Invincible

Director Angelina Jolie has adapted Laura Hillenbrand's great biography, Unbroken, and made a conventional story about one of America's true heroes, Louis Zamperini. I'll continue to think about how Jolie could have made this more suspenseful, considering Louis was an Olympic runner, stayed in a life boat for the world record 47 days, and survived torture in two Japanese POW camps.

Although the film shows Louis to survive unbroken, despite the-Passion-of-The-Christ-like torture overdose, and follows his life story accurately, there's no soul, just dutiful recounting of the separate incidents. As a colleague commented, the real life footage of Louis returning as an old man to run the Olympic torch is more engaging and emotional than the whole film.

The cinematography of the renowned Roger Deakins is splendid on land and sea while Alexandre Desplat's music swells with romance at the right times. Otherwise, it's business as usual—get the history right. For me, a filmmaker could play with the story to make it more meaningful and involve more emotion if she has to—and Jolie has to.

The mediocre writing, that includes work of the Coens and the screenwriter of Gladiator, William Nicholson, repeats this trite line, "If you can take it, you can make it." Also this line, "One moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory," doesn't sound right, whereas in the book, it does: "A lifetime of glory is worth a moment of pain." Now that makes sense.

The villain, called Bird, should be a ruthless torturer with emotional issues tied to his lack of promotion and homosexual longings. However Jolie has chosen an androgynous Japanese rock star, Takamasa Ishihara, who doesn't click as mean or psychotic, just barking torture orders to fill his time with an occasionally enigmatic sentence or two to entice us into thinking we havedepth. Like the film, Bird promises much but delivers too little.

As opposed to the boring torture—how about more of his home life or his search for Bird after the war? I want Jolie to do well—she has an exemplary family and solid career as an actress—but, with the negligible first directing effort, In the Land of Blood and Honey, she has yet to achieve as a director.

"I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage." Friedrich Nietzsche

Louis Zamperini (Jack O'Connell) is an Italian-American from Torrance, California. As a boy, he's a juvenile delinquent. Then his brother Pete notices his running abilities which takes him all the way to the '36 Olympics in Berlin. During WWII, he's a bombardier in the Pacific. He is captured and imprisoned by the Japanese.

This movie looks good technically. Director Angelina Jolie shows her competency in that respect. Jack O'Connell is OK. There is simply nothing that jumps out. There is little tension and no excitement. The story rolls on like a recitation with limited emotional content. It's still an interesting life and a compelling one to watch.

Lets just say I just saw a great movie about loyalty, courage, survival and redemption. Angelina Jolie has fantastic directing skills and its Oscar worthy. Jack O'Connell knocks his performance out of the park and he's proved himself with this great performance along with his performances in "Starred Up" and "'71". He embodies the characteristics of Louis Zamperini and the great wonderful life he lived. Jai Courtney had a small role, but really good surprisingly, can't wait to see him as Kyle Reese in next summer's Terminator reboot. The movie slowed at a point but picked it up and blew me away, O'Connell gives an Oscar worthy performance, but given the competition it's unlikely. Who cares though? This is one of 2014's best films and you'll see it at the Oscars I promise you that.

Unbroken opens with an extended sequence of a bombing run by a US B-17 crew against Japanese targets in the Pacific, and the subsequent attack on the bomber by a squad of Japanese Zero fighters. This aerial combat sequence is one of the most harrowing of it's kind I have ever seen. You actually feel like you are in that plane experiencing that terror and exhilaration first hand. This segment cannot be over praised, it is that good. Another sequence in a bomber, where the plane experiences massive engine failure and crashes into the sea with the crew all on board is also very well done. The flashback segments on Zamperini's running career are also fine, the extended sequence depicting three airmen's time on a life raft floating in the middle of the Pacific ocean is well done. So far it's all good.

Then we get to the meat of the film, the prisoner of war scenes, and the film becomes a ponderous slog through torture and brutal beatings of the main character by an effeminate and sadistic Japanese captor. This is essentially the entire second half of the film, and it becomes monotonous and numbing.

The photography, sound , and music in this film were all award-caliber, and Jolie shows great promise as a mainstream director.

Okay, I've read Hilenbrand's book, which is simply riveting. Louis Zamperini's story is almost unbelievable and the movie cannot possibly do it justice in just over two hours. This could easily have stretched to four hours, but today's cinema-going public haven't got that kind of patience. The film is well done and I was certainly thoroughly entertained by it, knowing in advance it would never be as good as the book, but it certainly didn't leave me cold, demanding my ticket price back. Just watch this for the good movie that it is. Yes it could have been better, but it's a very good attempt by Jolie at the book. I just cannot understand why so many people have given it bad reviews. IMDb puzzles me greatly at times, especially when some awful movies get glowing reviews. Is there some sinister network of people out to sabotage certain movies? I really don't know. This is a very decent movie and Jolie should be proud of it.