I saw this movie with my art major girlfriend, who loved the film, and visually, I can't disagree. The soundtrack is also eerie, and holds to the dusty ambiance that seems to cover every shot, but ultimately, it never really succeeded in terms of breaking the characters out of their archetypes and enlivening them with unique and humanizing dialog.
The whole time I saw this movie, I thought I'd seen it before. And I had, and in an equally as disappointing form: "The Beach." The fact that Dick begins the movie writing a letter that turns out to be to his gun is a stunningly creative introduction, but when the movie turns from that obsession and begins concentrating on the secret society of the group and their rebellion, via their guns, it all goes sour. The first cut of the film that comes from their later action sequence is completely unnecessary; anyone can see the conflict coming from a mile away. The "perversion" of the group's innocence by Sebastian's reality-tempered attitudes are all too typically applied to a young black man, and the only one in the county, and hence, the plot goes crashing to the ground as yet another inescapable fall from paradise.
Whatever Kubrick-reaching attempts of psychedelic grandeur that the director tries to conjure up never manage to hit home through the potentially interesting lens of the group's fascination with guns, nor do they provide an experience that has not been seen 100 times before, because of the focus on trippy nouveau montages instead of the characters' individual depth.
Ultimately, the attraction of the gun to Dick is that he feels more powerful, more self-assured carrying it. This is the same rationale that people use to sell penis-enhancing chemicals, and I don't buy either.
The whole time I saw this movie, I thought I'd seen it before. And I had, and in an equally as disappointing form: "The Beach." The fact that Dick begins the movie writing a letter that turns out to be to his gun is a stunningly creative introduction, but when the movie turns from that obsession and begins concentrating on the secret society of the group and their rebellion, via their guns, it all goes sour. The first cut of the film that comes from their later action sequence is completely unnecessary; anyone can see the conflict coming from a mile away. The "perversion" of the group's innocence by Sebastian's reality-tempered attitudes are all too typically applied to a young black man, and the only one in the county, and hence, the plot goes crashing to the ground as yet another inescapable fall from paradise.
Whatever Kubrick-reaching attempts of psychedelic grandeur that the director tries to conjure up never manage to hit home through the potentially interesting lens of the group's fascination with guns, nor do they provide an experience that has not been seen 100 times before, because of the focus on trippy nouveau montages instead of the characters' individual depth.
Ultimately, the attraction of the gun to Dick is that he feels more powerful, more self-assured carrying it. This is the same rationale that people use to sell penis-enhancing chemicals, and I don't buy either.