Godzilla 2 King of the monsters - 2019

 

I could have really liked this film without the Mark character, but as it is, I only half liked it and have no desire to go through all his scenes again so I won’t be watching it again.

It starts with post-apocalypse scenes from S.Francisco 2014, it seems Godzilla wrecked the city, and a family lost a child.

Godzilla has not been seen again, but a group called Monarch kills lots of animals in its search for Godzilla or other Titan creatures like him. 

This not-so-secret coalition has been studying the titans, and a part of the government pushes to kill all the creatures.

Now: Madison lives with her mom, while her dad is in a ‘safe place’; later we’ll see that he’s taking pictures of wild animals.

Mom works in a Monarch outpost in China. A ‘monster’ is born under their eyes, Mothra they call it, but right away their containment system fails. Someone shoots, the creature panics and mom goes near with her own invention, a thing that finds and sends the right frequency to calm the creature down. Maddie even pets it, the absurdity.

Anyway. Right then, armed men arrive and shoot almost everyone. Lead by Jonah, they take Emma and Madison away. 

Dr Serizawa is against the military killing all the titans. He goes to tell Mark about his family being captured and asks for his help, and instead of saying Let’s go now he wastes time complaining that the Orca project should not even exist. He thought it was destroyed but after San Francisco Emma built it again, a better one designed for the titans.

There are 17 titans that they know, that they have found. 

After the tragedy, Emma reacted doubling her efforts to save the world, Mark got into drinking.

Now Mark is all for killing all the creatures, contrary to Emma and Serizawa who think some of them are good, they’re part of the world order.

Jonah wants Emma to communicate with Monster Zero. Godzilla moves closer to Mark and all the others prepare to shoot but he ‘orders’ to stand down and they obey…

Godzilla moves forward, heading to Antarctica where Emma is. Mark goes to ‘free’ Emma and Madison, but they don’t go with him. Instead, Emma wakes up Monster Zero, a huge creature with three dragon heads. Godzilla arrives to attack it. It’s all rather confusing, but Mark comes out of it alive, of course. People who worked with her can’t believe Emma did it, but Mark saw her. 

Then Emma calls them, explaining why she did it. Because humans are ruining this world. It’s now overpopulated, full of pollution and war, but the Titans are the rightful rulers of the world, “part of the Earth’s natural defence system”, to maintain the balance. She says they will not destroy humanity, they will save the world.

This was all her plan, she approached Jonah, she wants to wake all the creatures. 

Rodan, a winged Titan, is next. It comes out of a volcano.  A squadron of planes is destroyed, but they make it because Monster Zero arrives and they fight each other.

The military sends a missile called Oxygen Destroyer…

Serizawa wanted to have faith in Godzilla (Gojira, he says) and yes, when Monster Zero is about to kill them, Godzilla stops it. They fight. The missile hits, killing every creature in the water but not Monster Zero, of course. 

Godzilla is hurt a lot, though , maybe dead.

Now all the creatures wake up, one out of the sand in Arizona, one from a mountain in Germany, they all wake without Emma doing anything. 

Now Madison is angry at her mom.

Dr Chen, I think, has an idea, she thinks that Monster Zero is the Ghidorah of Legends, that he’s not part of this world, a hydra that came from somewhere else.

Everywhere in the world, Titans are causing havoc because they follow the alpha’s lead, Ghidorah, and if they stop him they stop them all.

And Godzilla, who could do it, has been almost killed by them.

Emma now wants to stop it all, because without Godzilla there won’t be a new balance, only destruction. Maddie hears her and wants to do it. 

Mothra is awake and like a butterfly, she’s Queen of the Monsters. 

Mark tells them to help Godzilla with nuclear weapons. 

Maddie grabs some stuff plus the Orca and goes out. She’s in Boston. She activates and amplifies the Orca’s signal, and all creatures calm down.

Mark’s group wants to help Godzilla, but of course there was some damage, so the nuclear weapons cannot be launched, and Serizawa volunteers to pilot the ship with the ‘nukes’ to Godzilla.

He puts them down manually, walks up to touch Godzilla waiting for the bomb to explode. 

It works and Godzilla is recharged. 

Monster Zero attacks where Maddie is, but Godzilla saves her. Mark’s people join the fight shooting Ghidorah.

Godzilla now is stuffed full of radiation. As they land, they find the Orca right away, but not Maddie. Mothra arrives to help Godzilla.

Emma finds them and goes home - they have a home in Boston, guessing that Maddie is there.

Rodan attacks Mothra and fails.

The house is destroyed, Maddie saved herself by hiding inside the bathtub.

Ghidorah flies Godzilla up high and lets him fall, and then bites him.

Emma too sacrifices herself to bring Ghidorah away from the others. (So, the Orca did not call Ghidorah, instead it was Ghidorah going after it to destroy it…)

Fully charged and up again, Godzilla fights Ghidorah and his radiations burn Ghidorah.

Ghidorah is tough, but Godzilla kills it.

All other Titans bow to Godzilla now as their Alpha leader. The end.

At the beginning of the credits, we see that all Monarch files got online and also many news reports :

“titans returning to natural environments” , “Over sixty years of giant monster files” , “Rodan nesting in volcano north of Fiji”, “mysterious rainforest blooms in Sahara desert”, “strange new life appears after titan activity”, and “Godzilla’s path through Pacific bringing life back to Reefs, restoring fish population” 

Another titans radiations have rapid growth effects on fauna of Amazon, and Scylla slows ice-melt in Antarctica, the eco-systems heal, maybe a Mothra egg was found… but no news on Mothra herself, so Ghidorah killed her? :sob: 

At the end of the credits, we see that Jonah has found one of the heads of Ghidorah, and takes it.

Dr Mark Russell - Kyle Chandler

Dr Emma Russell - Vera Farmiga

Madison Russell - Millie Bobby Brown

Dr Ishiro Serizawa - Ken Watanabe

Dr  Chen and Dr Ling - Ziyi Zhang

Dr Rick Stanton - Bradley Whitford

Alan Jonah - Charles Dance

Admiral - David Strathairn

The cast list ends with : 

Godzilla - Himself

King Ghidorah - Himself

Mothra - Herself

Rodan - Himself

Jurassic Park - 1993

 Very entertaining like a big toy, and back then it was a big deal, the visuals were amazing, and of course being the 90s there were children that knew computers like second nature. 

Now there’s so many kids who don’t know a thing about them, used as they are to quick apps.

Anyway, this is for entertainment value, and that’s all there is to it.

Alan and Ellie are working when John Hammond arrives on his helicopter, he’s been funding their work so they can’t just ignore him or send him on his way. He tells them that “I own an Island off the coast of Costa Rica” and that he set up “a kind of biological preserve” and now he’s got pressure because he has investors too and “they insist on outside opinions” so he wants the best in various areas. They’re not eager at first, but the power of money is huge. 

We’re shown at this point where the troubles will begin, because we see a man planning something for the next day, to smuggle embryos out or something.

Malcolm insists on being called a Chaotician, because he constantly talks about the Chas Theory, and apparently has three kids and no wife.

On the island, the cars have “Jurassic Park” on the doors. 

They don’t even look around, it’s only when Hammond stops the car that they see the gigantic dinosaurs for the first time. The dinosaurs have been cloned, from blood preserved in mosquitos, preserved in amber, and then computers and experts completed the dna code. They witness one hatching from its egg. Every animal in the park has been created a female so they can’t procreate. 

Malcolm tries to tell the that “life will not be contained, life breaks free” meaning that “life finds a way” but they listen to him with scorn. 

They created carnivores too, even raptors.

Ian insists that what they’re doing is dangerous. Hammond is shocked that they don’t share his enthusiasm, but Ellie is worried about the poisonous plants too.

Hammond’s two grandkids come to visit, making Alan uncomfortable because he doesn’t like kids (but Ellie wants one).

