Changing Lanes has got to be one of the most ill-conceived, poorly written, poorly organized 'Hollywood" movies of all time.
It started out to be promising, but after about the first 20 minutes, when the two leads decided to start becoming agonistic with each other, the hope of a good movie ended.
My first gripe with the post-20 minute aspect was that nearly all of the plots were so fantastic and unrealistic that it was laughable. For example, why would Affleck's character let Jackson's character just walk away after he told the former that his silly little paper was thrown out? He doesn't even ask him where he threw it or gets out of the car to persue the matter. Talk about lethargic. uninteresting writing; not to mention when Jackson took the bolts out of Affleck's Mercedes; the main aspect I have problems with, albeit assumed, to this particular scene that deserves our derision is: just how in the hell did Jackson manage to get in, and actually find Affleck's car in his companie's garage? And why did, after quite a lengthy time of driving, did Affleck's wheel just decide to come off by the time Jackson caught up in the cab(I'm guessing Jackson borrowed some of his Mace Windu powers for this movie)? And of course Jacksn procedes to taunt Affleck as he's about to spin out, due to losing his front wheel, with a wrench; could this act not clearly been noticed by the cab driver or other people driving on the highway, resulting in Jackson being persued by the cops? Apparently in the fantasy world the movie takes place in.
I could go on and on with more examples of how poorly this work was written, but I'm sure you get the point.
The acting was superlatively good, though.
As for Sum of All Fears, it was strikingly similar to Changing Lanes in terms of poorly conceived plot;as well total fantasy in terms of realism. If we had a battle group like was as poorly alert as the one that was struck in the movie, we deserve to be nuked. Looks like Mr. Clancy has never heard of AEGIS or Hawkeyes on constant AWACS.
Changing Lanes was like listening to Stravinsky's he Right of Spring; total lack of proper theme development, lack of a basic center or motive, ecetera... Stravinsky was a genius though, and managed to keep this type of work interesting to deal with.
bleh.
Hollywood... stick with the fantasty genre. Ep 2and Spiderman blew both of these movies out of the water. The former, well, because it's Star Wars; and the latter was better just out of sheer originality, acting, special effects, storyline, entertainment, and the wonderfully pertinent last scene, which left me with a good feeling.
