Review of The Big Bang (2011) by Bebot S — 21 May 2011

Saw The Big Bang @ the Sunset 5 theater in L.A. What a fun ride! The cast is uniformly excellent. Antonio Banderas is a great choice as a modern day noir detective. All the police detectives are terrific. Sam Elliot is so cool as the obsessed billionaire hunting for God in a particle. I was very effected by the oddness and vulnerability of the physics genius as well. And having now seen Autumn Reeser in The Big Bang as well as on Entourage, I think I am officially in love with her.

The visuals and shot selection have me from the opening credits on. Director Tony Krantz has crafted a very interesting, trippy voyage for those bold enough for the adventure. And despite some serious stuff, like a lot of murder, the audience was laughing with me at any number of funny lines in the piece. There's a lot to the story, but hang in there... the multi-strands start to collide fast as the film evolves (like a partical collider?) and it builds to a very satisfying conclusion.

Ultimately, The Big Bang is a multi-leveled story with the essence of life as the subtext. I'm puzzled by the critical reaction. After seeing the film, I was thinking how many bad movies I've gotten from Netflix in the last couple months. How little these films had to say... or how they weren't even that entertaining. And yet some got really great reviews. It brought to mind an old Pauline Kael quote that I thought fit The Big Bang nicely. It went something like:

"To ask why people get so upset by the best films and have so little bad to say about the worst films, is to suggest they are unused to the experience of art in film. And they fight it.".