The dialogue in this film is hit-or-miss, but when it does miss, it's way off, plagued by too much machismo, or rather, ma-cheese-mo, if not simple cheesiness that's anything but manly, to the point of being borderline, if not certainly embarassing, nor even mildly original, for that matter. While a story of this type are rarely this sloppily told, on the whole, this is the same thing that you've seen over and over again, and hardly with a new coat of paint, as the film falls into convention, after convention, after convention, and that includes conventional missteps in films of this type.

Really, the most surprising survival in this film has to be the fire, itself, because it's hard to believe that the flames would sustain form in an atmosphere this borderline airless, with Jay Russell's storytelling falling short on oomph, while almost entirely falling off the radar, when it comes to comfortable story flow, as the film will drop points of exposition, characterization and general transition with such sloppy sudden abruptness, while focusing way too hard and long on what story segment it does fall upon, that the film is left tonally inconsistent, leaving story substance to land a mighty blow, while other amateur mistakes lay down additional damage. Of course, while it's not as consistent as it could have been, there is some undeniable tension here and there, though not quite enough to fully drown out the cheese and many other flaws that pull you right back into of the fire, so to speak. Phoenix mythology jokes, anyone? Well, eitherway, whether it be because I thought that Phoenix would just be reborn from the ashes in which he died or simply because the film glorifies our leads a little too much, there's some undeniable tone-down in consequencial feel here. I mean, even in 'Gladiator', where he was playing a corrupt, evil king that took his throne through the brutal, guiltless killing of his own father, he still came back one of the wimpiest corrupt kings ever portrayed in modern film, and now, he's playing a fireman, a real man's profession, and yet, they somehow managed to make that come off as cheesy, which would explain why there is some certain dilution of consequence in the air here, if the reason isn't the fact that Joaquin Phoenix was never in any real danger, because if he got burned up, then he would just be reborn from the ashes.

Man, remember when Joaquin Phoenix was cool? Yeah, me neither, because, as awesome as his acting and name are, he was never really that much of a hardcore man's man. Man, with the still inferior, though also very cheesy 'It's All About Love', and now this, Joaquin Phoenix seemed to have been falling into the shameful grounds of cheese around the mid-2000s.

Where was the movie ladder 49 filmed