Godsend Reviews

If you follow my work here on Listal, you might have noticed that I am slightly obsessive concerning my movie watching and I keep watching compulsively movies regardless of the quality, just because an obscure actor that I like is in it. One of my first obsessions was the movies starring Robert De Niro and, by now, I have seen almost 70 movies starring the great thespian, more than any other actor. Even though it has been some great fun tracking down his movies, there was a major downside though. Indeed, in the last 15 years, De Niro has made only one great movie (‘Silver Linings Playbook’) and the rest was rarely decent but usually pretty weak and you even had some pure garbage along the road. Well, this movie belongs to the last category, the garbage. To start with, it is one of those features which displays Robert De Niro prominently on all the promotional material where in fact, he is just maybe 15 minutes in the movie. Still, Greg Kinnear and Rebecca Romijn are both some charming actors, Cameron Bright definitely showed some potential but even they couldn’t save this flick from being terribly underwhelming. Basically, it is a very weak thriller with a rather preposterous plot and I really had a hard time to care for the whole thing. To conclude, it is pretty bad and not really worth a look, even if you are a huge fan of Robert De Niro’s work.

Why is the average rating for this so low? It wasn't at all that bad, I admit it wasn't one of the best Robert De Niro films I have seen, but it was decent and worth watching to say the least.

The story is actually very original and unlike no other film I have seen before. It's basically about a couple who loose their son early to an accident. A genetics expert then confronts them and poses them with the idea of using the DNA from their son to clone another child. This would mean raising him again from birth and for them to movie to near the facility known as Godsend. It sounds simple but it becomes twisted and has an unexpected twist at the end. For some it may be easy to work out from the beginning, though it isn't extremely clever it adds something new that the movie would be nothing without.

I have to say though the ending kinda sucked. They could have done something better, perhaps someone could die? I noticed they did make alternative endings, they should have gone with one of them because this one could have been a lot better.

When you have several good actors, a producer who knows what should be done and an extremely interesting timeline – the good movie is guaranteed. After seeing “Godsend “, the movie took its well deserved place in my all time favorite titles list.

While watching the movie I there were few moments when my heard miss a beat – the bathing scene is for sure one of them, but that it is just one amongst many. I happened to watch half of the movie on my notebook while waiting for a bus – and it was just a bit embracing watching my emotions. I did notice that the soundtrack was chosen very carefully. Soft piano music is probably the best for this kind of movies. And then there are those moments in which the music itself could make your hair stand on end.

Robert De Niro is playing really good (as always); trough seeing him with a beard in the role of genius scientist is a bit unusual experience. Here is the place to mention that Cameron Bright truly amazed me with his fine performance in “ Godsend “ – I have watched 3 other movies in which he plays “ The butterfly effect “ , “ Birth “ and “ Ultraviolet “ but his performance in “ Godsend “ is so far his best role – trough I have heard that he does well and in the movie “Thank You for Smoking“ – but I still have to watch that one .

The ending wasn’t that good trough I could say and the opposite since it left me wanting for more.

I'm surprised by the low rating of this film, as I personally don't see what was that bad about it. It was somewhat strange and perhaps didn't make complete sense (maybe that's what I found so appealing).

It's true though, considering the actors in this film, it could have been a much better movie. It was very promising and could have been great, but it still wasn't that bad.