I admit, I was a tad skeptical on this one, judging from all the negative criticism on it, but I can now confirm that all those bad review people are giving it are completely baseless. Usually I can at least tell what all the bad criticism is based on, but I can’t really see what these people are possibly picking at (not for a thumbs down anyway). Vantage Point does something fairly well-known in a very new and exciting way. They do something no other story really does. They make sure you know the WHOLE story. Every last bit of it. Well, all of the plot anyway. They don’t let you know any causes of effects, which bugged me, but by the end of the movie the viewer knows every last detail of what went on. And there is some crazy "WHOA!" style action every step of the way, including what is perhaps one of the best car chases in many years.
The movie actually accomplishes its uniqueness by taking you through the same story several times. Admittedly, enough times that by the last couple you will be like "Again?!" but it still makes for a very interesting movie experience. The whole plot only takes up about 30 or 40 minutes if I had to guess, yet it’s an hour and a half movie (which was the other thing I was worried about, see one of my recent posts). I must say that this is one of those few short movies that actually feels like a full movie. It may be 1 1/2 hours, but it certainly feels like more, and every second is jam-packed. I wasn’t really of the "dang, I wish it was longer" sentiment when I left, but that wasn’t because the movie wasn’t good.
There’s not a lot I can say about this movie without giving much away, but I can say this: forget the 36% on rottentomatoes, this should be at least an 80, maybe 90% movie if you ask me.
