Jeu funeste

Quite literally like spending the day with your significant other's insipid friends and trying to navigate the intricate and tangled web of group dynamics spun over time; an ordeal which ultimately isn't worth the effort of trying to assimilate. While the "twist" does make everything work a bit better, it still doesn't make it worth your time. Especially when it's the only possible resolution for a murder plot so confined by its setting and lack of characters. The film almost works as contemporary satire, one of a society so stimulated by buzzwords and armchair psychology that it no longer remembers what it's like to have organic or innate thoughts. It examines how constant exposure to contradicting layers of discourse only leads to further confusion and insecurity, which in turn forces individuals to cling even tighter to their own tangled logic. Manic dramatizations and over-complications of reality result in the inability to grasp even the simplest of truths. This is the film's thesis. Unfortunately, it would have carried more weight if it didn't feel as though it were contrived from the same virtual hive mind it so readily condemns.

Not every story needs a hero and it can be refreshing when the characters are a little more "real" and grounded. But it's more difficult to write characters that are jerks that you still want to follow. Bodies Bodies Bodies is aware that the entire group of people they've centred the movie around are terrible people. It's not a blunder or something the creative team overlooked, but I'm not sure why they made that choice. Is the entire point that young people suck? That's fine... but other than the fact they're rich and are snorting and smoking everything in sight, they don't go about it in an amusing way. The movie is trying to crack jokes but it fails at that as well. You don't need heroic or even likeable characters but it forces the story to do even more heavy lifting to hold your attention.

Bodies is a movie where it isn't easy to separate the actors from their characters. I've already talked about how this movie is intentionally populated by vapid and annoying characters. This choice also makes it harder to distinguish between a badly written character or a mishandled performance. If I had to pick a member of the cast that was the most impressive, I'd go with Amandla Stenberg playing the emotionally vulnerable Sophie. She's grown up a lot since her appearance in The Hunger Games and with her character drying out and trying to stay sober, she did a good job being erratic and unpredictable. I liked Maria Bakalova so much in Borat Subsequent, she's just fine here. It's not a comedic role but she didn't have the same spark she showed previously. If there was someone who got on my nerves, Pete Davidson's character David was extra snarky and annoying but I couldn't really distinguish if that was just the character or something he was putting on top of it.

The only defence I can really muster for Bodies is that the central mystery was interesting enough to sustain me through all of the dead air. With all the characters unable to properly process due to the illicit substances and the hurricane raging outside, it could have been anyone and that's properly played up. The reveal is unique but it's also fitting as it kind of fizzles out like most of the tension. I'll give them credit for being creative but I just kind of shrugged as we hit the closing credits.

I've seen worse than Bodies Bodies Bodies but I don't get why there was such huge hype from the critics. Bodies isn't scary and there's only so much tension and excitement to be gleaned from the premise. The acting was fine but it was also hampered by the characters being so self-absorbed and hard to like. While the twist is kind-of new, it didn't mean much and I was still left disappointed that I sunk an hour and a half into this. I'm giving it a 5/10 and I'm probably being generous. We're getting much better thrillers and horror movies more frequently now, you're better off checking out one of those.

This was enjoyable from start to finish, and I don't get the negative reviews, particularly those whining about Gen Z; this isn't just Gen Z, it's any group of rich kids having a party that goes very wrong in any generation, with the same behaviors and reactions any of them would have exhibited in any generation, of course with minor differences. So enough about that.

I also did not expect a typical slasher movie when I started watching this, and the marketing I saw didn't depict it that way, so I don't get the whining about it not being a slasher movie or even a horror movie; it does fall into that genre though, so enough about that.

The actors are smart and behave like real people, and the story is clever, especially the twist at the end. There are no dull moments unless you aren't interested in character development or storyline, so in that case go watch Friday the 13th and leave this film for the rest of us who can appreciate it.

This is a fairly enjoyable and mildly funny movie with some good satirical elements. I had a good time for the most part, except when the extensive arguments started to annoy me. Solid for a one-time viewing. (1 viewing, SuperScreen 8/17/2022)

There are a lot things that I really like about Bodies Bodies Bodies. How it makes fun of Gen Z. Which is why all of the characters are intentionally obnoxious, as well as the great twist. My issues with it being that though the film is short, I started to loose interest. And the humor, which I'll admit I was laughing in any many scenes, there were points where I couldn't tell whether or not if it was trying to be funny. Overall, Bodies Bodies Bodies is a mixed bag.