Making Prime Work, Part II

NOTE: This is the start of a very intermittent series on this blog, wherein I review anything I may have watched, read, or otherwise gained from our Amazon Prime membership. This is partly to continue justifying the cost of Amazon Prime as it takes yet another leap, and to remind me what a wonderful cornucopia of media there is out there that I have yet to witness, or re-witness as the case may be.

Part One: Were there Any Characters in this Movie?

I wasn’t sure at the outset if I was ready to watch a film based on 9/11, and as the disaster at the World Trade Center unspooled, the planes hit, and the buildings crumbled, all the feelings of that day came rushing back.



But as “World Trade Center” rolled on past the stuff we saw repeated and repeated and repeated on the news, the film felt empty. Like an obligation that, well, someone’s got to make a film on this event. May as well be Oliver Stone.

Oliver Stone, who left us under a different obligation: This is New York. This is the World Trade Center collapsing. These are Port Authority cops and their families suffering through the collapse and its aftermath. You will make emotional connections to these people. You will feel their pain.

Except, no.

The story, with that obligation, left so much lacking.

I found it hard to tell the difference between one family and the next. The story left for granted we were to pity these people, share their suffering. I wanted to. But it’s as if each character already knew the outcome, and thus met every even with quiet reserve, knowing Everything Would Be Okay. Even when the okayness was in doubt.

And that idiot cop from Wisconsin, whose line is supposed to sum up the nation’s anger over the attack? No, no, no. Emotions were high that day, and in the weeks that followed. But there was much more than “Bastards!” floating around out there.

Then there was the ex-Marine who went to the WTC. I don’t even remember his name.

There were human beings in this movie, but there were no characters. There were rote people performing rote actions that we were supposed to connect with, to cheer for, but there was none of that there. May as well have featured an all-machine cast in the movie, and the emotional connection would have been the same.

Part Two: Speaking of Machines

There was definite character in this film, even if the most prominent is the Saturn V rocket.



Truth be told, I have vague flashbacks of the actual humans who appeared in this documentary, but vivid recollections of the rocket and its power used to get the United States to the Moon.

And that’s about it. It’s a good rah-rah movie about a significant technical achievement.