like "hey, wouldn't it be cool if like "lots of water"?"
If she just wanted to spend time with you there were so many other less time wasting things you could have done x_x
That is definitely the bright side.
I feel this! I get super bored too when movies just drag or don’t make sense. Sometimes it feels like they try too hard to be smart but end up confusing everyone.
I feel you if I also get bored of a movie that I don't want to watch anymore.
I havvee watched The Amateur too, and I can totally relate to what you’re saying hahahaha. At first, I think it was going to be an intense spy thriller, but I ended up just feeling confused and bored. Some scenes looked cool in the trailer, but in the movie they didn’t make much sense especially that pool part. 😅
Thank you very much. Your honest opinion is really appreciated. It seems like the movie had good potential, but was completely failed in presentation. It was nice to read this review before watching.
I was going to write a blog about this movie today, but I will still write my own thoughts.
This is relatable, I have this with multiple movies and series that generally get a ton of praise like Dune recently which make me enjoy the fact that I dislike it so much. I haven't seen The Auateur yet but it was on my watchlist. I guess I probably will skip it now. Thanks for the review!
Thanks for the heads up that this movie isn't any good. I was curious to watch it but will pass on this now.
Agreed that movies based on books are usually not very good. Jurassic Park is one exception I can think of. I keep wishing they would turn The Count of Monte Cristo into a (LONG) TV series.
Robot and Spider-Man and similar movies are my favorites, but I haven't seen this season yet. As you are saying, it is interesting and your favorite, so I will definitely watch it and then tell you how I liked it. We always get to learn something from movies, which makes our future lives easier if we learn something from there and apply it to our lives.
When I saw it, I didn't know it was based on a book. I agree with you that a two-hour movie just can't do an entire story justice; there's so much more to tell. It seems like they do that on purpose as a marketing strategy to sell more books, but that's just my own speculation. Since I didn't know it came from a book, I thought the concept was a really bold move—an intelligence agent who wasn't a super soldier who fights everyone and kills them without a scratch, but someone who used their mind instead of brute force.
This is actually a remake of a movie based on the book made way back in 1981 lol.
Sounds like a night of shifting through the movies on Netflicks, makes a night of shopping at Walmarts actually sound more entertaining. I don't even know how so many bad acting movies even make it onto someone's television. I've only had netflicks since I got rid of cable and went to streaming, but it didn't take long to correlate that if the music in the intro sucks, chances are the acting and the movie do to. Sometimes they'll have a pop up that advises you the movie was voted number one in nine countries, yeah, like in Siberia, or other cold regions where people run out of things to watch, or remote locations like Amazon forest where reception is bad and it was the only thing that would come in.
Any film that's cliffhanger is " I've waited until your boat drifted into international waters, Arrest him coastguard." isn't for me!! 🤣