Saw this last night. It's better than I thought, but also exactly what I thought. Having some heavy actors in there like Tatum, Slater, really help anchor the rest of the performances. It's better acted than the writing deserves.
here's what I liked:
- the set design works a lot of the time. Real place. On location.
- The directing came alive in the "Bacchanal" scenes, women in all (virginal ) white running through the jungles, being bit by a snake, which is pretty heavy
handed symbolism. Like the whole movie.
- The killing of the snake, great scene.
- Liked some of the commentary on power dynamics, and more than that, the culture that the movie depicts, which a lot of us probably know and participate in to some degree. Like I don't party on compounds like that, but I know girls who do. My boys have parties in penthouses and clubs and all that, where men provide the "high end" experience of drugs and alcohol, and women simply show up. But, there's a social contract there, that the movie gets into, that has gone on for a very long time, and we all probably learned in high school.
- The satire of food and drug culture
here's what didn't really work:
- The direction style. The Jordan Peele style photography, everything is too bright, the shots don't have room to breathe. The movie doesn't establish a great sense of place. There's no stillness. Aside from the shots mentioned, there's no beautiful shots of the lush setting. The choppiness throughout. Never breathes long enough for a real scare or any real tension.
- The clearly made for a meme scenes, you'll see them both right away.
-The script isn't very sharp, most of the time. The best lines were all male, which is odd. The villains get by far the best of the script. the women's writing was pretty bland. They don't come off as sharp or savvy, or even as real people. They weren't very funny, and I KNOW women like this and they can be hilarious.
- The tone is all over the place, and the movie is never grounded enough in any of them to really come to life. Which again, think of like social media. Rapidly scrolling through a feed. You get a serious rape scene, a joyful killing scene, a funny scene, a triumphant scene, a "girl boss" scene, and then you are done.
- Kravitz channels Emerald Fennell pretty closely here too
- don't really want to touch on the themes about women's empowerment, or cancel culture, but the movie never really goes anywhere interesting with any of it. Lots of nonsense about trauma.
- There's a good movie to be made with this cast and with general plot. More suspense. More tension. More sexual tension. More chemistry between ANY of the people there. What strikes me the most about this style of movies, is that NO ONE comes across like a real person, despite being pretty easily relatable characters. More tension about culpability, and guilt and innocence.
- everything is too on the nose, and it's a testament to Tatum that the movie has any narrative tension. You never have any doubt about these men, and it hurts the movies very structure.
- The lead's performance.....maybe the script, maybe she didn't look that attractive to me (and I got the two friends were somewhat less conventional) but her performance was shaky. She was either hysterical or comatose. So again maybe that's the script.
here's what I liked:
- the set design works a lot of the time. Real place. On location.
- The directing came alive in the "Bacchanal" scenes, women in all (virginal ) white running through the jungles, being bit by a snake, which is pretty heavy
handed symbolism. Like the whole movie.
- The killing of the snake, great scene.
- Liked some of the commentary on power dynamics, and more than that, the culture that the movie depicts, which a lot of us probably know and participate in to some degree. Like I don't party on compounds like that, but I know girls who do. My boys have parties in penthouses and clubs and all that, where men provide the "high end" experience of drugs and alcohol, and women simply show up. But, there's a social contract there, that the movie gets into, that has gone on for a very long time, and we all probably learned in high school.
- The satire of food and drug culture
here's what didn't really work:
- The direction style. The Jordan Peele style photography, everything is too bright, the shots don't have room to breathe. The movie doesn't establish a great sense of place. There's no stillness. Aside from the shots mentioned, there's no beautiful shots of the lush setting. The choppiness throughout. Never breathes long enough for a real scare or any real tension.
- The clearly made for a meme scenes, you'll see them both right away.
-The script isn't very sharp, most of the time. The best lines were all male, which is odd. The villains get by far the best of the script. the women's writing was pretty bland. They don't come off as sharp or savvy, or even as real people. They weren't very funny, and I KNOW women like this and they can be hilarious.
- The tone is all over the place, and the movie is never grounded enough in any of them to really come to life. Which again, think of like social media. Rapidly scrolling through a feed. You get a serious rape scene, a joyful killing scene, a funny scene, a triumphant scene, a "girl boss" scene, and then you are done.
- Kravitz channels Emerald Fennell pretty closely here too
- don't really want to touch on the themes about women's empowerment, or cancel culture, but the movie never really goes anywhere interesting with any of it. Lots of nonsense about trauma.
- There's a good movie to be made with this cast and with general plot. More suspense. More tension. More sexual tension. More chemistry between ANY of the people there. What strikes me the most about this style of movies, is that NO ONE comes across like a real person, despite being pretty easily relatable characters. More tension about culpability, and guilt and innocence.
- everything is too on the nose, and it's a testament to Tatum that the movie has any narrative tension. You never have any doubt about these men, and it hurts the movies very structure.
- The lead's performance.....maybe the script, maybe she didn't look that attractive to me (and I got the two friends were somewhat less conventional) but her performance was shaky. She was either hysterical or comatose. So again maybe that's the script.
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