altered-vlad
Joined Nov 2012
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Reviews10
altered-vlad's rating
... and this is a fine demonstration of it.
Overall, I feel really frustrated about the movie once I finished watching it. Because the setting is really promising. It's captivating and, dare I say, original to an extent. The viewer is glued to the events unfolding in the movie. The characters are somehow likable. The father especially was very charismatic. So, as I said, it's really interesting. And you want to watch more; you're glued to the screen. You want to know more and see how things evolve and unfold. The parts at the school too, with the events evolving there, adds to this feeling. But you can't help but feel that the movie is going too fast for what it was trying to portray at the beginning.
Sadly, it's tragic how all this charm is wasted in the second half. I feel that the movie should have been developed more in its first half, staying centered around those initial events. The second half is really slow, and it's baffling how the director, the editor, and everyone involved in making this film didn't see this. The first part needed more time to be explored. I really liked the dynamic and the charm of the foster family-the father, mother, and foster child evolving and overcoming trauma together. I would have loved if the whole movie had focused just on this, but it's only the first half, and it goes by too fast, leaving so much unexplored and underdeveloped.
Then it jumps to a second half that's slow, uninteresting, and generic, confined to a storyline we've seen countless times. It's predictable, and I expected so much more based on the buildup. It was a disappointing experience, especially because I really wanted to love this film. Technically, it's very good-even amazing in some aspects. The first time we're introduced to the Canker Man, the monster of the film, is impressive and terrifying. The design around the monster is fascinating; how it falls, the eyes, the floating butterflies merging into a face and shape-it's quite amazing. But all of this potential is wasted, squandered into a conventional, generic formula we're tired of seeing from Hollywood.
The film also unintentionally captures a harsh reality about fathers. Halfway through, the foster father is erased from the picture, and no one mourns his disappearance, even though his relationship with the child was more developed, more meaningful, more dynamic. I don't know the actor's name, but he had great chemistry with the foster child. Unlike the mother, who was mostly a plank of wood, a plank struggling with trauma that the film never truly explores. Her "overcoming" trauma happens abruptly, through a scene of her reading some files over her bed. It's unconvincing, rushed, and very rough-not smooth at all.
Overall, I feel really frustrated about the movie once I finished watching it. Because the setting is really promising. It's captivating and, dare I say, original to an extent. The viewer is glued to the events unfolding in the movie. The characters are somehow likable. The father especially was very charismatic. So, as I said, it's really interesting. And you want to watch more; you're glued to the screen. You want to know more and see how things evolve and unfold. The parts at the school too, with the events evolving there, adds to this feeling. But you can't help but feel that the movie is going too fast for what it was trying to portray at the beginning.
Sadly, it's tragic how all this charm is wasted in the second half. I feel that the movie should have been developed more in its first half, staying centered around those initial events. The second half is really slow, and it's baffling how the director, the editor, and everyone involved in making this film didn't see this. The first part needed more time to be explored. I really liked the dynamic and the charm of the foster family-the father, mother, and foster child evolving and overcoming trauma together. I would have loved if the whole movie had focused just on this, but it's only the first half, and it goes by too fast, leaving so much unexplored and underdeveloped.
Then it jumps to a second half that's slow, uninteresting, and generic, confined to a storyline we've seen countless times. It's predictable, and I expected so much more based on the buildup. It was a disappointing experience, especially because I really wanted to love this film. Technically, it's very good-even amazing in some aspects. The first time we're introduced to the Canker Man, the monster of the film, is impressive and terrifying. The design around the monster is fascinating; how it falls, the eyes, the floating butterflies merging into a face and shape-it's quite amazing. But all of this potential is wasted, squandered into a conventional, generic formula we're tired of seeing from Hollywood.
The film also unintentionally captures a harsh reality about fathers. Halfway through, the foster father is erased from the picture, and no one mourns his disappearance, even though his relationship with the child was more developed, more meaningful, more dynamic. I don't know the actor's name, but he had great chemistry with the foster child. Unlike the mother, who was mostly a plank of wood, a plank struggling with trauma that the film never truly explores. Her "overcoming" trauma happens abruptly, through a scene of her reading some files over her bed. It's unconvincing, rushed, and very rough-not smooth at all.
