cyndriana

I went into this movie not really knowing anything, so I didn't have a ton of expectations. Reading the reviews, it seems that some people expected more character study, while others expected more crime. After finishing this movie it is clear to me that the crime IS part of the character study. The balance between crime and drama was perfect in this movie. So don't go into it expecting full-on crime/action or full-on drama.

The story is unique and the main character, Chris Pratt, was very well-written in my opinion. The movie gives us enough drama-time for us to care about his fate. And it really helped that the character was played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

The storytelling is good. I really enjoyed the addition of narration. It added to the immersion.

A reminder that good ideas don't make a good movie. It seems that because this movie is science FICTION and that it has some cool ideas it gets a pass for having horrendous, and I mean horrendous, writing and storytelling.

This is one of the most nonsensical movies I've seen in my life. Nothing is explained. Nothing makes sense. Nothing is coherent. It's just one plot hole after the next. It seems that the writers had their ending in mind and their goal was to make it happen at all costs, even if that meant the ending was unearned and that the story was nonsensical.

A good sci-fi movie should have a cohesive wordbuilding and an internal logic. This is precisely what makes sci-fi believable and realistic. But this movie? This movie will absolutely require you to suspend disbelief because it has zero internal logic. This movie just does whatever it wants without a care for coherent storytelling and worldbuilding.

The movie could've been a solid 8/10 for me, but then the last 20 minutes came and weakened everything.

I will say, first, that the movie wasn't what I had expected at all. I had completely overlooked the "dark comedy" tag and went in expecting a serious psychological thriller with a lot of mind games. It turns out, 25 minutes into the movie, that it wasn't going to be that at all. But I adjusted my expectations and got very quickly immersed into the dark comedy. The acting from David Hyde Pierce is BRILLIANT and the character he played was absolutely compelling. Long gone were my expections then, I was fully enjoying the insanity.

Unfortunately, the last 20 minutes felt very anticlimatic and the movie turned in a very unnecessary direction. Multiple plot points were introduced then and it made me wonder, what is the point? Remove these last 20 minutes and the brilliance of the movie would've remained intact. So I'm very disappointed that it dragged just to introduce some plot points that didn't serve the story at all.