Overrated

one of my absolute favorites!

An Exercise In Nonsense

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

When you look at a production you must always remember there are script writers and a director as well producers involved with the creation of the production.There are agendas and deadlines, as well, requirements for length, language, legal and other variables to take in to consideration.Names, places and times are changed. Scripts are written to fit a mold.While this movie presents the ideal of stopping a Big Brother government from spying on all the people and collecting information to be used at a later time against the public should you do something considered to be a threat to the political and religious nature of the government, it is still a movie.I thought the casting was very good, the script moved along smoothly. I enjoyed the cinematography. I enjoyed the ending.However, I do not believe Snowden is a patriot but I do not believe he is a terrorist either. He is a young man who was put in to a position of questioning his job and the desire for his government to spy on their own people.He had morals and ethics, which is more than I can say for any part of the American government for the last 100 years. He felt what was happening was wrong and that he needed to expose the truth.I do not believe what he did was wrong, I think he did it for righteous reasons, but he also harmed America and released information which set in motion another moment when America was weakened and put in to a position of international stress.It's a good movie, but it isn't perfect.

The problem is this; If you just make it publicly known that; "Your information is being surveilled", without really digging deep into the ramifications of such an invasion, the public won't care, much like the more recent Facebook scandal. What I'm trying to say is, news feel like just news, not reality. News feel like that 30 minutes with adverts in between, like a TV show."Verizon is hacking into all your phone calls" is interpreted by the public as; "Sure, but not my phone calls". I mean here we are, "reviewing" on IMDb without a care as to what is being tapped into.Films like Snowden and The Big Short, and and and, are important and more than just movies. Their topics are difficult to articulate perhaps, but, they transcend entertainment.As a film however, Snowden was sluggish at points, but I do feel it did put in a concerted effort to simplify as best as it could, the applications and repercussions of the missions and actions in play.This movie also kept unveiling some pretty serious star power I didn't know it had, and of that star presence, Zachary Quinto was the most quintessential.Some aspects in Snowden were hard to follow; "All this effing intelligence jargon is hurting our brains". That line was so appropriate, true (Hell, it even gave Ed himself a seizure, and they called it "epilepsy") and incredibly funny, that it showed me that Snowden was self aware, however, amidst all that jargon, I understood one thing as it was mentioned; Going to Hawaii was OBVIOUSLY a TERRIBLE idea, if the aim was for Ed to have, "less stress"!!!Like I said, Snowden is one of those movies that, expose a truth that never really dies, no matter how much it's said that it has, and that is significant. And, in this movie, that story is illustrated quite efficiently, though a bit slow at times. 7/10.

Pretty decent movie. Somehow missed this one the last few years but figured I would give it a try when I saw it on HBO.It's interesting seeing Snowden's background. It was also really creepy to see the example of the technology that the NSA was using to spy on American's and those abroad. I had previously watched Citizenfour so I had known about the meeting in Hong Kong and about the leak of information.. However I will say he definitely was glamorized and made to look like the victim in this movie. It was made to be seen from his side.

For a controversial subject like Snowden it is important that the movie be at least moderately accurate. This movie will probably be how many viewers form their basic understanding of what happened - and that would be a great shame. If you want to know the real story, check out Citizenfour which is a documentary and makes an attempt to be honest.