While this movie may suffer a bit from being little more than typical for the genre, it is elevated by great casting and an honest and realistic production.

Writing: We’ve seen this kind of story done before, and this one plays most of the beats that others of the genre have already used. Still, it’s a compelling story, and probably in some ways contributed to the research that writers of similar films have used. Given the basis in reality, the story does have a couple touches here and there that are different than what a writer would normally do, which is kinda nice.

Production: The vast majority of this movie is all in camera production, on location. It definitely doesn’t feel like the cast or crew are faking anything. The jungle feels like the jungle. The camp feels small and primitive. Cinematography is simple but effective. Same goes for the sound design and editing.

Cast: Christian Bale is, of course, great. It’s nice to see him finally becoming an A-list star in recent years. He continues to pick daring and quality roles, and he always makes them work. Steve Zahn is always great as well, and this is no exception for him either. It’s a more dramatic role than most people would usually cast him in, but he’s shown in the past that he can do far more than comedy. Jeremy Davies does what he does best - act borderline crazy. I have to wonder just how much weight the cast lost to film this movie, particularly Davies. If that’s truly how he looked for the shooting of the film, he must have weighed somewhere around the 100 pound mark. He’s practically a skeleton with skin wrapped around it.

Music: Klaus Badelt actually manages to pull off a somber, dramatic and understated score. I say that with surprise because those aren’t words I would typically pick to describe his previous scores. He’s not one of my favorite composers, and is one of the weakest of Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions composers. He actually gets to show some range and talent with this score, which is a nice change of pace.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 10:40 pm and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.