film's production is too stylish

Rating: 6/10 (21 April 2015)

Coming off the similar but very sparse Open Water (8/10) I found the hyper-stylised production of 127 Hours quite jarring. What works in urban culture ensembles like Trainspotting doesn't necessarily fit with a solo-survival story.
You've got 'trendy' music (sounds outdated already) all over the place, digitally-enhanced zooming and hectic edits which reminded me of Quantum Solace in that you couldn't quite follow the action. Even the famous epiphany scene wasn't as clearly-directed as it should've been (apparently Boyle wanted it to be, so maybe he should have a word with his editor).
On top of all that there's a hyper-active cowboy as the main character who's an überwired I-LOVE-LIFE sort, effortlessly making couch potatoes like me feel guilty. Just check out the slide into the idyllic pool scenes with the girls at the beginning, surely it was only a matter of time before one of them bashes their head against the wall on the way down? I internally grumped "you were asking for that, kid" when he got stuck between a rock and a hard place.
But it's not a bad film, to be fair it's pretty decent and most of it is an accurate depiction of what really happened. Franco plays the part very well, and aside from the over-stylising I quite liked the camera work, admittedly some of the drink-fantasy scenes were fairly dynamic to behold (the flooding and quick dash to his girlfriend's front door was well done).
Just that personally I like a film of this nature to be sparse & minimal. In Open Water I felt the fear, whereas in 127 Hours my drama-tingles weren't really tingling, perhaps because my senses were often busy with processing audio & visual tricks.
Recommended if you like Danny Boyle's style regardless of genre, but if you want a tense & involving survival thriller this could go either way.