The Hurt Locker

We watched The Hurt Locker last night, and I have a couple of bones to pick.

In addition to blatant uniform faux pas, there was a short sequence in there that was comically unfeasible. An E5 Sergeant becomes angry with a Sergeant First Class that he had only met the day before, and slaps him. The Sergeant First Class just smiles and takes it.

Insubordination in any form is unacceptable 99% of the time in the Army, but slapping someone two ranks above you (and getting away with it) is just not going to happen. That's like Nancy Pelosi slapping Barack Obama in front of the Cabinet -- that ain't gonna fly.

The other thing that ruined the movie for me was the hand-held camera work. I had to stop watching midway through.

I don't know how common this is, but I'm very susceptible to simulation (or simulator) sickness. It's similar to motion sickness, but not the same. Weirdly, I never get motion sickness -- airplanes, car trips, roller coasters, etc. all sit well with me.

With simulation sickness, your eyes rapidly track jerky camera movements on-screen, while your body remains stationary. This paradox makes the brain think you are hallucinating the images you see, and triggers vomiting to get rid of whatever poison is causing the supposed hallucinations.

The first time I noticed this was during The Blair Witch Project. I almost hurled during that one. Since then, I've come to find several movies (anything in IMAX) and almost all first person shooter video games cause simulation sickness.

I wish the movie industry would come up with a warning for movies shot with hand-held cameras so I won't waste my time on them.

I was looking for solutions, and one website suggests Women's One-a-Day helps simulation sickness. No thanks.


***Update 12 June 2010 ***

Add "The Karate Kid" (the new one) to the list of movies that causes simulation sickness.

| Posted in » army, Most Popular Posts, MOVIES, pop culture, simulator sickness, The Hurt Locker, The Karate Kid