Changeling – Directed by Clint Eastwood – 2008

Confessions of a JMS-aholic...

I'm going to break from my usual format for the purpose of reviewing this movie. From Captain Power to the Real Ghostbusters to Babylon 5 to his run on the comic book Spider-man, J. Michael Straczynski is not so much my favorite writer as he is my writing God. So, when I heard that a major motion picture, written by him, was being produced by originally Ron Howard, then Clint Eastwood and that A listers like John Malkovich and Angelina Jolie were going to be in it, not to mention Jeffrey Donovan, the star of Burn Notice, were going to be involved in it, I was excited and nervous beyond all hell. I'm not really a sports fan, but the feeling I had is the way I think a fan feels when they find out their home town team is playing for the World Series or the Superbowl. I was excited because JMS was finally going to break into Hollywood. I was nervous because, well what if it sucked? I mean, I loved JMS's work on TV shows, but while the Babylon 5's made for TV movies weren't bad, they were nowhere near as good as the show itself. I was worried that JMS might not be able to pull off a movie. Furthermore, a lot of hands end up touching movies before they get produced. I wanted to see my home town team win, not get humiliated. So, I was nervous.

Also, I was confused. The movie was called Changeling, which to me, the Star Trek nerd, is the alien species that Odo from Deep Space Nine. I couldn't believe for the life of me that all these A-listers signed on for a sci-fi movie, despite the fact that JMS had made his name writing sci-fi. Then I heard it was based on a true story. This confused me even further.

But, all my anxiousness didn't stop me from being a one man advertisement team for this movie. I bugged and threatened and bargained with all my friends to go see this one when it finally came out. In retrospect I think some of them might have decided to skip it because I was annoying them that badly.

Well, the movie came out... and it was amazingly good! I mean, I know I'm a JMS whore, but it really, really was awesomely good. The cast was awesome, the visuals were awesome, the music was awesome, everything about it was freaking awesome, and the writing was beautifully, magically awesome!

My only minor complaint with the movie is that JMS may have been too faithful to history and might have shortened the end by combining a few scenes. But, seriously, this is definitely my pick for best movie of 2008, and probably ranked number two or three of the decade, following Finding Neverland and (500) Days of Summer. A!!


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