Hereafter

So yesterday I finally managed to get back to my good old gym & sneak preview monday night routine. After an hour on the cross-trainer, some sit ups and a quick sauna visit I was ready to go to the Metropolis Kino to watch another crappy movie at the sneak preview. I also watched the Germany vs. Hungary handball match in the gym before and was happy Hungary won – although I don’t know exactly why…

So anyway the screening started at ten past nine, they showed a couple of trailers first and then the movie. They showed the trailers for The Transformers 3, the new Pirates of the Caribbean, Thor, Gnomeo & Juliet and Gulliver’s travels – all pretty cool movies to look forward to. Even though they will very likely never show any of these at the sneak preview but hey …

And then the screen went black and the main movie started with an opening screen of some people on a beach and the title: Hereafter. No names of actors, director or anything.

A French couple talking with subtitles in English. Some booing followed and then a tsunami happened (the tsunami hitting the village was pretty spectacular even if some of the special effects were too obvious). Some more storylines got introduced and from then onwards the movie became first quite boring, later a little bit predictable, later super-predictable in a very slimy romantic way except the ending which was either totally ridiculous or it’s just me and I am too stupid to understand why this had to happen. After a while I started to think about who could have made this movie and was pretty sure it must have been a woman – the style was very slow and spiritual and focused more on feelings rather than action, also sometimes it was just too much romanticism and little logic (sorry ) and then the movie is over and it turns out this is a Clint Eastwood movie? Wtf? I was really surprised. He has shot some really weird but amazing movies in his last years but this movie just didn’t fit. I am still trying to understand what story / message he wanted to tell with this movie as it is just so not like his other movies.

I would not recommend to see it in the cinema. It might be a perfect Tuesday night movie at home on the couch but I wouldn’t spend money on it to see it on the big screen. Oh, and yes – I will be back for the sneak preview next Monday.