adamgunton

[adamgunton]

#JustWatched Baby Driver (Edgar Wright, 2017)

Baby Driver has a cool concept, stellar cast and great soundtrack. It's clearly trying to riff the road-movie genre in an urban setting by making it a road-movie that can't actually hit the road. But ironically enough that's kind of the problem with the film, it never manages to shift gear and become anything but what you see on the surface.

The film is all style and no substance, much like the women in the film. It's becoming clear that Edgar Wright has the inability to write women. Lily James' Debora pries into Ansel Elgort's Baby's backstory, creating a wounded, lonely but talented and misunderstood guy that we've seen a million times before. But we get no such insight into Debora herself apart from the fact she wants to runaway to nowhere which conveniently makes her the ideal girl for Baby who himself wants to do nothing but drive off away from his forced life of crime. Darling, played by Eiza González, is barely more than Buddy's (Jon Hamm) drive to steal, and later, seek vengeance. The women are present just to accekerate the story of the men. And it seems pretty clear that Baby is really only attracted to Debora because she reminds him of his Mother, which is more than a little creepy.

The film sells itself on its cool soundtrack and the fact the editing is heavily timed to the music. This sounds fun on paper and offers a slight laugh when a heist gets stalled and Baby has to start the song over. In practice however it becomes tiresome and results in a glorified music video. The editing is choppy, making it hard to tell what's going on. At one point we're watching a chase between two trucks and one of them ends up with the nose of the truck jammed under a moving lorry. I couldn't tell which truck was trapped because we're rarely offered a wide shot to take in what's going on. The well choreographed car chases are hidden in close-ups making it so hard to tell what's going on. Maybe this is an attempt to make us feel part of the action but if anything it isolates the audience.

It's also not clear if Wright wants us to suspend our disbelief and just go along for the ride or if we're meant to be invested in these characters and their experiences. It's clear we're meant to sympathise with Baby as he realises people are getting hurt during the heists (he's only realising this now?) and he doesn't want to be a part of this violence. But when he decides to fight back against the more loose-moraled criminals he straight-up murders them. In pretty horrific ways. We're also made to understand that although Baby is an excellent driver, he's also an awkward person, often walking into people, uneasy when he's out of his comfort-zone. Turns out the in third act that Baby is Batman. An expert at basic parkour, a marksmen, can run over the top of cars that are charging at him and has the ability to disappear mid-conversation when people look away for a second.

Edgar Wright needs to pick a lane because trying to drive in all of them results in an unsatisfying film. Also Edgar, if I can push the car analogy a little bit further, please let a woman at least share the driver's seat with you because female characters deserve better than this and you obviously have a learner's permit.

I think I'm done with car references now.

[adamgunton]

UK Election 2017

I don't post a lot online these days. My thoughts on films, the occasional tweet, more often a retweet, sometimes a photo on Instagram and I can't remember the last time I actually wrote a post on Facebook that wasn't for Cheesemint or The Reunion. I've been working on a website for months but something keeps holding me back from fully finishing it. I don't know when exactly I started using my voice less. Maybe it's through fear of judgment, maybe I got tired of adjusting my tone for the different circles of my life on here, maybe I'm sick of shouting into the void, feeling unable to compete with the shouting of others and I know there are people who can articulate what I want to say better then I ever could.

But tomorrow is an important day and if I don't contribute something more than just my vote I'll feel like I'm not doing enough.

The world is a mess. This country is a mess. Everyone is so angry all the time. I'm angry all the time. I wish I could say with sincerity that I know what the answer is but I don't. But I believe that if we stick with the Conservatives, stick with Theresa May, everything will get worse for the most vulnerable. Our doctors, our police and our teachers are telling us how dangerous this woman and her party is and we should be listening. These three institutions are the most important institutions in the entire country. One heals, one protects and one educates us. It's like the holy trinity of a community. The Conservatives and May are making an absolute mess of Brexit (something I still believe is a mistake) and we're isolating ourselves more and more from important allies and cozying up to a monster like Drumpf who fuels racism, Islamophobia and doesn't believe climate change is an actual thing. The recent terrorist attacks are abhorrent and everyone is right to feel worried and scared. I don't know how to stop these things but I would imagine giving more money to the Police and the bodies able to investigate and prevent these sorts of attacks would help. Scrapping human rights laws is not the answer and restricting freedoms of citizens is not the answer. What's to stop them from invading your privacy, removing your rights when it's convenient for them? If you think they'll stop at terror suspects then you're pretty naive. Governments never abuse their powers, right? May has consistently lied, flip-flopped and can't be trusted at all.