Well, the tour on the cars is not that great since not many dinosaurs stay on display, animals hide from humans and cars, is what they do.

The car doors are not locked though, so they get out and wander around, seeing a sick triceratops.

A big storm is coming, but it seems this is Dennis only chance to smuggle that stuff, so he goes on with it, he stops all security stuff so he can drive to reach the boat before it sails away.

It should be for 15, 18 minutes, and a lot can happen in 18 minutes. It’s night and it’s raining a lot; the cars aren’t moving of course, all power has been cut off, and they get close to the T-Rex. it attacks the car with the two children, Alan and Ian help them and the T-Rex eats the lawyer Donald who hid in a toilet.

it’s all rather pointless since Dennis is such a moron that he can’t drive in the rain, he has two accidents, and then he breaks his glasses and then he gets eaten by a dinosaur, the one with the fan-neck.

Alan saves the little girl, and then the little boy stuck inside the car high up on a tree.

Ellie and a security man find the injured Ian and look for Alan but then they have to escape because a T-Rex is running after them while they drive away.

At least it’s not raining anymore. Malcolm is brought to safety.

John still thinks of his next try, how he’ll fix this.

Alan finds dinosaurs eggs, because Ian was right, life will find a way, and the amphibian dna they used allowed the animals to chance sex and reproduce.

Many fences are down and animals are free.

They shut down the system and Ellie turns the power back on. Arnold is dead, she only found a severed arm.

The kid Timmy was still touching the fence when the power went back on, but Alan revives him with CPR. He brings the children where they should be safe, the dining area, but velociraptors are inside.

Young Lex is a hacker, she knows their system and she manages to reboot the system so phones work now, along with everything else.

They’re saved by the T-Rex who comes in and eats the raptors so they escape. Hammond drives there with Malcolm, they get in the car and they all go to the helicopter that will bring them out.

What about all the scientists and workers of the park? It’s just them in the helicopter, and I see only one before the credits arrive… it always bothers me that they don’t even spend a single word about the others, no explanation, nothing, they’re either all dead and nobody cares, or simply left to their destiny…

Dr Alan Grant (archeologist) - Sam Neill

Dr Ellie Sattler (paleobotanist) - Laura Dern

Dr Ian Malcolm 8matematician) - Jeff Goldblum

Hammond - Richard Attemborough

Arnold - Samuel L. Jackson

The Lost city - 2022

 It wasn’t bad, I enjoyed it enough, but it wasn’t great or something worth watching again.

Mainly because the ‘meaningful moments’ when they stop and talk seriously to bring depth to the otherwise silly story, were not really good, they were just very very boring actually.

Sandra Bullock was nice as always, although there was something weird about her, I hope she didn’t do anything to her face, like fill her cheekbones or something, I don’t know, it just seemed weird at moments.

No matter though, she was lovely as she always is, and my main reason to watch this movie.

Tatum has his best role here, Radcliffe was really good and Pitt’s scenes were great, but he was in it for very little.

Plot:

Loretta writes romance books where her characters have adventures a-la Indiana Jones. She started because nobody was interested in books about archeology so she added a bit of romance and sex.

Alan is the model for all her covers, and very handsome of course. When she promotes a book, people come to see him without his shirt, not her.

The fact that she’s rather conceited may be another reason for it.

Sure, they say that her husband died - not sure when, maybe even before she started writing? They had adventures together) and that now she feels kinda low, only wants to drink wine in the bath and not see anyone, but that does not really excuse her attitude towards people who buy her books. She does not want to do promotion, only does a bit of it because forced into it, and she treats Alan like an idiot. He’s not educated like she is, but not knowing latin and stuff makes him ignorant, not an idiot.

Anyway, Abigail Fairfax is jealous of his brothers (Beverly and Leslie, if I’m not mistaken, three brothers, must have hated their parents growing up), so he wants to find a hidden treasure to bring glory to himself.

He has lots of money but so far all the success has been his brothers and father’s. He wants his share, and has bought half an island to look for the Crown of Fire.

