The Giver (2014)

I saw this movie at school, after having to write an essay on the book, which I did enjoy. While the book had some level of intelligence, the movie fails to capture it.I will give credit where credit's due, because The movie isn't an utter failure. I enjoyed Jeff Bridges' performance as well as the way they play with color. I believe the latter one is particularly interesting because it actually has some significance plot-wise.The biggest problem with this movie is that they completely mess up the characters and what their purpose is in the story. In this world, only two people are actual characters: the Giver and Jonas; they're the only ones who can actually FEEL. Everyone else is essentially an empty slate, which is fine considering the context. The movie fails to comprehend this point and gives way to much importance to every other character in the community. This movie could have focused on the relationship between the Giver and Jonas, the only characters that should be able to have relations, but they don't do that. Instead, they choose to include a generic love interest that really doesn't add anything and could have not been there at all. By over-developing the useless characters, it really hurts our connection to the more important ones.In conclusion, this movie is pretty bad; the pacing is off, the music sucks, the acting was ehh, but most of all, the characters where handled poorly.

That is time I will never get back. Starts well, then quickly become a terrible waste of film.

This is a a dystonian world everyone is happy and peaceful but without emotions or free will. Until the main character shows up.We have been here before, but this is a nice attempt at a retelling. The production and camera work is quite nice and the acting is pretty good. The awakening of the senses is well handled and is the high light of the film.For me though this film was doomed from the start. The dystopia is actually quite appealing. We are told that no one has emotions, yet they do - otherwise the audience wouldn't engage with the characters - they are just dialled right back. So the writers have to throw in random problems to make the world worth rebelling against. So all of a sudden people are drowning babies for no apparent reason.The writing really fails near the end. As restrictive dystopias go the inhabitants here sure get a lot of space when they go rouge.Then with a few minutes of screen time left the writers have to end this thing some how. This seems an impossible task, so they throw a smoke bomb on the floor and do a runner out the fire escape in the confusion.Has promise and some really nice sequences, but is ultimately baffling and stupid.

So, I had to watch this movie because of a school project after reading the book and have to say, I was amazed at the awfulness. The effects weren't ... that bad, I have to admit. My biggest complaints are the script and the actors. The book is kinda strange but it has a few very important emotional scenes that were either skipped completely or that were delivered so badly I wanted to chuck my phone at the screen. Okay, you may say that the people in this movie are supposed to have no real emotions and that's fine! But if you deliver these 'emotional' scenes without ever showing a reaction from the one guy having emotions (Thwaites) then that's just idiotic. The movie was chaotic, sometimes we all just sat there and frowned at the screen. There were a few 'twists' in the movie that were painfully obvious even if they didn't happen in the book. The few good (experienced) actors that were in this thing were apparently determined to deliver their worst performance yet. The main characters' (Thwaites and the love-interest) acting was so painful I could barely stand to watch it. Thwaites always had this look of vague awe on his face even if it didn't fit. The love-interest's actress was one of those actresses where they are completely unremarkable. One thing however stood out. Their laughter sounded so fake it hurt!Another major problem I have with this movie is 'the Giver'. Somehow, every scene with him and Thwaites has this sexual vibe going on which is really sickening if you consider the fact Thwaites' supposed to be sixteen in this and 'the Giver's about sixty. It really creeped us all out. In conclusion (because I have to cut this short) it's awful. Don't watch it.