I know none of the parties are perfect, none of the candidates are perfect. But I want to hope for better than what we've got now.

So tomorrow, I'll be voting Labour because I believe it'll make the country better and help those less fortunate. I want to save the NHS, help our schools and and police get the money they need. I think Labour are more capable of negotiating a better Brexit deal than the Tories who are too busy trying to win over the UKIP supporters. Zero hour contracts are used to exploit hardworking people and they need to go. I think a £10 living wage should be a basic requirement for any job. I think free school meals and childcare are a good thing. Getting rid of tuition fees and brining back the EMA and grants will give more young people a better start as they begin the path to their careers.

I could go on but I think the most important thing people can do tomorrow when they go to the polls is to think beyond their own interests a little. See it from the point of view of someone less fortunate. If we all showed a little more empathy then everyone would be better off and someone would be looking out for you as well.

[adamgunton]

#JustWatched Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins, 2017)

It barely took five minutes for me to fall in love with this film. Perhaps I'm overly sentimental, overly sensitive but I found it to be enthralling. Watching a fearless little girl be inspired to be a hero by the women around her was just utterly brilliant and the hero she grows up to be engages so many of the timeless issues women face. But Wonder Women isn't just a hero for women, she's a hero for humanity. A lot of her words about cowardice ring true with contemporary events. Diana calling the British Generals out for letting innocents die in the name of war seems like a barely veiled statement about the West's actions in Syria and other recent wars. But the film never becomes sanctimonious. It balances the morality against action and humour with great ease making the whole piece a pleasure to watch. It's also set apart from it's comrades because it works as its own piece. You don't need to worry about watching any previous films and it doesn't get hooked up on setting up a sequel.

Wonder Woman isn't immune from blockbuster problems. The editing during the action is a little choppy, sometimes missing shots that would help the action make sense. The final fight might be two Gods fighting each other but it doesn't excuse it for being a bit messy visually and narratively speaking. I was dubious about Hans Zimmer's theme which seems to come out of nowhere in the trailers but in the context of the film it worked great. Everyone is so well cast and like Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man, Gal Gadot is Wonder Woman. Others might criticise the film for being too on the nose at times, with its use of slow-mo for dramatic-effect and grand speeches but you know what? It's allowed too. The first major female superhero film from this generation is allowed to drive the point home, to let us soak up the image of a woman walking into No Man's Land to save innocent lives and punching a tank in the process. I find myself genuinely looking forward to Justice League if it means I get to see more Wonder Woman.

It's been a long, hard road but Patty Jenkins has struck a huge blow for female superheroes and female blockbuster directors. This film deserves to do extremely well and perhaps other characters will finally start to get the screen-time they deserve and studios will stop unfairly questioning whether a female director can deliver the goods because Jenkins has delivered with Wonder Woman.

[adamgunton]

#JustWatched Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant is so far up its arse that it's about to burst out of its own chest. It has none of the tension and horror of Alien, none of the action of the excellently constructed Aliens. It barely manages to rise above the train-wreck that was Prometheus. At least this time the character's motivations make a semblance of sense.