Loretta’s latest book also talks about it, and Abigail realises many of the things she wrote in it are real, she knows about it and knows the ‘language’. So , he kidnaps her to translate a bit of ‘writing’ and find the location of the crown.

Alan saw when they took her away, so he asks Jack Trainer for help. He’s trained and easily finds her, but shortly after they take her away from Abigail’s camp, Jack’s shot in the head, Alan’s face gets covered in blood and brain matter. So now it’s up to the two of them to escape.

Alan is of course in love with her, who knows why given how she treats him, but now that they’re forced together they get to know each other and she starts to see his good sides too.

Obviously.

Still, they get found out a lot because she’s wearing a glittery thing in a lilac colour that is very noticeable. Alan gets understandably upset when he discovers that she stole that bit of ‘writing’ of Abigail, she’s thinking about finding it herself.

The next day they reach a village. Yes! There is one! It’s not a deserted island then. 

They tell the police about Fairfax and actually think that’s the end of him, come on, with all his money?

Somehow Loretta now has a dress she can change into, and she dances with Alan.

A local woman sings a traditional song and Loretta understands where the treasure is.

Abigail kidnaps her again, Alan follows her bravely if a bit clumsily.

(Did he really have a Bulgari watch? How much do they pay him for a book cover?)

Loretta sets the car on fire but it doesn’t stop them. Really, she just saw a man smoking a cigar, she had a drink of alcohol, and when she threw it in his lap it all caught fire, as if by magic. In 2022 they could try to avoid this nonsense, or everyone smoking and drinking would just combust from the inside.

Anyway.

With a boat they reach the secret place and find the tomb they were looking for, not a place where the king could be adored and remembered like Abigail believed, but a secluded place where the queen could mourn his passing.

There is no treasure inside, only the bones of the king and queen - … ok, nice image, the bones in a hugging position, but he died first. They clearly said that he died and she mourned him. So how did she come to be in that position?It would be bad enough to imagine her entering the bomb and hugging his corpse or bones waiting her death, but it was sealed and she went there alone to mourn him in peace, so how could anybody put her there? Maybe back then the place was not really a secret, maybe her people knew about it and when she died they put them together… yes, it must be, quite nice actually, it shows her people cared about them.

Anyway, the Crown is made of shells, not jewels.

Apparently her man kept giving her one of these beautiful red shells every day until the day she accepted him and the shells became her crown.

It looks more like a wig than a crown, but it’s all very metaphorical. The only treasure was their love.

Abigail of course is furious that he spent so much time and money and effort and all for nothing, so he wants to leave them there to die.

They have a bit of help fro, Abigail’s last man there and manage to escape.

The three of them are rescued by Beth, Loretta’s publicist come to save her.

Fairfax tries to escape but he’s stopped. We’re led to believe that he’ll be arrested… yeah, right.

So, everything ends well, her next book is about this adventure of course, and she’s now with Alan. The end.

…

They should have kept the adventure and removed all the unnecessary, unrelated speeches that were so forced they were annoying instead of funny.

p.s. At the end we see that Jack Trainer is still alive, because humans only use 10% of his brain, so… and I did not laugh myself silly at that, but someone actually did :D

Loretta Sage - Sandra Bullock

Alan - Channing Tatum

Abigail - Daniel Radcliff

Jack Trainer - Brad Pitt

Batman begins - 2005

 I like Batman a lot, but this one not too much. I’m not really fond of this particular personification of him, and I do not approve of their choice for Rachel’s actress. 

The rest of the cast was good, though.

The story: 

As a child, while playing with his friend Rachel, Bruce fell down a well, sort of, very dry, and there were lots of bats that scared him. it’s his nightmare. 

Now adult, he wakes up in a prisoners camp where all the others are Asians, both guards and prisoners, it seemed to me. He has no problem defeating anyone who fights him, wanting to kill him. He’s put on solitary where he’s approached by Ducard, speaking for Ra’s Al Ghul, a man greatly feared by the criminal underground scene.

