Look, okay, I know. Nevertheless, I took in a movie over the weekend, and it was before I’d finished reading. So you’ll simply have to wait a little bit longer. Ha ha. ‘Cause you know what’s fun, is pretending that every single person on the internet hasn’t already beat me to this review, much more so in that it’ll be another while longer before I actually do it. But enough of this obsession, because, movie!

Way way back during Horrorfest (which is repeating this year!), I saw a preview for Captivity, during which Jack Bauer’s daughter gets kidnapped for the sin of loosely portraying Paris Hilton. During the course of the preview, it was trivial to figure out nearly the entire plot of the film, including the twist. I was duly amused, but pretty much moved on. In the meanwhile, there was a billboard campaign in Los Angeles that spawned a pretty strong response from Delirium fan-favorite Joss Whedon.

The complaint, by and large, was about the misogyny of the movie. Because she gets kidnapped, held against her will, and pretty gruesomely tortured, all while being presented with interview clips of her fashion model life revealing her to be shallow and a little bit mean and, by implication, deserving of her treatment. And all of these things happen, it’s true. So I can see why he said so. But… well, spoilers now, on the minimalistic chance that anyone other than me will actually watch the movie.

So, it’s like this, right? Sure, all of those things happened, and (except for the really pointless and horrible milkshake scene) it’s all about the systematic psychological dismantling of her personality, so she’ll want to bang the guy in the next cell who is of course in on it all. And it works. But then the kidnappers have a difference of opinion and the cops show up, and she’s able to figure out a little bit of what’s going on instead of being killed like would normally be the case. And her gradually growing strength and rejection of the authority of the obvious kidnapper that has been growing throughout the movie explodes into full-fledged rebellion. She not only fights back, but she fights back intelligently and under pretty strong pressure. And wins, sure, but even gets a chance to shoot a poster of herself, symbolically severing all ties with her previous shallow, weak life. I wonder if, having watched the movie, Joss would have thought a little bit better of it than what the ad campaign indicated.

On the downside, there are several plot holes and unfair misleads that are collectively big enough to drive a truck through. And they were all but unnecessary. So that was offensive to me, anyway. Especially because it was very nearly a good movie despite the obvious plot and bad press.