Ridley Scott seems so persistent in making more Alien films. He didn't seem to care when he made Prometheus. It seems to me that he wanted to slap the Alien name on it and add a heavy helping of Xenomorph when interest spiked around Neil Blomkamp's Aliens sequel concept art. It would ignore Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection and give an alternative future to Ripley, Newt and Hicks. 20th Century Fox green-lit the film and it seemed everyone was interested in it going ahead. But then Prometheus 2 became Alien: Covenant, Ridley Scott took back the Alien mantel and Blomkamp's film seems to have been shot out of the airlock, never to be fully realised. This would be an easier pill to swallow if Ridley Scott could provide a decent alternative but he seems incapable. There's a lot wrong with this film and it all seems to come under one banner; it doesn't know what the audience should and shouldn't see. Online you can watch a prologue that shows the crew having a final drink before going into a long period of hyper-sleep helps establish the character's relationships, their purpose as a crew consisting of couples and generally show us what's at stake. Why not have it at the beginning of the film and give the audience this context in the right place? It would also give James Franco a bit more screen-time and helps us feel something when he dies in the first thirty seconds. But for some reason Scott assumed everyone would watch it online. He also assumes everyone has watched Alien and doesn't need to ramp up the tension or horror surrounding the creatures. Everything is rushed. We cut-away from chest-bursting, face-huggers are over and done with in an instant, the Aliens seem to grow to full size in a matter of minutes, unlike in Alien where the creature gets bigger with each encounter, becoming a fully-realised monster in the final sequence. What's worse is we get a good look at the Xenomorph at every opportunity, even in broad daylight, in all it's dull CGI glory. It's not scary if we're suffering from overexposure. Speaking of overexposure, there's also Michael Fassbender. While Fassbender gives very impressive performances as both Walter and David the whole film pretty much hinges on him, leaving the human characters underdeveloped and spending most of their time being sad or scared. The film lacks a Ripley. There's no-one with conviction, with intelligence, with a likability that the audience can really follow and respond to. The film oozes arrogance and it's hard to respond positively to that. Scott and the writer wrongly assume we want to know exactly where the Alien comes from. The audience doesn't need to know that. The best thing about Alien and Aliens was the horror, the need to survive against impossible odds, something that was captured in the recent excellent video game Alien: Isolation. But Covenant seems so intent on proving it's cleverer than Prometheus by over-explaining everything and then giving us one of the most predictable plot-twists. The thing is, it all adds up to be boring because it's a prequel. We know how things will eventually turn out so none of this matter.s What's worse, it's trying to answer questions that were never intended to be answered and so it ends up being a poorly constructed, far too convenient, sloppy mess. I'd have more fun locked in a room with a face-hugger.

[adamgunton]

#JustWatched Beauty and the Beast (Bill Condon, 2017)

I feel like everyone involved with this needs a nice pat on the back, a congratulations but then to be asked "What else can you do?"

Because this film, as lovely and as impressive as it is, is just a fan-film. Someone really liked the original animation and wondered what it would look with with actual people (or you know, a photo-realistic Beast and household items). It's great they developed the characters a bit more and although I didn't care for the new songs it makes sense to add a couple of new things. But when you look closely, it's just so empty. Sadly, for all the talent and work involved it's just a cash-grab in what is probably going to be a long line of cash-grabs over the next decade. 

[adamgunton]

#JustWatched Power Rangers (Dean Israelite, 2017)

As a young child I loved the Power Rangers, or more accurately the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. I was part of the generation that was told by our headteacher we weren't allowed to play Power Rangers at lunchtime for fear of someone getting hurt. If you want a real insight to my childhood love of Power Rangers, here's an embarrassing fact. I had a big crush on the Pink Ranger, Kimberly. Coincidentally, during the weekly food shop my parents would buy me some Rolo yogurts. They came in a two-pack with the word "Rolo" stretched across the top of the two. I would save the one with "lo" on it until last because it had the letter L on it and L was in Kimberly's name. So was the letter R but I think that was lost on me. So, much like those Rolo yogurts, this film might seem appealing at first but it's really not good for you.

[adamgunton]

#JustWatched Free Fire (Ben Wheatley, 2017)

Free Fire feels like the result of a clear vision, expert planning and a lot of patience. It's quite reminiscent of Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and a lot like a stage play. To keep track of where all the various characters are, who can see who, who's been shot, how much blood they've lost etc is pretty incredible. The writing was on form and had the entire cinema in stitches, something I love about group viewing. It really becomes a shared experience when you can hear others having the same level of involvement as you.

It's a much more conventional film than Wheatley's previous work so it's difficult to compare with his back catalogue. But if you're comparing it to other shooter films, it easily surpasses. It proves that a film doesn't need to be overly complex or long to be clever. It just needs to be firing on all cylinders. Pun intended.

