MovieChat Forums > The Descendants (2011) Discussion > Bad dialogue. Bad acting. Bad editing. B...

Bad dialogue. Bad acting. Bad editing. Bad everything?

posted 13 years ago by kareldc2
97 replies | jump to latest

The films starts with 5 minutes of voice over by Clooney. Red flag #1...

Huge cliche of a story. Tragedy happens within family and shakes them up while they grow closer to each other.

Because of that enormous cliche most of the characters next to Clooney are generic. The comic relief boyfriend. The little sister who is too young to understand what is going on. The older daughter who initially hates her father but who grows closer to him as the movie progresses.

The film is structured as being a road movie without being one. Noting bad with that but perhaps watch Little Miss Sunshine if you like that. It's a good movie that is actually about something. I think the director also liked that movie but forgot to copy the most important part.

Don't go see this. Really. Some of the scenes are so weird that it feels like a 12 year old did the cut.

Also the most ridiculous scene in the whole film (for me at least) takes place at the end of the film when Judy Greer's character burst out in tears. Over a person who she has never met. Who her husband was seeing on the side. A character who only made 2 brief appearances in the movie until then but who we are supposed to emphasize with?!?!

I ran out of the theatre when I saw the performance of the little girl hearing her mother was going to die. So bad.

Without looking back.

[–] alanwhit 13 years ago

A few harsh points there but duly noted. The disconcerting thing for me was when the Beau Bridges and Michael Otkean characters were weaiting for Clooney's King to sign the papers at the end of the film. Bridges is great, but poor Michael Otkean - an actor who has carried crucial parts in movies since 1976's SLAPSHOT - has to sit there like a wood duck and not say a work. Surely the director, Bridges or Clooney could have thrown Otkean a bone ... a line of dialogue, something, anything ... so that he wouldn't have had to sit there mugging to the camera. Liked the movie (especially the music) but haven't been able to shake Otkean's (lake of a) role from my memory.

[–] legnadibrom 13 years ago

never heard of this otkean guy but if he wants to break it big he's got to sit up in his chair, no slouchers ever rose to the top in hollywood

http://www.last.fm/music/Disuse

[–] draco_ts 13 years ago

You missed it !! There are people out there who knows him and his acting.

[–] bruno-32 13 years ago

Seriously, this movie should have been done on Lifetime...one of the best pictures of the year? Your kidding. Then again, these days with all these comic epic movies exploding on the scene, it is a revelation of some sort at that. Some real dumb dialogue and the profanity coming out of mouths of babes, never turned me on. The best part for me, was the scene where Grandpa poked the kids eye. ...and why in one scene did Clooney go to that kids bedroom and have a chat with him? Beau Bridges was a sight to behold...a man that old with locks that make him look like the Lion of Lion King. As for Ontkean, when did he get such curly hair? I suspect he happened to be in Hawaii and so they needed some extras for a scene. ...and that background music with those lyrics...can't they make a movie these days without background music?

[–] Defenseman13 12 years ago

"you're"

http://us.imdb.com/name/nm2339870/

[–] LeCadavreExquis 13 years ago

I watched it with my girlfriend and we said to eachother how sad it was to see Twin Peaks' sherif just sitting there like a generic extra.

I was underwhelmed by The descendants. Although it isn't without merit, I struggle to pinpoint why it left me mostly uninvolved. Maybe it's because, for the first time, Payne uses the hollywood idiom, movie cliche, to express emotion. As he's a film maker that I hold in high regard, I suspect he's aware of this, does it purposefully, but its purpose is just lost on me.

What did strike me is the depiction and function of the mother. Her vegetable state lends her a vacuous quality, I mean she's like an abys for the characters to shout their emotion into. Like a black hole to which repressed feelings relentlesly gravitate.

There's a confidence in you guys that's horrifying.

[–] florida26 13 years ago

It's been mentioned this seems like a LifeTime movie. Bam! -that's it - that is definitely the feeling of this film, encompassing the acting quality to the plot, to the syrupy music, etc..

[–] mullitover2 13 years ago

If it was a Lifetime movie the husband (Clooney)would have had the affair,become a paraplegic, needing constant care,provided by the long suffering wife,and mother of their two unappreciative sons who will some day.... "Be just like their father!"

