Looks That Kill

This film turned out to be better than I expected. Although it is far from perfect and has some problems, I absolutely love the characters and the fresh twist of humour. It is a refreshing film that is very different from the others. I love the ending and felt the overall message was conveyed very well. I've rated this film a little higher than what I would have normally given it, but because of it's refreshing concept and good writing (more so for the characters but the plot is also very good) it has earned itself an 8/10.

If Wes Anderson, Tim Burton, Michel Gondry and John Hughes Had An Awkward Love Child. This is an unusual romantic comedy with visual cues of Wes Anderson and Tim Burton with some magicality of Gondry, but the main driving factor is the surprisingly heartful drama that brings back memories of some great John Hughes Dramedies of the 80's. Brandon Flynn stars as a young boy that is lethally attractive, his dry presentation of Max could fit into the ensemble cast of any Wes Anderson film or maybe it draws back memories of an extremely attractive Johnny Depp getting covered in makeup and scars so he's unrecognizable by Tim Burton just this time Moore covers the young heart-throb Flynn in bandages and sunglasses vs makeup and scissor-hands. There is a magical sequence at the end of the movie that would make Gondry jealous, I won't give it away, but is a powerful kicker to an impressive first effort by Moore.

With that being said I really liked the concept of this movie. I've only seen the first season of 13 reasons why so I haven't see a lot of Flynn in anything to know a lot about his acting. The movie started off quite dark and I was thinking it would be more drama then comedy however it quickly switched gears to be a comedy. I thought it might be some super dark comedy but instead it was just some average teen romance movie with a weird quirk in it. Flynn and his co star do an alright job but the movie doesn't really give them a lot to do. They kind of just walk around a lot.

My main problem with this movie is plausibility. Max (Flynn's character) kills anybody that sees his face. But he has lived his whole life without being arrested, and someone doctors or scientists aren't trying to run tests on him? As well as the fact that the whole seeing his face thing is never explained. Realistically for a lot of the movie only his nose and forehead are covered. What counts as seeing his face? Could he wear one bandage around His noise and have it count? It's just never really explained, which I wouldn't mind if the movie didn't put so much emphasis on the fact he has such a hard time making friends cause nobody wants to be around him.

Overall, it's an alright cheesy movie. Right up my friend Kiz's alley but it didn't blow me away. The last 30 minutes are also pretty slow.

When you get passed the ridiculous premise and glaring plot holes, the film is a good little black comedy/Romcom. The two leads are interesting and funny enough in their roles. Some good supporting roles from some elderly characters which ground the story with some nice comedic results. Now as far is the story outside the boy and girl's dilemmas, the themes and messages getting pretty muddled. It clumsily tries to tackle some serious subjects and gets lost. The movie is similar to the film Spontaneous with its dark/weird/funny/cuteness theme. But that film was more successful in its ideas. But still, Looks That Kill still makes for an entertaining ride.

This is a quirky little movie that seems like it's gonna be super light hearted and fun YA ride, but as the story moves along and you connect with the characters, Director Kellen Moore really hits the emotion button hard and packs in a surprising amount of heart into the final chapters of the film. Really enjoyed the watch!