I'm not familiar with the book so I have nothing to base this movie off of except itself. I thought it was entertaining enough. The story is interesting even though we know which side is going to win. The futuristic style and technology looks cool but I wish they had a bigger budget to make it look better. This feels like a TV movie. Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon are both great. Their performances are the best part of the movie.
There's some interesting ideas added into this version, but way too much is glossed over. As a movie it doesn't do a good job of explaining any aspect of what's going on. It's just a bit of a mess, that had a lot of potential. I'm convinced in other hands it could've been great. it also needed to be expanded. Would've worked much better as a mini-series.
An extraordinarily lazy adaptation
I don't do remakes. They're a cancer of the industry. Where I am more flexible, however, is in adaptations of novels that have already been adapted. After all, my all-time favourite film falls into this category (Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998) was the second adaptation of James Jones's novel). Fahrenheit 451 is also a second adaptation; in this case, of Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel, and, for all intents and purposes, it's a misfire. Bradbury himself has said the novel is not about censorship, as is often assumed, but was written in response to the Second Red Scare and the rise of McCarthyism. More specifically, it's a treatise on the dangers of an illiterate society unquestionably accepting the word of a monopolising centralised mass media.
Adapted for the screen and directed by Ramin Bahrani (99 Homes), the film is set at an unspecified point in the future, after a second civil war has been fought. All aspects of society are rigidly controlled by the Ministry, an authoritarian government that believes unhappiness, mental illness, and difference of opinion come from unregulated reading. As such, all books have been banned, although simplified and edited Ministry-approved editions of texts such as the Bible, Herman Melville's Moby Dick, or, the Whale (1851) and Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse (1927) are available on the internet (known as "the 9"). Special units of "firemen" are tasked with locating and burning any remaining books, and estimates suggest that within 20-30 years, books will have become completely extinct. The film follows two such firemen; Cpt. John Beatty (Michael Shannon), the veteran and somewhat disillusioned mentor of Guy Montag (Michael B. Jordan), an idealistic rookie who believes unquestioningly in the firemen's work. That is until he meets Clarisse McClellan (Sofia Boutella), who educates him as to the real history of the US, the rise of the Ministry, and why they want literature destroyed.
Now, you'd think that in this age of Trump's fake news and people using Facebook as a news source, something with this subject matter would speak volumes to a contemporary audience. And you'd be right. Unfortunately, this film isn't about sheeple and mass media. Apparently unaware of Bradbury's statements, the filmmakers have focused almost exclusively on censorship. But it falls down in other areas as well. Mildred Montag is absent, hence the theme of addiction to television broadcasting which tells people how and what to think. Additionally, the infrequent and scattered allusions to the importance of literary texts serve to undermine the absolutely essential nature of what a group of rebels are doing by memorising whole texts. This should be the film's absolute central statement, but instead, it comes across as a bunch of weirdos being quirky. Jordan plays Montag as a bombastic loudmouth TV personality. Shannon is, well, Shannon. Don't get me wrong, I love the guy. He's an actor of immense talent. But here, he's playing an identical character to the one he played in Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water (2017). It's an extraordinarily lazy performance. In fact, everything about the film is lazy. Bahrani's direction is flat and uninspired; the whole thing looks like Blade Runner-lite. It's all very conventional and safe, which neither the novel nor François Truffaut's 1966 adaptation was. And this conventionality and safety grind against the inherently rebellious subject matter, rendering it less urgent, and hence, less potent.
a movie of this kind must achieve a totally oppressive atmosphere something that does not get in any way
Substandard adaptation of the classic Bradbury tale. Still, considering its age, it is strangely relevant to the world we live in today, where digital media has replaced the need to read books in paper form. Blasted Amazon and its stupid Kindle!
Middle of the road movie. Few scenes have dialogs quoted word to word from Bradbery's novel (quite a nice touch).
I'm only here cause Michael Shannons a freak
I kept asking myself "was that part of the book?" If the ending is any indication, no. No it wasn't.
Fahrenheit 451 can be summed up in two words: wasted potential After seeing the trailer a few months ago I was exited about the idea of a new retelling of Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian novel especially seeing that it was to star Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon. What HBO actually realised this it flew under most peoples radar and those who did see it, myself included, were not impressed. This film has no sense of store structure, world building or char development. Motivations are not just unclear but non-existent and no clues are ever given as too how the system became what it was. The result is painfully boring and doesn’t give me much to talk about, any interesting concept is clearly ripped from the source material without clear understanding. Shannon is unapologetically loud and Jordan is a blank slate, neither works.Throw in a hilariously bad romance sub-plot and some severe logical issues and you have what will most likely be one of the most disappointing films of this year.
I thought it was okay...I am never really happy with the liberties they take with the characters and the story, but it was entertaining at first. It just kind of fizzled out in the end.
I’ve read the book and seen the original movie. Of course the book is best. This movie was awful and a waste of great material that is extremely relevant in today’s world. I’m sad to see it ruined. I wish Michael B. Jordan had turned this down, he’s better than this derivative junk.
I read the book but don’t remember much from it movie was ok just not enough for me to stay focused on it started cleaning and had it in the background
Well, they do say that the Pen is mightier than the Sword.
All advanced human civilisations became so advanced thanks to the effectiveness of the written word, and that civilisation's ability to mass produce and propagate ideas and knowledge to its citizens. Europe would still be rotting in the middle ages had the printing press not been invented in Germany circa 1439.
Fahrenheit 451 is a reminder for those of us living today to never trust people who fear the written word and aim to censor its creation or distribution.
So... Equilibrium it’s still the best Fahrenheit movie to date...
What a waste of a great cast! Had big hopes for the Micheals... such a disappointment.
It's not the first adaption of Ray Bradury's book. But it is just as bad as the original.
It feels a little ironic that a book can't transition to the big screen. And I sincerely hope it doesn't put people off the source material.
I'd skip this one entirely.
At least I finish watching it...
其实倒也没烂到看不下去= =珊农叔现在是不是专演父权恶霸了= =和斑比眼翘睫毛的Michael B. Jordan谜之基情。。。尼尔盖曼说华氏451这类科幻小说旨在警示当下的自由并非永恒存在，大概这就是为啥又拍了一版的原因，虽然拍烂了咳咳= =
Michael Shannon is amazing in this.....love his role in this
the story's interesting and it's well made but it's just too boring to watch
Dissident books flee the United States of America to go to Canada, escaping the book burning Salamanders.
A book is killed, and they speak of that work being 'lost to humanity.'
If the US is the only nation (or one of a number) with the book burners, then surely there are other nations with libraries or used book shops.
Shout by AriusBlockedParent2018-05-01T08:38:05Z
I absolutely love the poster