status post 93

united 93. kara being kara, she wanted to watch it right away. we watched it last night. overall i have to say i was disappointed. the first part was excellent and appropriately terrifying and sad. there was a lot of stuff with the air traffic controllers, and seeing the events of the day unfold from their point of view was very effective. there were shots here and there of the people getting on board flight 93 and finding their seats, and that in itself was difficult to watch, just because of what was in store for them. i'd say the first hour and a half of the 2-hour film was very good.

then the same thing happened as happened in the television version. kara put it better than i could. after a certain point, what actually happened on the plane is, of course, speculation. without the backbone of the documented air traffic controller conversation as they track planes and planes disappear from their screens and the back-and-forth within the military as they try to scramble jets and establish rules of engagement, etc, the scenes on the plane, with the passengers, flight attendants, and hijackers, seemed like those in just another action movie. it could have been snakes on a plane.

does this mean i've seen too many movies? as i say, the first three quarters were very much in a documentary style, cinema verite. very moving, very gripping. but the last twenty minutes or half hour of the movie, despite my knowledge that it's a true story, devolved into a bruce willis (or, better, arnold schwarzenegger) action sequence and my involvement level plummeted. pun, perhaps, intended.