Hereafter

I saw Hereafter this weekend. I liked it, but Jill didn't. She did say it was better than The American, but that can barely be considered an endorsement. Even though I liked it, it wasn't without it's problems:

• About 1/3 of the movie is subtitled. I know this is so uncultured of me, but sometimes I am just not in the mood for subtitles. I didn't mind them this time, but I wish I had been warned.
• The music is very heavy-handed and at times annoying.
• Plot advancements happen via google searches. This shouldn't bother me that much. It's 2010, and people really do base actions and decisions on google searches. But it feels like lazy writing. Maybe it's just forever tainted because it was used in Twilight.
• The dialogue is often awkward. In a moment of amazement, a character actually says, "Well I'll be."

Listing all of those weaknesses made me wonder why I think I liked it. Maybe I'm greatly underestimating the appeal of Matt Damon. The tsunami scene at the beginning is breathtakingly horrific. Not "I wish I could erase this from my brain" horrific (like some scenes in certain movies). The movie never again reaches the same power as that opening scene, but I thought it was an interesting meditation on what happens to us after we die.