Comments on: Insane McConaughey and Hathaway Movie Serenity Explained

By: Nina

Nina — Fri, 29 May 2020 14:14:02 +0000

I loved the movie as I saw the beginning looks like we would see the whole movie through the Patrick percepts. As the movie went on I thought each person was real. I honestly though Patrick was telling the story. The movie did however have many twists that kept me in awe. The love hate, abuse and led Patrick to live in a world of isolation. The love for his father and the pain and suffering of his mother draw him into a depression place. This dark place only escape was through a game he created. His father dream of catching a fish with him and the lost of his father at war devastated him. So to create a game where his father job was to do just that be a hunter of fish while making others fisherman. But the twist of his mother being on the boat and the stepfather being caught by the same fish his real father be trying to catch was very well played. So in my wrap up of the movie the step dad was the predator beating his prey (Anne the wife) became the prey of the fish.

By: An

An — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 22:22:08 +0000

I loved this movie and everyone thinks I’m crazy because I liked it. I’m glad I found this article and saw some thoughts, points and comments that I share.

By: Ryissa

Ryissa — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 04:26:10 +0000

So it’s not a movie I recommend, but like many others there were likeable aspects.

First despite some clunky tie ins the director and cast managed to make the whole mess engaging. The plot twist didn’t blow me away, but the performances and direction kept me from turning it off. Too often in a movie like this the actors all seem so awkward that a questionable movie is made worse. Yet the entire cast really does act their hearts out and that saves the show.

The relatively quick pace kept you from wanting to turn it off. But that pace also highlighted the disconnect between the teenaged creator and the surrogates for his parents he is directing in his AI world. I don’t have an issue with his imaginings involving sexual encounters. But the entirety of this movie feels like a jigsaw puzzle that is missing pieces.

Assuming Baker Dill is just awaking to some greater sense of self determination, there wasn’t the type of slow burn awakening I love to see with this genre. That he has to be told by the AI that he is in a game annoyed me. And the way of introducing the ex and the existence of their computer genius child was too heavy. So I’d say there bits where some more subtle dialogue/actions might have set the audience up for a bigger “whoah” moment when the true nature of the characters’ universe is revealed.

So yes a movie with some good bits lacking that last bit of finesse that would pull it all together.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 17:25:48 +0000

While I didn’t hate this movie fervently, it’s definitely not in my top favorites. I’ve watched some real bombs and this one was entertaining enough. I agree that the entire premise was a bit much for the mind of a child but let’s say they did it to keep adults watching and some artistic license, I guess. It’s definitely not a big twist because you know from the get go that something is really off here so when the so called twist finally comes, it’s expected. This movie is already free on Prime so that tells you all you need to know.

By: Kathleen

Kathleen — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 23:05:31 +0000

I REALLY didn’t like the movie. I figured out that all was being acted out through the game-and Lisa’s comment about the overacting actually makes a lot of sense, but (my opinion) both McConnaughey and Hathaway overact most roles to begin with so who could really tell? I raised two sons-and I can tell you that they nor any of their friends or any male I’ve ever known would add his parents having sex into his video game-or into his brain at all. There was just so much about this movie to hate-the “twist” as people call it was for me not a “twist” at all-a twist is realizing Bruce Willis is really dead-and all those things that make that obvious come flying back to your brain. None of this…NONE of this came flying back to me to say “OH, OF COURSE-this is all the kid’s imagination, and naturally he’d picture his parents having sex, make up an entire Island of people, etc., etc. The final brow knitter for me was the phone call between son and father at the end-it would have been so much better to have it end with the boy hitting “end game” or even just closing his computer lid for me. Just my opinion, folks-glad some really liked it, but for me this was a real stinkeroo. Nice to see McConnahey being weird in a boat instead of a Lincoln for a few hours though…lol. (Seriously, stop with the weirdness of those commercials!)

