La leyenda de Ochi

A24's first family feature film offers a decent throwback to the 80s sci-fi fantasy stories that were created and it's clear the filmmaker has a lot of passion. The colorful background, designs, costumes and the special effects are all wonderful and beautifully designed to capture the atmosphere and tone. Alongside with the layers of the designs of the creatures and the make up. It reminds me a lot of The Neverending Story vibe.

With the musical score being pretty good and the atmosphere, I appreciate the new world concept the filmmaker is able to make as I love to see a new whole world to be made or explored. The performances from the cast are all pretty good and the creature, Ochi, is so cute!

However, what holds the movie back from being good is the writing and structure. The writing offers new concepts and ideas but the cliche approach to how it navigates the scenarios starts to feel uninteresting and doesn't hit the emotional impact. Alongside with the thinly written characters that really made me struggle to connect with their goals or understand their motivations. Kind of a shame since I love the vibe but I did wish the writing was better.

Overall, it's a good movie from children as it is a clear film for family entertainment. A24 recently has been having a weird timeline of movies ever since they opened to make more commerical films.

I had the opportunity to attend an early screening of The Legend of Ochi ahead of its theatrical release this Friday. The film offers a unique and imaginative premise, blending fantasy elements with a heartfelt narrative. The use of practical effects, such as puppetry, and the choice of real-world locations contribute to its distinctive visual style, reminiscent of classic 1980s fantasy films.

However, I found the pacing to be slower than anticipated, which affected my overall engagement with the story. While there are moments of humor that provide relief, the film's deliberate tempo may not resonate with all viewers. Additionally, some night scenes appeared overly dark, making it challenging to discern details, though other scenes were visually striking.

Despite these aspects, I appreciate the film's ambition and the creative efforts behind its production. I sincerely hope The Legend of Ochi finds its audience and enjoys a successful run upon release.

The Legend of Ochi is a very ambitious project for someone to tackle as their directorial debut and I give praise to Isiah Saxon for really going for it. The world building here is pretty solid for the most part and the movie starts off with a strong setup and some good action. The main Ochi creature himself is very endearing and his connection with the young girl is very sweet. The fact that the creatures are practical is awesome. The movie has some funny moments especially the scenes with Willem Dafoe and that main duo. However the movie loses the plot a little bit in the second half. Character actions feel like they're forced in order for the plot to continue and some of the pay off feels cheap. The movie's ending feels a little cliche and because of that I feel like this movie is going to have a hard time really engaging general audiences. Overall it's an entertaining enough movie and I love that Saxon got to express his creative vision, but some more fleshing out of the world and characters could've helped.

This film has atmosphere, I'll give it that. The previews had me excited to check it out; Willem DaFoe hunting ape monsters in a viking outfit? Sign me up! The production design is top notch, the strange lost in time setting of Carpathia is beautiful and haunting, and the creature design and execution is very well done.

The story, on the other hand, seems to be an afterthought. The dialogue is indistinct (figuratively and literally; oftentimes I had no idea what they were saying), and the characters really lacked any nuance or development. Quirky for the sake of quirkiness.

My main gripe, though, is that it mostly fails as a kids' movie. I normally love slow, atmospheric films, but this one moved like the tectonic plates that formed the mountains of Catpathia. I brought my 9-year old and he didn't hesitate to tell me how boring he found the film, and we left before it ended. There was very little humor, and most of the parts that seemed to be attempts at laughs fell completely flat.

I really wanted to like this film. I admire the dedication to practical effects, and the attention to feeling and atmosphere in the world building. Unfortunately, the lack of a compelling story or characters made this into a slog.

Once again, the world is introduced to a supremely cute and photogenic creature meant to evoke child-like joy. The only difference is, this isn't some E. T. knock-off, but more like a dark Disney film from the early 80s.

Filled with dark imagery, ominous music and some deep themes about parental control and relationships, The Legend of Ochi gives us a sense of fear, joy and triumph amidst the backdrop of the Carpathian Mountains. It's rare to see this kind of movie made these days, especially since the hyper reality of the film's world has a touch of Wes Anderson. Fortunately, the film doesn't go too hard in that department as the world feels a little more real than Anderson's sensibilities.

Overall, the story starts out pretty strong, giving us a very good foundation to focus on. However, it's the muddled middle where the problems begin. A couple of overly convenient contrivances occur, and while they were certainly meant to move the story quicker, it was still jarring in their sudden entrance.

The only other complaint was sometimes the VFX shots didn't look convincing, but this was a low budget movie and they did a good job considering their limitations. Overall, I found the film to be a joy and interesting to look at, which is fine from time to time.