'Haywire' - High-Def Digest Review

[paaron46]

Rented it last night and enjoyed it. Gina's voice sounds kinda like one of those women who's been a chain-smoker for several years. What were their reasons for this? Did they think her real voice was too feminine for the character?

Did you watch the special features? Just watch them and you'll realize that you wouldn't have been able to listen to that voice the entire time.

[cheez avenger]

Did you watch the special features? Just watch them and you'll realize that you wouldn't have been able to listen to that voice the entire time.

Sure I would.

[OneManShow]

Did you watch the special features? Just watch them and you'll realize that you wouldn't have been able to listen to that voice the entire time.

It was a rental, so I assume there will be no special features and I didn't have time.

Will probably buy this down the road when it's around 10 or 15 bucks and check it out then.

[dan007]

I absolutely hated this movie. I should have done a rental in this case, but I made the mistake in doing a blind buy.

Interesting there is a significant difference in the audience rating and the critical rating on rotten tomatoes. Also, audiences gave this movie a D+ according to cinemasocre! Yet, critics generally responded positively.

[shesha]

Such an amazing movie. There is only one flaw I could find, and that is the final fight. Everything else is just Steven Soderbergh, and a goddess taking us on a journey.

Loved it. Everything. Rent it first because its a little high brow.

[HD Whore]

She can't act & her voice was altered?!?!
Good luck w/that!

Back too the cage...

[thejnc]

Watched Haywire this morning before heading to work. Thought it was great. Didn't think the main girl was that bad at acting either. Don't really get all the slow talk from people since it is a 90 minute movie and there are action scenes pretty regular. But to each his own.

[Tnecniv]

Count me in with those who enjoyed the movie a lot. I didn't quite love it but I'd give it a 3.5-4/5. Am mainly docking it for subjective reasons--I just cannot stand that Channing dude, he was less annoying than usual in this movie but still yeck, wish they got someone else to play his role but that's just me..Athletic manchick was good though, I never heard of her before (I could google her name and make stuff up about how much I know about her past but honestly am too lazy lol) and thought she did a fine job--true, Soderbergh probably had a lot to do with that; I probably wouldn't be able to sit through watching her cry for long stretches or something like that but at the same time, I think she deserves a little more credit. At the very least, she looked appropriately intimidating in cornrows lol.

[OneManShow]

Did you watch the special features? Just watch them and you'll realize that you wouldn't have been able to listen to that voice the entire time.

Received a free rental from redbox that would have expired at midnight last night so I used it to rent this flick again. Watched the special features and her real voice sounds normal. I don't think altering her voice was needed, but maybe her tone in various scenes wasn't working. <shrugs> I dunno.

[davidstallard]

Their official explanation is that they wanted to make sure viewers saw Gina and her character as two different people, and thought changing her voice would help us separate character from actor.

Which is ludicrous. It's not like Gina is the first person known for another field who then makes a movie (Dwayne Johnson, for instance).

[timcharger]

Professional critics loved this movie.

However, most movie-goers disliked it, or mostly thought it was
just okay. (See rottentomatoes.)

The "minimalism" in this movie, a term that I think was very well
chosen by Aaron Peck, is that though many fight scenes were
very brutally depicted, much of the plot was NOT shown.

For example:

Spoiler:

-Gina just walks away from Ewan McGregor at the rising tide.
-Camera cuts away from Gina surprising Antonio Banderas at
Majorca.
-Early in the movie, an innocent bystander who attempt to be a
good samaritan, was very involved in the plot and then just
disappears from the rest of the movie, until 2 sentences near
then end, where Michael Douglas suggested getting him a new
car.
-The rescue target, Jiang, was minimally used. For bad guys,
Who cares who he was?, as Ewan screamed to Gina. Gina yells
back it matters to someone; that's why she's the good guy (gal,
I mean). But apparently it didn't matter to the Haywire movie
makers why Jiang's death is such a tragedy.

These things not shown, I argue, matters much more to most
movie-goers, than to the professional critics.

Critics are "forced" to watch much more movies than they would
otherwise want. I'm sure critics feel that much of what they
watch was at the least, unnecessary or at the most, an F-ing
waste of time. So, taking the minimalist approach was probably
a welcomed change and more appreciated by them.

Non-critics watch movies in their free time, not work time. We
watch to be more emotionally invested in the characters and
the plot. We want the visual, detailed scenes to fill out the
story arc.

I acknowledge that often times, less is more. But for a plot
that wasn't that imaginative to begin with, minimalism was the
wrong choice.

[Knarf]

I still get confused why people use RottenTomatoes...?

Rotten Tomatoes scores each movie ONLY on the basis of how many positive reviews it has, but it doesn’t give any weighting to each review.

If 100 reviewers "only liked it" and give it 3 stars out of 5, it gets a 100%.
If 100 reviewers "really loved it" and give it 5 stars out of 5, it gets a 100%.

3 out 5 = 100%
5 out of 5 = 100%

COME ON!!

A decent, un-provocative film that managed to mildly please most critics would get the same very high score as a film that critics absolutely adored.

I think the Metacritic score is a more accurate representation of its grade.
Rottentomatoes = 80%
Metacritic = 67%

[Onslaught X]

I still get confused why people use RottenTomatoes...?

Rotten Tomatoes scores each movie ONLY on the basis of how many positive reviews it has, but it doesn’t give any weighting to each review.

If 100 reviewers "only liked it" and give it 3 stars out of 5, it gets a 100%.
If 100 reviewers "really loved it" and give it 5 stars out of 5, it gets a 100%.

3 out 5 = 100%
5 out of 5 = 100%

COME ON!!

A decent, un-provocative film that managed to mildly please most critics would get the same very high score as a film that critics absolutely adored.

I think the Metacritic score is a more accurate representation of its grade.
Rottentomatoes = 80%
Metacritic = 67%

To be fair here, RT also has an average rating statistic.

[Galgomite]

Saw the movie just tonight, thought it sucked. I don't see any hidden value behind the "minimalism.". The movie just feels slight and by-the-numbers, with no twist on the tired tropes. Gina does not embarrass herself as an actress (Eva Mendes has a career, after all) but the stunt-casting is for nothing. Most of Her stunts and fight scenes are shot in such a way that they could have been done by anyone. It's dark! They're in silhouette! The camera's at her back! She's wearing a wide-brimmed hat! Also, the takes are not Bourne-style jump cuts, but they aren't daringly long, either. I hang all this movie's faults on Soderbergh. What people are seeing in this film, I don't know. But better than Salt.

[Salanderfan]

Professional critics loved this movie.

However, most movie-goers disliked it, or mostly thought it was
just okay. (See rottentomatoes.)

I'm wondering if people expected the movie to be like Salt or Transporter and instead got let down because it's a minimalist (relatively low budgeted) action film from Soderbergh. I can't understand why there's such a discrepancy between movie-goer feedback compared to the critics for this film. Haywire seems to fall into the camp of you either love it or hate it.