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September 28, 2005
The Final Cut Review
I should be studying so what do I do? I post a movie review. Anyway, "Final Cut" is Robin William's latest attempt to be dark and mysterious. The premise reminded me a lot of "One Hour Photo" which was an ok movie. I figured a bit more of a sadistic Mork would be ok so I checked out Final Cut (actually, I swear someone recommended it but I have yet to remember who).
The movie is set in the not to distant future. A world where rich parents can get memory chips implanted into their kid's head. The only point to these chips, as far as I can tell, is to record the person's life so they can have a really cool funeral (called a "Rememory"). However, certain groups don't like the chips or the "cutters" who produce these groovy death movies.
Without spoilers (I'll add one later) the movie grapples with deep issues. Would we do things differently if we knew someone would some day watch our lives? Is it right to have "big brother" watching us?
The chips can only be accessed after death and the "Cutter" generally is the only one who sees the really bad stuff, saving the person for how others want to remember them. Is it right for people to be shown how to remember us? For someone to edit our lives?
As the movie is grappling with these issue and you come to realize (and Robin Williams, a cutter, comes to realize) the chips are bad. We should live our lives and not worry about how we are to be remembered. People shouldn't mess with our memories. They're ours the movie screams at us!
Then the movie screws up it's own premise. Next is the spoiler kiddies.
Robin Williams is haunted by a memory of a boy he thinks he killed when he was younger. He's been dealing with the issue all of his life. He finds out he has a memory chip through a series of events too boring to write about. At this point you're saying "ah, movie. I see where you're going. Someone is going to find out he killed the boy and it's going to ruin his life. He'll end up in jail. He would have been better off without the chip. Thanks movie for sticking with your point!" HA. You'd be wrong. The movie is just messing with you.
Instead he insist he risk his life to see his chip while he's still alive (apparently very dangerous for some reason) and finds out he is innocent and actually tried to save the kid. In the end, he dies but he dies happy knowing that he didn't do the thing that haunted him. So, the chips are good. . .eh? Maybe I should go get one.
The end is almost ironic because it shows them making a "Rememory" for Robin Williams and most of his life is pieces of other people's lives. I guess the point of the movie is that memory chips are great and we should live our lives instead of watching others live theirs. So, that makes me wonder what all the big deal about him blocking his memory chip and the people who hated the chips and such were all about. What about the guy that molested his kid and how he was made to be a great person in his rememory? All of that was thrown in there to throw us off the "memory chips are great! We should all have 'em" theme?!
Basically, the entire movie was pointless.
Posted by vixen at September 28, 2005 12:32 AM
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