Labyrinth - Review (Spoilers)
Relatable and likable
Hey people, i heard some good ol' relatable and likable characters are what gets your serotonin pumping? Well buckle up because this movie has loads and loads of that:
For starters, i found it so relatable when the main character talks alone out of nowhere as she contextualizes the audience on what she is doing or what is happening. Since i am a schizophrenic maníac, i connected with that extremely well; I also feel like my life is a movie being watched by little people 24/7, so i like to keep them well updated on the lore.
If my sarcasm didn't made it clear already, (yeah all that was sarcasm, specially the part where i said i was schizophrenic hehe) yes, this movie's script sticks out as being peculiarly terrible. Its one of those where its incredibly transparent that things happen only so that more things can happen. Every set up, every plot device, every place the story is going to is all so incredibly obvious.
This is a fantasy story with a modern twist, so the norm says you gotta start the film by introducing some boring corny-ass human family conflict that i couldn't care less about, obviously so that our main character has a justification for wanting to get into the escapist fantasy reality: Oh you are showing me this girl really hates her baby brother? Oh geez, i hope nothing happens to him, i hope she is not forced to go in a magical quest to save him and being taught to love and valorate him by the end. That would be incredibly obvious.
As i suggested before, the entire film is plague by clunky exposition dialogue that sincerely makes it look like our main character has some form of mental disability.
And since the main priority here is to make this as relatable as possible to sell as many tickets as possible, that of course means making the main character as uninteresting of a blank slate as possible, to the point that even the dumb marionettes are the only ones allowed to display any personality because they are only secondary characters complimenting of the protagonist's and therefore the audience's experience.
Who would have thought that after years of careful market testing, capitalism has taught us that one of best ways to ensure the consumer has a positive experience with the product, is to ensure that the viewer reflects themselves on what is being shown.
That's as close as we have to a proven formula that will make a movue sell more… Why do you think so many do it? Why do you think i dislike it so much?
Who would have tought, that the best way to make your film better is to make it worse!- or sorry, not better, Relatable, i meant.
And if the way the main character was written wasn't annoying enough, damn… her acting skills. I don't know if this actor went on to deliver some amazing performance elsewhere, but holy shit this is not a good career starter at all, the entire time she was so corny and so obvious in what she was doing with the material and instructions she was given. She has toddler-like levels of compellingess. Honestly she is a gold mine of unintentional comedy, you could do edits with her face the same way we do out of Tobey Mcguire, and i always enjoy myself some director that is clueless enough to let some hilarious performances make it to the final cut. Of course this would be a million light years away from the only time Hollywood has casted someone because of their looks and not their talent (erhhm… every zack snyder or child actor casting choice ever) so i wont be surprised if this is was one more of those.
David bowie
Everything in the movie was stupid and annoying… Until David Bowie shows up and its time for some Rock N' Roll!
(It was still incredibly stupid, but at least now it feels like the film is going somewhere and whenever hes on screen its automatically more watchable)
When he appears, is the point where the story actually begins. Tough sadly that doesnt mea we will ditch the main character. And yeah you guessed it, he is one of the better things this film had going for, and they still savagely underused him.
I guess him and the movies soundtrack, as he composed it, are something that go hand in hand, so its perfect time to talk about both.
I have truly not heard much from David Bowie, but what I heard i always really liked, and man, is the music on this one ever such a vibe. Its so iconic and so incredibly grounded on the decade of the eighties, all its conventions and familiarities that i found it to be instantly so iconic. Its the sort of thing that would make you feel nostalgic for the eighties, even if you weren't even born in the eighties. I honestly loved it.
Bowie is such a blast to watch in this honestly, his music, his lines, his hair, his costume, he totally killed his part here. It almost feels like his personality was too big for what this movie is. He was very entertaining to watch, yet annoying and somehow underused. Though important, his is only a supportive role still. He is there only to be the films obvious star-power and mischief around our totally more talented and more interesting main character...They could have just said fuck it and make the story about him, but where would the relatability elemment fit in all that?