[adamgunton]

#JustWatched Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)

Get Out is a film that will have a legacy that stretches far beyond itself. Not only is it going to have a place as an important film text but it's going to be cited as a critical academic text. Many essays and articles will be drawing upon Jordan Peele's work, and rightly so because it says so much, without patronising, without dumbing down and without complication. It's an impressive script performed by an equally impressive cast. I can't imagine a better group of actors for this. The way they all have the ability to change the tone of a scene with the delivery of a single line is rare. The whole piece reminded me of Bryan Forbes's The Stepford Wives, in particular the party scene where we, the audience, and Chris get some clear signs that something isn't right. While the audience is sometimes given a little bit more information than Chris, the information we're given doesn't help us understand what's going on but merely alerts us to the fact there's more danger than he realises and we're almost screaming the film's namesake at the screen. It's a clever technique that's often handled badly in horror films. But to call this a horror film is a huge discredit to this film. It's so much more than that. It makes me question my behaviour as a white man, my family's behaviour. I can imagine a lot of people are saying this film is relevant right now because Trump has recently taken office but this will always be relevant. We need more cinema like this.

[adamgunton]

#JustWatched Doctor Strange (Scott Derrickson, 2016)

I should have seen Doctor Strange at the cinema. If I'd seen it at the cinema there's a good chance I might have enjoyed it. It's clearly a visual feast. Impressive special effects, full of colour that would be immersive on a big screen. But I watched it on blu-ray and while I could generally admire the aesthetic of the film I found the rest of it to be really hollow.

Despite the thinly veiled attempt at offering the comic book movie canon something different, it's the same as what we've seen before and it's so dull because of it. In films with similar plots with been fortunate to have interesting, watchable characters to enhance the overall viewing pleasure but Stephen Strange is completely insufferable. He's an arrogant, entitled arsehole of a man who goes from being the best brain surgeon to being the best sorcerer while seemingly learning nothing about humility along the way, though we're supposed to buy that he's a changed man. The supporting cast are even less developed which is a shame because the sheer talent that was on offer is extraordinary.

You know what? Ant-Man was way better than this and way more fun. Come at me, Marvel-Bros.

[adamgunton]

#JustWatched Kong: Skull Island (Jordan Vogt-Roberts, 2017)

Big dumb fun. Really enjoyed it. Full of Pacific Rim vibes. On paper it's got all the makings of a terrible film but, for me, it just works. If you know me well, you'll remember that I hated the first outing in this "Mosterverse.”. I thought Godzilla was poorly written, clunky and took itself way too seriously for a film about a giant lizard. Kong however, doesn't make that mistake. It knows it's ridiculous and it leans into it but still manages to pull off some tension and drama. It's funny, decently enough performed and I liked the artistic license the director has taken with the fast cuts, extreme close ups and bright colours. It doesn't always work, an example of this being Tom Hiddleston wearing a gas-mask in a fog of green gas and slicing colourful creatures with a samurai sword in the style of an commercial advertising 4K HD TVs. The soundtrack is good but it verges on Suicide Squad territory, setting up virtually every scene in the first act. Yes, we get it. This is set in the seventies.

There's some substance to the whole thing which I didn't expect. It plays on the Vietnam War a little too heavily sometimes but it makes for some interesting subtext for the characters. Kong looked great and the creatures were really well designed. The giant spider was terrifying and had be squirming in my seat as one of the marines was slowly being dragged up to its mouth.

Maybe it's because I went in with low expectations but this gave me what I needed. Pure blockbuster bliss.

[adamgunton]

“I’m the thing that monsters have nightmares about.”

I might have gone a little overboard with the GIFs but I love this show so much.

Happy Birthday to Buffy, the Scoobies and all vampires and demons they faced. This show has monumental importance to me and helped shape my view of the world today. This show helped break the trend of women being continuously portrayed as victims and instead showed them as the heroes they are. I think we all know many Slayers in our lives. Respect them, listen to them, learn from them and always, ALWAYS, share your yellow crayons.

[adamgunton]

#JustWatched Insidious: Chapter 3 (Leigh Whannell, 2015)

There's been a bit of a horror renaissance recently. This isn't part of it. Pretty scary in places but relies on the jump-scare too much and uses too many horror tropes to offer anything new. While the first film had some interesting elements, this series has become too vein. It loves itself, thinks it's really clever and that it's leading the pack. But in reality it makes little sense because a lot of it is forgettable. I had to look up the stuff it was referencing from the other films because it's all so tenuous and everything is too similar to each other. What's worse is it's a prequel, so really the stuff set in the future should have little or no barring on this. Besides, we know what happens to some of these characters from the other films so why should we care when they're in danger? Isn't that the point of a horror film? But it's cool to see an older woman kick some ghost butt and school everyone else.

