Review of World Trade Center (2006) by Keng. — 01 Oct 2006

I realize there are those who think that to dislike a movie like this (that celebrates the heroes of 9/11) is almost "un-American", but those people can go away as far as I'm concerned. A poorly made movie is a poorly made movie, regardless of the subject matter.

Unlike "United 93" (one of the year's best movies) which was told in a very matter-of-fact manner, "World Trade Center" is busting at the seams with reverence for what it is doing, and thus comes off as somewhat ponderous, and also somewhat full of itself.

It also has some bad dialogue, and some moments that come off more corny then poignant (which considering the subject matter, was probably actually kind of hard to do) there is also something really generic about this.

Much of movie focuses on Cage and the other guy trapped in the rubble. But this feels like a lot of other movies we've had about people trapped in cave-ins. Then you had the very familiar, formula scenes of their families standing by anxiously waiting for word, which could have been taken out of a lot of movies.

And the flashbacks also could have been taken out of a lot of movies. Bottom line is that this film never captures the scope of the unbearable tragedy of that day, or the overwhelming poignancy.