Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Director: Stephen Daldry
Year Released: 2011
Rating: 1.0
After losing his father (Tom Hanks) in the 9/11 terror attacks, an impossibly inquisitive lad (Thomas Horn) discovers a key his playful pop left behind in an envelope with the word "Black" written on it, and proceeds to travel all over the five boroughs to find people with that last nime (and, hopefully, find out what the key opens). The source novel by the overhyped Jonathan Safran Foer was already referred to as "cloying," and the same can be applied to this movie adaptation, although I'd like to add a few more adjectives: preening, obnoxious, self-important, self-satisfied. Turns out the whole 'journey' by the boy was being closely monitored by Mom (Sandra Bullock) who could have revealed the truth of the key to him earlier, but felt the need for her son to "look for meaning" in a world that sometimes lacks just that; it's Foer's attempt at poetry, and it wrenches its own back out trying to attain some degree of depth. Horn's shrill voice had me irked a good deal of the time, but that's easily the least of this picture's issues.