[adamgunton]

#JustWatched The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story (Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski, 2016)

As I started watching this I realised how little I knew about the "trial of the century." I was a small child when it happened and most of the small amount I've learned since has came from TV shows and films. What fascinated me most is the parallels that are easily drawn to today, with racial tensions in America constantly at boiling point. So little has changed in over twenty years. It was an interesting story well told. The source material is so ripe and the drama of the case naturally leads to drama on screen. This drama is eased out effortlessly with powerful performances from Cuba Gooding Jr., Courtney B. Vance, Sterling K. Brown and Sarah Paulson. I had to resist looking up photos and accounts from the actual case and I can't believe how accurate everything is. Only a really tight and dedicated cast and crew could bring something like this to life. The authenticity doesn't diminish the message the show tries to bring out, it enhances it. The truth of the case seems clear but the show doesn't underline that, it offers it and lets you make your own mind up, which I guess was the problem with the actual trial itself in a way. The frustration you feel at the end of the lack of closure must pale in comparison to how the real participants felt. While the story and performances are strong, the style is lacking. It never felt like the format had a voice. Think about great American shows like House Of Cards, The West Wing , Breaking Bad and The Sopranos. Each one had it's own distinct way of telling the story through use of camera movement, character traits, music, sound and themes. If "American Crime Story" is going to be a reoccurring series focusing on a different crime story with each outing then it would have been wise to create a unique way of telling the story that we would recognise from series to series. Maybe it does and we just won't recognise these traits until we see the next series. I'm looking forward to finding out.

[adamgunton]

#JustWatched Arrival (Denis Villeneuve, 2016)

There are many people that bemoan the state of Hollywood at the moment. These critics aren't completely wrong. 2016 was a prime example of this. A year full of tired sequels, remakes and interesting concepts reduced to outdated tropes (Passengers, you can take an awkward bow for that one). But sometimes you need to focus less on the bad and more on the good, because it is there. We're just not paying attention. Arrival is a good example of something fresh. Yes, we've seen countless films centred around humanity encountering an alien race for the first time but this felt like something new. While a potential hostile move simmers in the background, the story puts its focuses on communication in an attempt to stop the pot from boiling over. A clear satirical take on the world, that perhaps if we actually talked to each other we'd be able to get along. It develops with a nice, slow pace. Everything feels very methodical. The wide cinematography and rhythmic, haunting score adds to this. Having said that, I wanted more about the development of the communication between the humans and aliens. It felt like we took the first important steps and then skipped ahead slightly for the plot's sake. But otherwise we're given time to process things and we're never out-right patronised which would be easy to do in a film like this.

Like another film I watched recently, Source Code, this one sits with you afterwards. You process it. You push the map down and iron out the creases, taking it all in. It would benefit from a second viewing, that's for sure. Amy Adams carried so much weight in this film. She's been handed some duff roles recently (American Hustle, Man Of Steel/Batman V Superman) but she really is great when given good material.

It's also such a visually pleasing film. The design of the alien ships, the aliens themselves. Everything is beautifully simple. It feels like it's all brought down to bare bones, which falls in line with the idea of learning a language from next to nothing. It's a great thing that Arrival has been so well received. Hopefully it means more films like this, with their own style. with more female leads. We just have to make sure we continue to pay attention to them.

[adamgunton]

#JustWatched Logan (James Mangold, 2017)

You could be forgiven for writing off this film. Not only is it a comic book movie, which are (and I can admit this despite me being an avid consumer) general by-the-numbers, popcorn fodder, but it's also an X-Men movie. The X-Men movies have varied in quality from the good to average and to plain awful. This is ludicrous since there's such great source material that's based on real world events such as the civil rights movement and persistent themes of how we view people different to ourselves. The worst of these films have been the ones dedicated to Wolverine, the bad boy hero of the X-Men. While 2013's The Wolverine had some decent ideas, it all got lost in ridiculous action sequences and pointless characters. If that wasn't bad enough, it's predecessor X-Men Origins: Wolverine is garbage on a bonfire made of excrement. You also might have seen the first trailers for Logan and, as a friend pointed out to me, thought it was a geriaction X-Men movie made for your Dad and so, based on all the available data, decided to give Logan a miss.