By: Artem S. Tashkinov

Artem S. Tashkinov — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 12:10:07 +0000

Absolutely loved the movie and I gotta agree with Lisa above about the things which didn’t make sense to you. Modern days teenagers know a lot more about the workings of the world than we knew before the Internet became a thing.

The primary and perhaps the only problem of this movie is how it was sold to the public: as a cheap 80s/90s thriller. And it killed it for the stupid masses.

By: Taylor Holmes

Taylor Holmes — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 16:59:27 +0000

In reply to Lisa.

Check out the movie eXistenZ – just finished reviewing it – and thought it very similar in form to Serenity. But with way way more crazy twists and turns etc.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 03:42:17 +0000

I actually found the movie very clever. I could tell right away by the over the top acting that they were actually acting out roles outside of being in a movie if that makes any sense and I didn’t know of the twist going in. Obviously too by their inability to do things outside the so called rules like turn on a red light or get up from bed before the alarm goes off. I do have to agree with you that some of the subject matter depicted seems above the level of a 13 year old boy but I guess kids are a little more in tune these days with the internet and all. I can see how the actors felt constrained by not being able to talk about the movie. Overall, though I still think it’s clever and doesn’t deserve the viral hate it’s getting. I also like Alessandro’s take but I don’t know if he actually killed himself or just processed his trauma by rewriting the game where he is able to meet with his dad.

By: Alessandro

Alessandro — Sun, 03 Feb 2019 19:25:14 +0000

Thanks for reviewing this movie, Taylor!
I can see the flaws you pointed out, but I really liked it somehow.
I understood it as a “translation in the code of a game” the reflection of everything going on inside of a introspective boy’s mind and heart, who lost his father (and his best friend as well), who has his mother being hurt by a strange man that got into her life for money, and who spend his days closed in his bedroom throwing all his frustrations and repressed feelings into his exceptional programming abilities.
The whole movie seems to be based in this conflict that the boy has of what’s right and wrong, his desire to see the step-father dead while he wants that something to stop him to do it, his heart (that wants desperately to do it) against his logical mind (who have every reason to not do it). So, the movie is his attempt to translate this mess that’s inside of him into a code, that’s the way that he expresses himself to the world, and make sense in an attempt to not surrender to the desire to kill that man beating his mom who was screaming next door.

The sex and other non-sense situations that you point as a script flaw, I see only as a result of this mess inside of a teenager’s problematic mind… the only outlet of his repressed emotions. After all, we find out that the movie is 100% about him. We don’t know any of the other characters in real life, only a representation of his perceptions. This makes me remember Mulholland Drive somehow… mainly when we see each character of the dream, their “real persona”, appearing in the final scenes.

At last, only 2 details… first, The very first scene of the movie is the camera entering the boy’s eye, and reaching the island to start the movie. When I saw it, I already started to thinking that it was all happening inside of somebody’s mind and something was going on… but my mind exploded anyway when I figured out that it wasn’t, but in fact it was a real programmed game developing as the story was being told, with the boy with those conflicts closed in his bedroom.
Second, I really believe that at the end, when the boy in real life was in prison, he couldn’t handle with the fact of the emotional had won over the logical, in the game and consequently in real life, and above all the issues that he was already facing for a long time (dead father, desolated mother, his problematic and depressed personality) and the end is that he killed himself… that’s when in a final imaginative ending he find himself together with his father somehow… maybe he foresaw what he was going to do and programed himself inside of the game as well, or was only a glimpse of his dying delusions. I left the theater perplexed and also sad somehow, thinking what was that kid’s life, his crying through the game, and that how everything overcame him, he wasn’t strong enough to handle that, finishing his life at the end.

I hope I have helped a bit with what I saw in this movie…
Unfortunately if had all those issues you mention, and I’m seeing a plenty of negative reviews and complaining of people that didn’t barely scratched the surface of this movie’s real plot. Maybe the director wasn’t successful to keep the audience interested up to the point with the twist, and the twist wasn’t clear enough to the general audience.