...If He doesn't turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles so we'll know them by their limp.

[–] greenbanzanas 12 years ago

Great comment, alanwhit.

[–] IcySpoon 10 years ago

I noticed the same thing-frankly they should have cut him out of final edit. He looked ridiculous-wide-eyed, uncomfortable and out of place.

I loved him in Slap Shot-a great movie my family used to watch when I was a teenager.

"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it." Norman Maclean

[–] mylesmiles 13 years ago

Emphasize.....

Enough said. Game over.

[–] jeromec-2 12 years ago

This is something like doing something out of the Bible. The events are common and well known. That doesn't mean they don't need to be told.

This sort of thing is something you either like or you hate. Anyone who has gone through this sort of thing knows about the feelings in the film. They are real enough I think.

[–] HairyBushLover 13 years ago

Agree with everything you stated OP. The film is utter crap.

And the fact that it is nominated for an Oscar for the best "film of the year" is just another proof that Oscars' are a joke (and have been for a long time, but it's getting more and more ridiculous with each passing year due to increasing pace of unashamed lobbying and insiders' cronyism in the Hollywood industry.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] schall1991 10 years ago

You are utter crap. Good day!

[–] kareldc2 13 years ago

I might have been a bit too negative reading this the next day. It's really hard making a film. I have a feeling this movie was "saved" in post. Cloony's voice over at the beginning might be the best evidence of this. This might also be the reason some of the scenes felt so weird. That they had to cut some performances... (crucial ones).

[–] randyhndrsn 13 years ago

You are being way too harsh, the acting and dialogue really didn't standout as bad, maybe not the best, but I felt there was some honesty in the story that Payne was trying to tell.

If I felt that everyone was just being lazy here and didn't put an effort into it, but I did, even if it didn't connect with you, I don't see how you could think it was that level of bad.

[–] afterburns 13 years ago

Lazy ... here? GC is always ... lazy. He plays himself and ... he stinks. He should take a tutor. He ruins films and people love his "talent." Hahaha!

KIAI ... please.

[–] cinesimonj 13 years ago

Yes you are clearly a lesson in what makes a great actor.

[–] JoshLaver 13 years ago

Thought I was the only one to think the movie concept was unoriginal. Payne's worst movie, I should say. But maybe it was Payne's that the critics completely overlooked the cliche part and tried to find ingenuity or most possibly, honesty in it. Payne should go back to older ways,if this deserved an Oscar nomination, then Sideways ought to be hands down winner.

[–] targa9 13 years ago

Everyone loved Sideways, but it wasn't that great. Giamatti's character was way too over-the-top whiny, even if he was funny in spots. I couldn't understand why his friend would bother to lug around such a wet blanket as he on a week-long trip. Seriously, true Payne fans must put Election as the top movie--a movie which was ingeniously humorous, picaresque, inventive, well-paced and filled with surprises. Second comes "About Schmidt", then Sideways, then Citizen Ruth, and then this refrigerated serious drama. Payne should go back to comedy--pronto!

[–] Meven_Stoffat 13 years ago

I agree, I didn't hate this film but come on guys best picture? Not even close. It was very mediocre and worst of all VERY CLICHED! I saw pretty much everything coming as soon as Clooney was told that his wife was taken off the machines. Useless characters, boring dialogs, predictable as all hell. It felt like an after school special, really

Cirque Du Soleil= Best thing to happen to theatre since the Gershwins.

[–] PrettySalad 13 years ago

Ordinarily I like Clooney, but I think he was really bad in this.

His voice overs (and there were FAR too many) were awful -- it seemed like he didn't think about what his character was saying.

His performances in "Facts of Life" were better than his performance in this.

[–] thepoet26 13 years ago

I agree that this was a really bad performance by George Clooney. He was extremely wooden, not only during the voice overs but throughout the entire film! I honestly cannot believe that he got an Oscar nomination for this role. And for the record, I do like George Clooney. I just did not buy him in this movie and the movie itself was a let down for me. I was expecting so much more.....

By the end of it, I felt like I'd watched a really bad Lifetime movie with a lot of swearing.

Namu Myoho Renge Kyo