But don't be so hasty. Logan is a great film. Despite being  connected to a franchise that constantly rewrites its own history in a way that leaves even the most hardcore fan confused, Logan is actually fairly self-contained. It's set in the future, giving itself enough distance from the spectacle of its past. It nods toward previous X-Men events through dialogue and a few characters but almost writes its legacy off as fiction in a clever and meta way. The in-film, real life exploits of the X-Men have been adapted into comic-books making their heroic deeds fanciful and far from the truth of reality. Reality is something that is very present in Logan, both the film and the character. The film shows real consequences for these character's actions. The R-rating brings a brutality to these characters that has been lacking before. They were muzzled. Both in a violent sense and in a more gritty realism way. Hearing Xavier swear makes him much more relatable. It's a small detail but it works. Showing the the characters in a non-PG environment means they have a chance to feel real. It also means that having a lead character that uses big metal claws to fight people isn't sanitised for the sake of younger viewers.

But what really sets this film apart from the others is the time it takes with its characters. There's a small cast and it's very intimate. As I was watching it I couldn't help but think of a video essay I'd seen called "Batman v Superman: The Fundamental Flaw" which is a terrible title but it's essentially about moments versus scenes. To paraphrase the video, it essentially says that comic book films, especially Batman V Superman, rely heavily on "cool moments" like Batman stopping Superman's punch. Or Superman kicking the Batmobile. Or Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman standing together on screen. But they lack actual scenes. Times where the characters actually talk to each other, discuss what's going on. Scenes that develop the characters, that help the audience understand them and relate to them. To see these characters being people, to see them laugh, cry, argue and get how they see the world and others around them. Logan has lots of scenes like this. Of course it has its share of cool moments and great action sequences but it also took time to stop and reflect and let the characters do their thing. Two in particular stand out. Xavier and Laura in the hotel room in Las Vegas watching Shane. The second is the dinner scene with the Munson family. These scenes make the more dramatic moments and climaxes have value that lingers. I was a little concerned towards the end of the film that we were going to get a Hook or Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome vibe. A lot of children fighting adults can go that way very easily. (Though the trimming of the beard came very close) But it didn't. Overall it was handled well. The children weren't used as a way of obviously pandering to the audience. I was actually terrified for them. The children gave great performances, especially Dafne Keen who played Laura. Much like Millie Bobby Brown in Stranger Things, Keen has a screen presence that almost outshone Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart.

The film ended at the right moment. It's such a hard thing to do, especially for a comic book film. I complained that X:Men Apocalypse felt like a trailer for whatever the next film might be but Logan was its own thing. It left me wanting more which is how it should be. Hugh Jackman has been playing Wolverine for well over half my life. He was well cast and did well with what he was given but it's such a shame that the majority of the films he's played him in have been pretty terrible. Despite that it's still a legacy and it's a legacy that got a better ending than it's beginning. Which is more than you can say for most long-lasting franchises.

[adamgunton]

#JustWatched X-Men: Apocalypse (Bryan Singer, 2016)

I forgot this came out. Probably not a good sign. Nothing of note to talk about. Probably not a good sign either. Just feels pretty irrelevant. Why do so many comic book films just feel like a trailer for the next one?

Wasting Olivia Munn? An absolute crime.

[adamgunton]

#JustWatched Source Code (Duncan Jones, 2011)

Source Code is one of those great science fiction films that sits with you afterwards and you keep rolling through the ideas it presents and you can't shake them. I find this even more so with time travel films. I love trying to work it all out. Like trying to flatten out a screwed up map on a windy day. The more you focus on one corner the more you lost control of another.

It's a tight film. It's fast but then it slows down to let moments sit. There was so much more to it than what I was expecting. There's a nice message in there somewhere, something about the value of life even if it can't live in our reality. Something about hopes and dreams being their own world if we give them enough credence. I might be talking out of my butt but I thought it was nice.

One question I can't shake is what happened to the guy that Jake Gyllenhaal inhabits on the train? Early on they explain why that the man was chosen because of similarities to Gyllenhaal's brain or something and they explain that everyone on the train is dead anyway so it doesn't matter. But then when Gyllenhaal saves everyone and they all get to live in the new reality he's created, the guy he's inhabiting doesn't get to live because Gyllenhaal has taken up residence. I know Gyllenhaal's real body is dead in his original reality but it seems pretty unfair on the guy he's now living as. But then he was dead anyway, right?

I can't hold this map down.