Fahrenheit 451

This was going to be bad.... The line " you dream of running from me, you wake up and apologize" (Or something like that) made me think that I didn't know if I could make it through this movie. Which is a shame because I really like both lead actors. Maybe the director just didn't direct them correctly but Ray Bradbury must be turning in his grave at this retelling. I've seen the movie Equilibrium which is loosely based on the book, and while it's no masterpiece it is boatloads better than this

I found Francois Truffaut's film version of Fahrenheit 451 hard going, not helped by a distant performance from star Oskar Werner.

Ramin Bahrani reimagines the Ray Bradbury novel. He sets it in an era of fake news, fake history, disinformation. Propaganda at its best. Burn books and you can reinvent an alternative timeline.

Set in a future Dystopia, Guy Montag (Michael P Jordan) and his mentor Captain Beatty (Michael Shannon) are firemen after a second civil war America who burn books, a tradition that goes far back as Benjamin Franklin! It is easier to control people if they could not find information and think for themselves. It was easy to keep people happy if they do not get offended from what they read.

Montag carries out his work diligently and is in line for promotion but gets taken in by the Eels, a counter group who preserve the information contained in books. They learn books by heart, the upload it on the net, they rebel against the government.

Shannon can play the villain in his sleep. Jordan has the harder part but he is rather vacuous, maybe he is meant to be that way, a person who has never learned to think or question for himself.

There are some good ideas in this film but they never hang together or are fully realised. With two failed adaptations, I think Bradbury's novel might come across better on the page than on the screen.

I'm all for creative new spins on ideas from great works, such as Ray Bradbury's F451, but just don't call it Fahrenheit 451. Another reviewer asked why so many negative reviews, well it's because when you choose to make an adaption of such a beloved book, you do the author and fans justice by sticking to the main themes of the movie and pivotal points and roles. If you want to make such a loosely based version, call it The Fireman or something. I don't want to be a huge fan of a book, get excited it's being remade, have the expectation it is going to follow the book because it's named as such, only to watch something that misses the mark. This was disappointing.

I've seen Truffaut's version from the 60's two or three times even if it wasn't perfect for a great admirer of the book but it had Oskar Werner and Julie Christie and Cyril Cusack and a phenomenal score by Bernard Herrmann. This 2018 version has an interesting production design but the the actual center of this warning tale is completely lost. The pacing is infuriating and Michael Shannon as good as he is, he's becoming the go to guy to play the bad guy. Here everything is on the nose and by the numbers. So, disappointed. Michael B Jordan has amazing eyes but I wish he can find a great actor's director. He certainly deserve it.

...I'll keep this brief.

Bradbury would not be happy with this film. Bradbury appreciators are not and never will be happy with this film. Where is Mildred? Where is Faber? Where is the Hound? Who tore the beating heart out of a fine parable and crushed it? What possessed them? When did they sell their souls to the devil? How did they manage to get Bradbury's or his estate's blessing for this cartoon? Why, oh, why was that blessing given?

This film embodies everything Bradbury warned us about.

"Lecture's over."