- Release Date: September 9th, 2008
- Genre: Drama, Fantasy
- Price: $18.99 on Amazon
- Run Time: 117 Minutes
- Publisher: Sony Pictures
- Rated: R (for some violent images)
- Starring: Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, Justine Waddell, Kim Uylenbroek, Aiden Lithgrow
- Special Features: Deleted Scenes, Featurettes, Commentary
It’s 1920’s Los Angeles. Alexandria (a 5 year old girl) is hospitalized in a nearby hospital after a fall breaks her arm. While at the hospital she befriends a man named Roy. Roy’s life is in the dumps after being paralyzed in a Hollywood stunt and losing his girlfriend. To pass the time Roy decides to tell Alexandria a story about five heroes (that happen to just be reincarnations of people at the hospital) that are determined to destroy the evil Governor Odious who destroyed all of their lives. When the line between fantasy and reality becomes fuzzy Alexandria needs to discover what is truly at stake.
When I received The Fall in the mail I had personally never heard of the movie. That isn’t that big of surprise since it actually only earned about $2 million dollars at the US box office. This shows that The Fall was obviously either a colossal failure or it didn’t have a large budget in the first place. I am guessing that it is the later instead of the former. Obviously since I had never heard of the movie before I would be lying if I expected a lot out of the movie. That actually changes since I watched the movie I would have to say that I was pleasantly surprised.
Don’t get me wrong. The Fall is far from a great movie but it did surprise me. I thought the idea for the movie was pretty good. I have always liked these storytelling type movies. The storytelling is the best part of the movie. These storytelling sequences is where all the fantasy elements are introduced. While the story is pretty strange it is still surprisingly entertaining. While the story is based in real life, it still has a sense of fantasy intertwined. In between storytelling sequences are sequences between Alexandria and Roy. These sequences aren’t as good as the storytelling sequences but they aren’t bad either.
Overall I thought the acting was kind of hit or miss. For most people the only actor they might have a chance at recognizing is Lee Pace (Ned “The Pie Maker” on Pushing Daisies). Lee Pace is also easily the best actor in this movie. He is easily the star actor of this movie. Catinca Unitaru is pretty average and I wouldn’t call her one of the best child actors around. The rest of the acting is pretty average as well.
As far as the special features are concerned I wouldn’t say they are anything special. You get some deleted scenes. You also get two featurettes about the making of The Fall. These aren’t that bad since there is quite a bit to talk about since the film took 4 years to film and was actually filmed in 18 different countries. Finally there are two commentaries. One is with the filmmakers (David Fincher and Spike Jonze), and the other is with the cast. Unless you are a big fan of commentaries I probably wouldn’t recommend that you watch the movie with the commentary on.
While this movie has a lot of pieces that would lead to a successful movie it is really missing something that is keeping it from being anything more than an average movie. I really can’t tell you what this missing piece is though. Maybe it’s the average acting, or the connections between the two stories being too weak. I really couldn’t tell you. Something is just standing in the way of this movie taking the next step.
Before finishing up the review one thing I do have to bring up is the R rating. I personally have to say this is one if not the tamest R rated movie I have ever seen. It got a R rating for some violence which wasn’t that terrible in my opinion. I believe it should have gotten a PG-13 rating. Obviously parents shouldn’t show this movie to young children but I don’t think parents need to worry about the R rating that the movie got.
The Fall came out of nowhere and actually surprised me. It turned out to be a pretty average movie but it could have been much better with a couple tweaks to the story and acting. I thought The Fall was worth watching and if you like fantasy or storytelling movies I think you should enjoy The Fall as well.
