Unbroken review C+

Winter movies are struggling in the new year. Hollywood seems to have some odd fascination with war this season and they need to shake it off. There is nothing wrong with historical movies, they just have the potential to be extremely boring and Unbroken is not an exception.
Unbroken came out Christmas Day and was directed by seasoned actress, Angelina Jolie. Based off the book by Laura Hillenbrand, the movie follows the nonfictional story of former Olympian, Louis “Louie” Zamperini (Jack O’Connell). Zamperini enlists in the military and survives a plane crash into the Pacific along with being captured and imprisoned in a Japanese POW camp.
Jolie really had her work cut out for her with this plot. It wasn’t a hard story to follow, it was the fact that every element was so long-winded. Zamperini was stranded in the ocean for 47 days and the movie felt like it lasted that long.
The first half of the film was all flashbacks and plot setup and being stranded in the ocean. The latter half was Zamperini trying to survive being a prisoner. There were some tearful moments in the film, but it otherwise was mostly flat. It’s hard to identify where the climax was because no moment was ever particularly exciting.
The film was only a little over two hours long, but Zamperini was trapped in the Pacific for so long that when he was finally captured, you could only wonder how much of the movie was left. So when I realized that there was still yet another hour to endure, I was exhausted.
Perhaps knowing that the story was nonfiction and being able to assume that there would definitely be some sort of happy ending stole the film of its excitement. One thing is certain, this film was more suited for mature audiences. A group of high schoolers or even young adults may not think this is the best movie to see on a fun, Friday night. Needless to say, the theater was packed with tearful older couples (most of which fell asleep). So gauging by their reactions, I’m assuming of all the WWII movies they’ve seen, this was the most exciting for them As for now, this movie just proves that some stories are just better told on paper rather than on the big screen.