“A man who can offer you a path”. Ducard says that Bruce is there by choice, because he’s lost, and offers “the path of the man who shares his hatred of evil and wishes to serve true justice. The path of the League of Shadows”. Ducard says “if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal and if they can’t stop you, then you become something else entirely. A legend, Mr Wayne”.

As Ducard said, the next day he’s let go, and he does what he was told to do, he picks a blue flower and takes it up a mountain. Alone, while it’s snowing, and I never saw him eat anything… still, he reaches some sort of temple. There’s people there and Ducard too. Bruce says “I seek the means to fight injustice, to turn fear against those who prey on the fearful”.

Ducard starts beating him up as training even though Bruce is barely standing.

Bruce fights back, but not much. 

What he fears is bats. Dad saved him from the fall and healed him, and he had nightmares about the bats. The Waynes were rich and very involved in Gotham. At the opera, Bruce was scared by the performers, reminded of bats, so they got out and there was nobody around, it was night, and they were robbed and both parents were shot dead.

As a college student, Bruce had Alfred taking care of him and the manor. The murderer was caught right away when Bruce was a child, and he’s been to prison, but now Rachel’s boss wants to free him, this Mr Chill, so he’ll testify against Carmine Falcone who was in prison with him. Rachel goes with him to the trial, and Chill is let out. Bruce says nothing, but he wants to kill him. Chill is killed by someone else first, though. Rachel talks to him about vengeance versus justice.

Bruce faces Falcone to show him he’s not afraid, but then the man sort of threatens Rachel and Alfred. Bruce runs away, and steals to eat. 

Now the training goes on and on, both physical, like Chinese-style, and emotional, to face his fears.

At the end of it, he should kill the criminal, the murderer they had there prisoner, the first step before leading those men into destroying Gotham.

Bruce says that he’s no executioner, and instead he fights those that trained him and burns down the place. Of course by doing so it’s very probably that everybody in there died, prisoner and fighters, but at least it wasn’t in cold blood.

He saves Ducard and leaves him at a village, then he goes back to Gotham and Alfred. He wants to become a symbol. Bruce has been declared dead after disappearing for seven years, and in his will he left it all to Alfred. Well… one wonders why the hell did they do that, if an adult man decide to leave home and go travelling without informing anyone, he can do it. Sure, it was strange that he didn’t tell Alfred anything, but still, to declare him dead and dispose of his things just like that, it seems a bit much, doesn’t it? Luckily he made a will, so at least everything is where it was, taken care by Alfred.

Mr Crane keeps declaring that assassins are insane so they don’t go to prison but to his institute instead. Rachel works for the DA. Crane does work with Falcone, but does not work for him, he works for someone even Falcone is scared about.

Mr Earle is leading his company, and Bruce asks for a job, working with scientist Fox, who is some sort of Q, and Bruce intends to use all the stuff he invented.

Bruce and Alfred build his ‘cave’, literally in the bats cave, since he’s no more afraid of them. Or well, he is in a way, but he doesn’t have panic attacks anymore.

He works together with Alfred, who helps a lot. 

Barman delivers Falcone and his men to the police, with lots of evidence. He saves Rachel and warns her that Falcone wanted her dead.

Someone stole and activated a big weapon on a Wayne ship. Following Alfred’s advice, Bruce starts being seen with women and spending money. He can’t tell Rachel the truth.

Falcone is now in Crane’s institute, but is not let out. Crane uses some powder that has people hallucinating and panic in fear, and he uses it against Batman too. 

He needs to call Alfred, who called Lucius Fox for help. Rachel’s boss is killed.

It’s Bruce’s birthday, but he leaves to save Rachel. She went to Crane’s asylum and is given the drugs to make her more than insane, the dose was too high. 

Earle fires Fox. Crane tells Batman that he works for Ra’s Al Ghul.

Batman takes Rachel away, talk to Gordon, drives her away jumping on roofs. At the bat cave, he gives her the antidote, then he goes back to his birthday party because Alfred insisted he pretends to have a normal life.

