THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS
RYAN: “The Men Who Stare at Goats” is the new George Clooney flick, but the real star is Ewan McGregor, my favorite actor ever.
CAROLINE: I’m sorry, honey, but Ewan was so wrong for this movie. I didn’t buy his character at all. And he needs to polish his American accent.
RYAN: What? I’m shocked! I thought his accent was great, and the whole time I watched him, I was thinking, “This is exactly how I want to see him.” I loved him in this role.
CAROLINE: Well if it’s any consolation, I didn’t love George Clooney either. Basically, I didn’t like the movie at all. I dozed a few times, in fact.
RYAN: I thought the other stars, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey, were great; did you like them at least?
CAROLINE: Totally. They felt very right in their roles. And the movie does have some funny moments. I just thought the story was weak and disjointed. I know it’s based on real events, but they weren’t strung together well.
RYAN: I thought it was really funny, especially knowing these ludicrous things the military was doing are true. That made it have much more of an impact for me.
CAROLINE: But they handled it in such a jokey way that it felt like a farce. They should have been exposing the absurdity of it all in a serious way.
RYAN: That’s a really good point. I’m not sure why they handled it that way. But everyone just looked like they had so much fun making this movie. And George Clooney is known to be fun on set.
CAROLINE: Part of my issue is probably because I caught an early screening of George Clooney’s other fall movie, “Up in the Air,” the day after seeing this, and I liked it so much more that it’s beyond comparison.
RYAN: I don’t know if it’s fair to compare two movies just because they share the same star; however, if you just didn’t enjoy “Goats,” I’ll just have to accept it.
CAROLINE: It’s definitely a very different movie, but if you’re going to see a Clooney film this year, “Goats” is not the one to see. It was just lame. I felt like they took a cool, interesting premise and made a bad movie out of it.
— BOTTOM LINE —
RYAN: It’s a light, comical view of something that really happened in our military and it’s pretty shocking. I normally can’t stand war or army movies, but this one is a comedy about the paranormal as opposed to a full-out battle movie.
CAROLINE: I thought I would be into it too, but it really disappointed me. It was only half well cast and the story just didn’t work. We’re gonna have to agree to disagree on this one.
— RATING —
