Runtime: 90 minutes
Directed by: David
Yarovesky
Starring: Elizabeth Banks,
David Denman, Jackson A. Dunn, Matt Jones, Meredith Hagner
From: Screen Gems
I wish this had different trailers. It commits several sins but the
one I'll mention (without going into detail) is that they revealed too
much. Lest you think I am being unfair here, I have elsewhere complained
about how modern trailers in general aren't good because they are some
combination of misleading, spoiler-heavy, cliched, bad song choice, and
the awful moment of “slow atrocious covers of cool popular music of the
past”. For me it'd be preferable if I saw less of the advertising.
I
don't know if that was responsible for this not doing well at the box
office or that it has poor word of mouth, but I found that while this
did not fulfill all the promise of what is a great premise, I was still
entertained by this hard R-rated picture which features some quite gory
deaths and as I saw mentioned in an article posted just yesterday, this
seems analogous to the type of males that are Men's Rights Activists or
all the entitled idiots you see on Twitter or YouTube, as once alien
humanoid Brandon turns 12, that is when he suddenly has his superpowers
and becomes evil. There is an explanation as to why this happens,
although don't expect it to be elaborated upon and explained.
But the big problem for Brandon is that he becomes a D-bag who suddenly believes in the catchphrase Take the World. He's a maladjusted kid (or rather, being) who suddenly takes out those he feels are “inferior”, does not stay away from a girl who he has feelings for but the feelings aren't reciprocated as she becomes frightened of him, and cannot control his anger. It's not hard to imagine Brandon calling himself an incel, or joining the “Alt-Right.” I don't mean to start controversy here by bringing up some inflammatory topics, but James Gunn's brothers did note how it was an influence when they wrote this screenplay.
This is a horror movie which isn't particularly scary (as it has the standard scares... expect many moments where someone suddenly appears, before they suddenly disappear) and Brandon's parents-especially dear old mom-are incredibly naive at best and stupid at worst for thinking their alien child is “just going through puberty” when his behavior drastically changes and people they know-whether on the periphery or not-start dying... as dumb characters in this genre are a dime a dozen, I just rolled with it. As for the advertising I bemoaned earlier, at least it did not reveal the surprise cameo of a popular actor and I knew there'd be an eye scene I would have to look away from... which I did as the sound alone was enough for me. I did the same thing for the third John Wick once I realize this Fulci-esque moment would happen.
But the big problem for Brandon is that he becomes a D-bag who suddenly believes in the catchphrase Take the World. He's a maladjusted kid (or rather, being) who suddenly takes out those he feels are “inferior”, does not stay away from a girl who he has feelings for but the feelings aren't reciprocated as she becomes frightened of him, and cannot control his anger. It's not hard to imagine Brandon calling himself an incel, or joining the “Alt-Right.” I don't mean to start controversy here by bringing up some inflammatory topics, but James Gunn's brothers did note how it was an influence when they wrote this screenplay.
This is a horror movie which isn't particularly scary (as it has the standard scares... expect many moments where someone suddenly appears, before they suddenly disappear) and Brandon's parents-especially dear old mom-are incredibly naive at best and stupid at worst for thinking their alien child is “just going through puberty” when his behavior drastically changes and people they know-whether on the periphery or not-start dying... as dumb characters in this genre are a dime a dozen, I just rolled with it. As for the advertising I bemoaned earlier, at least it did not reveal the surprise cameo of a popular actor and I knew there'd be an eye scene I would have to look away from... which I did as the sound alone was enough for me. I did the same thing for the third John Wick once I realize this Fulci-esque moment would happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment