A Hologram For The King: Blu-ray Review
The Movie:
Alan Clay (Tom Hanks) is a recently divorced American businessman who is sent overseas to pitch a state-of-the-art holographic teleconferencing system to a king. As Alan vainly tries to navigate new and unusual customs, he finds himself thrust into a series of wonderful misadventures, and a fateful encounter that changes his life forever
This was a movie that I had been wanting to watch since I saw the trailer. Finally I had a chance to see it and I have to say that it was pretty good BUT it was very different than any other movie that I’ve seen in a while. It didn’t particularly have a real story to it other than a man that is pretty much a fish out of water that ends up finding himself without even really looking. It’s a great story but it just seemed like certain aspects were a bit out of place at times. It went from being a film of self discovery and then suddenly the last 15 minutes turned into a love story. I think they could’ve blended it into the story sooner so that way it wouldn’t have felt like they sprung it up on the audience. Other than that Hanks was phenomenal as always and seeing him act is a treat within itself. No matter what his performances get better and better as his career goes on and I’m glad that he hasn’t gone the way of DeNiro or Pacino. The one thing that the film did amazingly was showing the lifestyle and culture of Saudi Arabia. You really get a good look at the mindset and atmosphere there as well as some jokes that couldn’t have been repeated in any other movie. If you’re a fan of Hanks then this is definitely one that you’ll want to see just for the performance but other than that, even though the film was good, it just felt a little scattered at times. I will say to check it out BUT just be aware that you might be a little confused as to where the movie is going. 7/10
Special Features:
From Novel to Screen: The Adaptation of A Hologram for the King – A feature that looks at how they managed to adapt the book for the screen. There are some really good interview snippets here.
Perfecting the Culture – A look at how the film production worked hard on trying to get the look of Saudi Arabia right.
The Making of A Hologram for the King – A standard Behind The Scenes feature with film clips and interview snippets.
