Just as we do not like being in situations of ambiguous criteria for acceptable behavior we do not like movies that are jumbled.  Two movies got a hard time for this, the latest was Pirates of the Caribbean: World’s End and the earlier one from a couple years back was The Matrix Revolution.  They could not establish understadable coherence and it made many of us want to throw our popcorn at the screen instead of munching it down.  The complaint was complexity of plot for both, I would disagree, the storylines were simple the meanings behind the events and character interactions throughout that story were jumbled at best however.  When I watched PoC 3 I could not really lay a finger on who side everyone was on and I did not even know who to invest my energy and interest in, I could not even associate any character with positive feelings.  A story is supposed to create a hero or anti hero, and this movie created neither; with that the story tension dissipated and was ineffective.  The characters collapsed on themselves and were all uninspiring dispute the great special effects, awesome scenery, and witty one liners.

While the problem with PoC 3 was in its characters, Matrix Revolutions had great characters but a story line that was incoherent with a solid moral purpose.  Pirates had a story with a clear destination but lacked the characters to drive it.  MR had characters whose relationships were concise and being able to root for the good guys was easy as it was very apparent who you were supposed to root for.   However, the story itself was derailed.

To succeed a movie must set down standards of plot behavior and character interaction as soon as possible and stick with it consistently and push the envelope of these rules to spice the title up.  A perfect example of this is the movie Rear Window, Directed by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock.  The movie instantly set certain boundaries and rules that characters had to stay in, but Hitchcock did what only he could, he had the character specifically break the rules or at least push them to the point of breaking which created an undeniable tension.  Though this movie would not be called frightening in today’s world of Saw and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but the manipulation of rules and guidelines created an excitement that culminated in an ending that was somewhat predictable yet altogether fulfilling.

I demand you watch it, you may not be able to handle the drivel that comes out of Hollywood after you have but that is a good thing in my book.