Alfred takes Rachel home. The toxin is put into the city water and that stolen Wayne’s weapon would turn it aerial to poison the city.

At the party, Bruce meets Ducard, and an unknown man who plays Ra’s Al Ghul, but actually Ducard is the real Ra’s Al Ghul, so now there’s someone who knows who he is and what he does.

To get rid of all those people at the party, Bruce plays the drunk card to send everyone away so he’s left alone with Ra’s and his men. He wants to destroy the city because corrupt beyond safety, says his Order did things for thousands of years: “we sacked Rome, loaded trade ships with plague rats, burned London to the ground. Every time a civilization reaches the pinnacle of its decadence, we return to restore the balance”.

They free the criminals at the Arkham Asylum and burn Bruce’s house. With him in it, but Alfred braves the fire to find him, and says “what is the point of all those push-ups if you can’t even lift a bloody log?” :lol:

Ra’s released the toxin… so everyone sees monsters, but not Gordon and Rachel who have the antidote. Batman saves her and tells her who he is. 

And yet it’s not just that, there’s also some stuff about that secret weapon being brought to the Wayne tower, to spread it to the whole city, and not just those who were around.

Batman doesn’t kill Ra’s but lets him crash with the falling train.

The Wayne company recently went public and Bruce secretly bought most of the shares, so he’s now the owner and can fire Earle, and give his job to Fox.

Rachel makes a move on Bruce, they kiss but just once because he can’t publicly be the man he really is. He will build his house again, and work with Gordon who is no more a sergeant now but a  lieutenant - I didn’t think it was possible, I thought sergeant was the highest lower rank, and lieutenant the lowest high rank, not compatible.

Gordon tells him many escaped criminals have not been found yet, and one is signing his crimes with the Joker playing card…

Bruce - Christian Bale

Ducard - Liam Neeson

Alfred - Michael Caine

Gordon - Gary Oldman

Rachel - Katie Holmes

Dr Crane - Cillian Murphy

Falcone - Tom Wilkinson

Earle - Rutger Hauer

Ra’s Al Ghul - Ken Watanabe

Lucius Fox - Morgan Freeman

Eyes wide shut - 1999

Well, personally I didn’t like it much, mostly because I’m not too fond of Kidman’s talent for acting… another actress might have made a big difference in really bringing home the message of the movie. Also, there was way too much female nudity, and I know there are those who try to say that sometimes nudity is necessary to the plot, but one might wonder why it’s always and only female nudity that is necessary, never male nudity. Do all plots shiver at the mere thought? 

Because if nudity were really necessary, all these years, then surely there would have been many occasions where the man’s body would be shown alongside the female’s, and yet whenever there is such a scene, the man has already put clothes on, but the female is totally naked.

Why does it matter? Because I bet anyone’s heard of this movie, and anyone knows of the nudity, but I wonder how many of them actually realised there was a message in this story, and a sort of mystery too.

Nudity in a movie makes it popular, famous, remembered, but it also often takes away from the plot and from authors’ credibility.

The story:

There’s a shot of a naked Kidman, then the movie starts. 

They’re dressing up to go out, he enters the bathroom while she’s on the toilet, then she takes the glasses off, they say a few words to the nanny and little Helena and go out. They’re invited to a party. 

Bill and Alice dance once, then he goes mingle. She’s approached by a Hungarian man and they dance and flirt a lot.

Bill flirts with two girls then the host calls for him. Victor was having sex with a girl but she had a bad reaction to the drugs she took. Bill checks the very naked girl (in a very professional way, good) and leaves. Alice also leaves, repeating that she’s married and has to find her husband.

In their room they kiss but she doesn’t look too much into it.

Back to their life, she takes care of their daughter while he works as a doctor. 

They smoke some pot and she asks him if he f*cked those two models and tells him the guy she danced with wanted to have sex with her upstairs. Bill thinks that’s very understandable because she’s beautiful, and she starts yelling at him. He says he’d never betray her because he’s in love with her, and doesn’t think about sex while he’s with his patients, and he’s not jealous because he knows she’d never be unfaithful. He also says that women don’t think of sex like men do.

