Just because I can’t help myself! You don’t need to learn this but it shows you how you can use your skills now to analyse any movie.
Narrative structure
Equilibrium – Protagonist is lead Secret Service security for the President of the United States. Following an accident he is relegated to a less important job.
Disequilibrium – The White House (Olympus) is taken over by North Korean terrorists and the President and several important government officials are taken hostage.
Resolution – Protagonist takes on a huge number of terrorists virtually single-handedly and one by one kills them off while keeping in touch with his wife, rescuing the President’s son and updating the security services and the acting President about what is going on.
New Equilibrium – order is restored, protagonist is returned to job he loves.
Sound effects – surround sound for movement of helicopter, non-diegetic sound (music) to make the audience feel proud, scared, triumphant, sad used throughout the movie.
Camera angles and shots – establishing shots used to show place (Washington DC), White House, etc
Full body shots and low camera angles to show Gerard Butler striding across a corridor, like a man who means business
Close up shots with dimmed lighting – to show Gerard Butler’s human side when he is talking to his wife during the attempted rescue, also to show emotion of Morgan Freeman and others round the table as various terrible things happen to others.
Special effects – choreographed fight sequences with apparent stabbings, shootings, explosions with blood, sound and CGI all used to create different effects to help tell the story. Buildings explode and fall down, weapons fire and light strafes across the screen to imitate gunfire and all of this is computer generated.
Target audience – Americans + fans of action films – they might cheer when Gerard Butler kills an enemy.
People who might not like the film – Koreans as they are the bad guys, people who do not like America – they might cheer when American buildings explode! The elderly would be put off by the swearing.
Need to make a profit – used only two major stars and many lesser known ones and a lot of CGI to cut down on the budget. This film cost less than the Hunger Games to make and Lionsgate was involved in it as well.
Use of stars – Gerard Butler is a man’s man – the kind who appears to do what is right. Good looking enough so that a female audience might be persuaded to go along with their boyfriend/husband even although it’s not their favourite kind of film. A stereotypical hero. The women who were crying when captured are the sterotypical helpless females. Morgan Freeman is a well liked older actor who has played the President of America in other films. He has gravitas – he is a believable character that people cede authority to so when he argues with the head of the armed forces we believe he is powerful, for example.
Dialogue was a bit cheesy. “Let’s play a game of…You first!” for example.
A 15 because of strong sustained violence and strong language. Not a film to take your granny to.
Another review here:
