The Men Who Stare at Goats

[Highly rated reviewer]

Very funny trailer

This is one of those trailers where you hope they did not put all the good bits in it and the rest of the film is not as good.

Looks very funny, and good to see Kevin Spacey back in a big film. I shall be seeing this one and hoping the masses can get past the title.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Very funny comedy

I thoroughly enjoyed yesterday's very funny and excellent preview screening of The Men who stare at goats. This reminded me very much of such films as Burn after Reading or Little Miss Sunshine - just a very silly comedy with brilliant characters and a great and unbelievably true storyline. The cast is excellent throughout - a real treat! A very well executed and loveable comedy.

Silly movie title=silly film!

This is one movie title that rates nil on being imaginative but the movie is equally pointless and silly. The ONLY redeeming factor is the humour in the film. In a nutshell: a journalist (Mcgregor)whose life is falling apart meets Lyn (Clooney) who is a top notch psychic spy and part the government's secret weapon to win the war. It has plenty of funny one liners but the plot was very thin and almost non existent! Loved Lloyd B though, always been a fan of his and loved him in the role of cooky Django(or whatever he was called). For once the title of a movie matches the quality of the film.

BELIEVE

on the strength of the trailer I went and booked 2 seats for opening night... I've never done that before.

I prayed I hadn't been misled by a trailer with all the good bits in it.

I hadn't been.

The film was brilliant, sparky, intelligent, fast paced, well observed and laugh out loud FUNNY!

The cinema was full of people swaying around and bent double with laughter. When we came out people were quoting random lines at each other and bursting out laughing again.

So many good bits it is neigh on impossible to pick a favourite.

BELIEVE in the trailer. BELIEVE in the reviews.

This film IS superb.

(and thank you BBC for spending my licence fee so wisely by helping funding it!!)

Worthwhile

With a cracking cast, and some alright looking trailers, I thought this was worth the price of a cinema ticket.

It became clear to me, only a short way into the film, that I would struggle to pick out a storyline of any real substance.

The humour that carries the film is very dry, and taken a bit too seriously.

That said, I found the chuckles well placed, the story different to the usual 'delights' of cinema, and I left feeling I was tripping on acid!

A good fun film, with little sense to be made from the story, but definitely worth the trip to the cinema. I won't be buying this on DVD, however.

The Best Movie This Year.....

If you have ever brushed shoulders with the world of universal energy, chakras, mantras, yoga, shamanism..... etc this movie covers the lot. It is funny, observant, clever and warm.

A real feel good movie and I will be off to see it again next week - this time taking my best mate!

Clooney and Ewan are great together and gorgeous too!

* * * This review contains spoilers * * *ShowHide

[Highly rated reviewer]

The Silence of the Goats

A journalist down on his luck runs away to war, to prove himself a man. He is out of his depth until he accidentally falls in with an ex-army pyschic, and if he thought he was out of his depth before, he's now thrown in the deep end.

TMWSAG is a good old-fashioned romp with a strain of Serious running through it. You could be forgiven for thinking this is a Coen Brothers film, and in their hands I think this could have been a knock out comedy.

As it stands, the comedy is strong for the first hour - George Clooney has truly perfected his quirky side - but drops off for the last third of the movie as War comes off the back seat to take a more prominent role. (Saying that, the audience I watched this with thought it was hilarious when the two main characters get blown up by an IED...)

Kevin Spacey is fantastic as the evil nemesis, Jeff Bridges is basically The Dude (no bad thing), Ewan McGregor is okay (but the Jedi in-joke is pushed one (or five) too many times.) And, like a Coen Brothers film, the supporting cast is note-perfect.

The Men Who Stare At Goats is a solid film, fun, funny, but the plot is slight, and it's scarily believable that the US army would be exploring this unbelievable new-age crap!

To paraphrase Brigadier General Dean Hopgood: 'The Russians read a made-up story that we were looking into psychic powers. We told them that it was made up, but they thought we were making that up, so they went ahead and started investigating psychic powers. We weren't looking into psychic powers, but now that the Russians are, we can't let them make advacements in this area, and so we have to look into psychic powers...'

[Highly rated reviewer]

I'm Hungry...

Great Film, not really the mainstream comedy it was marketed at; but a lovely, quirky little piece of cinema. I'm not sure if its because I was a bit tired, but somewhere towards the end of the second third, things seem to slow down a bit and become a bit muddled. However I'm sure I won't notice that on re-watching. Great Cast - nice to see Spacey back on the big screen and it was great to see George Clooney in another great role; I've forgotten how much I enjoy seeing him act. Although a lot of the reviews I've read say it doesn't confront some of the political messages its been hinting at hard enough; that didn't really bother me - it's a great movie to see with friends, full of laugh out loud moments (especially the ending) and next time your out and about; i'm sure it'll make you try a spot of cloud bursting.

Hilarious

This is one of the funniest movies I've seen in a while. Won't ruin it with spoilers, but I definitely recommend it.

Funny and well directed!

Another great movie and performance of George Clooney! A cleverly silly funny movie, loved it!