Like many, I was pretty excited when I saw the trailer for
Bling Ring. There are 3 reasons as to why: 1) Emma Watson was in it, and she’s been pretty successful in her post-Potter roles. 2) The real life story behind the movie is fascinating. 3)
I have a weakness for tragedies of which a character death takes place,
and not physical death. This is when a character is a fairly normal/
successful person at the start of the story, then suddenly an event
causes them to be obsessed with an idea (money, fame, revenge) and this
idea causes their personality to do a complete 180, leading to their
ultimate demise. Good examples of Character death would be
Sweeney Todd,
Death Note,
Lord of the Flies,
Requiem for a Dream, and even
Great
Gatsby in a sense. With everything I’ve researched on the
Bling Ring,
this seemed to be a prime example of one of those movies. A fascinating
true life story of how the idea of fame consumed and destroyed the life
of upper-class west coast teens. I say seemed to be because it wasn’t, and in fact it is the single most irritating movie I’ve ever seen in my life.
Character Death aka Wishing the Characters Death
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| That dude looks like such a hipster. Is it wrong of me to classify someone based on their looks? |
For any of you who have lived on Earth
you should know that
Lord of the Flies is some pretty screwed up stuff.
The writer of which probably gets off on the thought of civilized white
English school boys killing and mutilating each other wearing nothing
but loin cloth. While I understand that this is a pretty, er, EXTREME
example of Character Death, it’s an excellent example nonetheless. See
in
Lord of the Flies, the boys start off civilized and professional as
society has taught them to be, however, over time they turn into
monstrous savages that like crushing fat kids with boulders and
torturing symbolic Jesus’. However in
Bling Ring, these characters start
of as complete and utter losers and the only one that didn’t, who is
the main character, is completely unrelatable and has the personality of
dry wall. Actually I take that back, Dry Wall, you aren’t as boring as
this kid is. So the movie starts off with the protagonist being the
new kid at a probationary high school, so yes, already his future looks
bright. In the first 10 minutes, boring kid and a girl named Rebecca
become best friends on the heartwarming foundation of, “Hey I just met
you and this is crazy, but here’s some cars, let’s rob them maybe!” Despite
being the only character with somewhat of a conscious, he just idly
stands by as his new found friend robs each open car she comes into
contact with.
Ok, I can’t really complain about that, I mean where would
the story be if he were a remotely a decent person? And that’s not
it, The rest of the firkin cast was just as horrible and as obnoxious as
the two main characters are. They have NO redeeming qualities other
than the innate ability to get away with robbing celebrities and the
ability to snort as much coke without suffering cardiac arrest. As
part of the audience, what turned into minor annoyance for me and my
friends turned into a full on Gladiator audience mentality in the first
hour. In fact, in one part of the movie, one of the intoxicated Bling
Ring members found a gun underneath Megan Fox’s bed and began waving it
around. I literally was like, “SHOOT THEM, SHOOT THEM ALL! FOR THE LOVE
OF GOD I CAN’T SIT THOUGH ANYMORE WITHOUT SEEING BLOOD!” We all wanted
the characters to die, and not just die, but die of slow painful deaths
for making us waste 12 dollars we could have spent on food. Point being
that instead of feeling some pity for these deranged teens, we instead
just wanted the end to come sooner so they would shut the hell up.
Editing
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| This is what I got when I Googled "bling ring editing" |
I think part of what made this film so unbearable
is the fact that these scenes weren’t cut down to an appropriate length.
There are certain movies in which this was actually done well, for
example
After Midnight is one. The whole movie consisted of about maybe
ten scenes, but it was done so well with such impressive and
entertaining dialogue and actors that it almost seemed too short.
Bling
Ring on the other hand is a prime example of how this move can prove
risky, if you don’t have the right actors or writing. Even the one
“comedic moment” of
Bling Ring, which was the part where the Main
Character recorded a video of himself rapping and smoking weed, was like
finger nails on a chalk board. A scene that was suppose to be maybe
half a minute to a minute at the most, went on for three to four. (Maybe
it was shorter, but it felt way longer than it should have). The
robbing scenes were also pretty painful, because, again…THESE CHARACTERS
ARE AWFUL!
Watson Written Wrongly
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| How Hermoine acted when she was alone with Ron. Mmmm get that magic stick, gurl! |
Yes she’s hot, yes I love her,
however she was awful in this. To be honest, it isn’t her fault, and is
instead a product of Good Actor/Crap Writing. Robert Pattinson suffered
similarly when he was cast as Edward in
Twilight, causing the rest of
the world to blackball him as an awful actor, when in reality it was the
writing that was screwed up. It was almost painful to watch her, not
because the character was so awful, but because no one wrote any character. Where's the
writing? No I’m serious, Where is it? The dialogue for the movie was
literally, “Omg Becky, I want to rob. I want to be Paris Hilton, LOL
Like totally snorting coke!” The. Whole. Time. Most of the robbing
scenes seemed like they were improvised, which would have been
wonderful if the characters weren’t so damn irritating. Imagine the most
moronic valley girl you know. OK, now imagine hearing her talk for an
hour and a half. Viola! You have
Bling Ring!
Conclusion
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| This person's a mom. |
So after a string of robberies, they get
caught by security camera’s in Lindsay Lohan’s home (surprise surprise!)
and they are arrested and questioned. All admit to the crimes they’ve
committed and the Main Character and his Kleptomaniac friend get sent to
jail for four years, Emma Watson's character and the blonde girl who was
with them were sentenced to one year. To be honest, this was another
thing I found extremely bizarre about the movie, which would be the fact
that they were arrested on felony charges and tried in court and most
of the characters were very flippant about it, almost as if they failed a
math test. The only real reaction to getting imprisoned was Emma
Watson’s and the male character. But even her character joked and
laughed about it on her way. Very weird and unrealistic (actually….Jodi
Aris…. I take that back). Overall, this had potential to be an
amazing film, but the shallowness and poor writing made it the most
irritating film I’ve seen, and possibly will see in a very long time.
I’m out!