She tells him that there was once when she was with Bill making love and talking about their future and she kept thinking of a man she saw that morning.

A call stops their discussion, he has to leave because someone called Lou died. He can’t stop imagining Alice with another man.
Lou’s daughter tells him she’s about to get married, then kisses him saying she loves him and wants him once. He rejects her then her fiancee arrives and he leaves.

He takes a walk and when a girl propositions him he goes to her place to have sex for money but they only kiss before a call from Alice makes him think twice about it.

He pays the girl anyway and leaves.

He’s been married nine years, their daughter is seven.

He goes to see a man he knows at work, he left medical school and is now a pianist. This Nick tells him he has to go play at another place, where he’ll be blindfolded and needs a password to get in.

Bill wants to go and see but he needs a costume and mask to get in. It’s night so he goes to a closed shop offering lots of money and gets a black cloak with a hood and a mask. He sees the young daughter of the owner with two men that she invited to have sex. This one at least is not naked, only in lingerie, quite plain as it’s usual for this movie.

He reaches a big place where there’s lots of masked people doing some ritual. Maybe a dozen women get naked, with only a thong, a mask, a collar and high heels on.

Each girl chooses a man but the girl that chooses him tells him that he doesn’t belong and should go because he’s in danger.

Walking around he sees lots of people having sex while others watch. Now all women are very very naked and she repeats that he is in great danger.

Somehow he is found out, they have him remove the mask and his clothes but the girl yells to let him go and take her.

He’s let go with threats to him and his family to never speak of this.

He is worried about the woman but has to leave. He goes home to his sleeping child and wife. He hides the costume and wakes her up because… he thought she was having a nightmare? But she was laughing… or it seemed like it.

She tells him of her dream where they were naked and terrified, but after he left to find clothes she felt wonderful, than that man she told him about laughed at her then kissed her. They had sex and then there were other people having sex, and she did it with lots of them while he watched… she hugs him now and cries while telling him this.

He searches for Nick but two men took him away from his hotel after paying his bill. He goes to pay the costume and Milich the owner now sort of offers him his daughter for money.

He goes to the place he went to last night: an old man gives him an envelope with his full name on it, and inside there is a warning to stop his inquiries.

He goes home. All the time he can’t stop thinking of Alice with other men, of what she told him.

He goes back to Domino’s place, the girl that picked him up on the street, but there’s only her roommate Sally. He starts touching her but then she’s all awkward and tells him that that morning Domino found out she’s HIV positive. 

He leaves, walks and is worried he’s being followed. It does look like it.

He buys a newspaper with a big title that says Lucky to Be Alive.

He reads about Mandy, found in her room with a bad overdose. He goes to the hospital but Mandy died that afternoon.

He visits the morgue, and thinks she’s the woman who saved him at the party.

Victor calls him. 

Victor says that he knows where he was last night, that he was there, saw it all, and it was him who thought about Bill and Nick knowing each other after met at his own party. Victor tells him that they put Nick on a plane back to home., and that the woman who warned him was just a hooker. He says it was all staged, all faked, they knew about him right away because he arrived in a taxi and got a receipt for the rented costume.

It was all staged to scare him. He confirms that Mandy was the girl at the party, but nobody did anything to her, Victor assures him.

Home, he sees that Alice has his mask. He cries and tells her everything. 

They take their child to a toy shop since it’s almost Christmas and they talk, rather forgetting about the child there at the end. She sort of says that they should put his adventure and her dreams aside, forget about it, and move on with their life. Then the movie ends with her saying they should do one thing as soon as possible, and the last word of the film has the mood of it all: F*ck.

List of characters, cast at the end:

Dr William Harford - Tom Cruise

Alice Harford - Nicole Kidman

Victor Ziegler - Sydney Pollack

Nick Nightingale - Todd Field

Mandy - Julienne Davis

Marion - Marie Richardson

Carl - Thomas Gibson

Desk Clerk - Alan Cumming