He stars in the first musical scene of the film, and this was honestly a marvel to watch for several reasons. it comes out of fucking nowhere and at a point in the film where its too late to feel natural, because the tone has already been set, then all of a sudden the movie is a musical i guess… It was an extremely drawn out, extremely poorly paced and poorly coordinated scene, and yet, i was having such a blast watching it. David Bowie singing and performing surrounded by these marionettes just chilling in this set, it was the most eighties thing ever, and it was definitely the highlight of the experience for me.
Also yeah theres this thing where the music will appear out of fucking nowhere and theyll start singing even when the sitúation did not called it for it. But hey, more Bowie is more Bowie, besides, I'll take anything that is a break from the main character. Whom I'm still not done with yet…
I suppose this films fantasy scenarios were pulled off arguably well, its just ironic as fuck that the character who you place there specifically for the audience to project themselves in here reactions, is the exact reason why the film is all the more difficult to believe. She drags the whole thing down.
I love how once we get to fantasy land, she perfectly accepts everything she sees or is told by these fantastical beings, whom its clearly stated to be her first time coming into contact with, and on top of that, she just fucking met. The film set her up as a big fantasy nerd in the beggining, so i guess she really was that much into fantasy that when she starts to see goblins and shit never once does she stop to question whether she's tripping or not.
The writers have inadvertently created the most easy-to-take-advantage-of character ever, and its almost a good thing they weren't aware enough to realize because now its bizarre comedy material. It's incredibly dumb.
Its unfathomably ironic that a story about escaping reality, and making things relatable for the average person, the writers could seriously use some contact with reality and interact with the average person, because If this is seriously what they think the average teenage girl, or any sane human being acts like for that matter, they seriously need to go touch some grass.
Story and technical stuff
Unfortunately even tough there was plenty of potential here for them to do interesting stuff with the shots, they didn't. The directing was quite bland.
The fantastical elements are fine enough, they functioned more less for everything they wrote them to do. And if we talk about the práctical elements there are lots to be appreciated. Of course some is noticeably cheated and you wont get any ultra-realism from this eighties movie, but nonetheless at the very least its a film that has kept most of its charm despite its age. That big guy suit looks fantastic in my opinion, its hands down the thing where film amazed me. I appreciate that most scenes they were in they build a set for.. Overall, this is a very silly looking movie. Its campy vintage fantasy at its finest.
But unfortunately this didnt came without its healthy dose of technical issues… Its the eighties after all. What could confirm that better but the dated ass Cgi that we see on film?
But no scene shows its age the most, than that one where they were dancing in the woods. The effects look particularly atrocious on that one. Feels like the budget tan out and werent able to build a set for that so they rushed out some of the worst green screen ive seen in any high budget film. I have now just remembered that i saw George Lucas' name pop up in the main credits and he was a producer on this. That makes everything click into sense. It explains why this movie is filled with annoying little creature characters crawling and laughing around everywhere. And the use of shitty looking green screen and obnoxious computer graphics. Though another thing i found kinda impressive was how that the main cast of characters continues to grow through the entire thing. As a studio executive, the last thing you want is these expensive looking characters to show up and stick around till the end.
And I appreciate this ambitious intent of making this an epic fantasy story quest kinda thing, wich means having the characters go trough several different fantasy scenarios, getting themselves wrapped in trouble and meeting new characters, and of course to build most of it practically, but even that ended up working against the movie because of how much screen time it ends up piling up. It just keeps going and going for what it feels like too long. And despite the inherent fantasims of discovery you kinda want to be over already. If this film was gonna attempt something like this, it's obvious this was going to be the case.
The ending set piece was fun though, they used some aesthetic choices definitely inspired by M.C. Escher paintings. I enjoyed watching that on film.
This is not the worst thing ever, if you only care about what happens on screen and not how we get to those things and how they are presented, then yay! Maybe you will find this as an incredibly written fantasy story with extremely memorable characters. But for me, despite all there was to appreciate about its production value, it was the kinda opposite of that. Quite bland and forgettable.
5.5/10
Comments
Post a Comment