Acide

In the middle of a heat wave, an ominous cloud appears and with it, a lethal acid rain. A separated family: father (Guillaume Canet) , mother (Patience Munchenbach) and daughter (Laeitita Dosch) will have to come together to getaway this plague ravaging the world. An ominous cloud is slowly moving inland, forcing the population to run away. As the cloud keeps on moving forward inescapably, panic strikes. The cloud is acid !.

After his acclaimed and famous first film, 'The Cloud' , nominated for the César and Lumiere awards for best first film in 2022, director Just Philippot releases this impactful thriller nominated for best film at the 2023 Sitges Festival. The film is based on Philippot's short film of the same name released in 2018.

In 'Acide' , filmmaker Philippot takes up the criticism against climate change and its consequences that began with 'The cloud', putting into focus the story of a fractured family that must survive a world plunged into chaos, panic and destruction. A passable french film that translates of intelligent manner the emotions, reactions, tension and pieces so well known from works about same theme, here almost everything was done on set, with minimal CGI work needed. The cinematography, the performance, music, the use of light, the make up , the contryside scenes are just acceptable.

The movie depicts the effort of the parents to save their daughter. As well as the run, the sacrifice of the father, the reactions of others, the necessity of self conservation, containing inspired details, and some splendid crafted scenes.

The interpretations are decent and the pace of the film keeps things moving over any small quibbles in the detail. The cast includes to Guillaume Canet (the beach), and Laetiitia Dosch (nominated for the César in 2018 for best new actress for Montparnasse Bienvenue).

The film was professionally directed by Just Philippot, though results to slow and a small boring part, along with too many night scenes in which you can barely see anything. Philippot previously directed ¨The Cloud (La nuée) ¨, ¨4 histoires fantastiques¨and shorts as: Acid¨,¨Dig Down Deep¨ and ¨Ses Souffles¨. ¨Acide¨ got various prizes and nominations, such as: Sitges Catalonian International Film Festival 2023 Nominated Official Fantàstic Competition Best Motion Picture Just Philippot. César Awards, France 2024 Nominated César Best Visual Effects (Meilleurs effets visuels) Thomas Duval. Fant, Bilbao Fantasy Film Festival nominated Guillaume Canet, Patience Munchenbach, and Laetitia Dosch in Lluvia ácida (2023) 2024 Nominado Jury Prize.

No pun intended - the movie is a bit slow paced, but still has quite the impact. I had no idea this was based on a short movie (I probably would have watched it prior if I had known) ... just saw this on the site here. I assume the general idea was taken and expanded - more time to tell the story. But maybe it works or rather worked, better in the shorter format.

Acting is fine, the effects are good and the movie does look good. Not sure about the ending myself, but things have to end one way or another - overall the movie does not seem to get too much love here - but it is more than decent of course. Just be aware that this demands patience from you the viewer.

I really liked the first act of the movie with an interesting set up and dynamics but unfortunately, the movie falls apart due to poor writing and uninteresting characters. "Acid" is the type of movie where it contains an interesting concept about environmental disasters but unfortunately fails to fulfill it's potential because of the messy writing where concepts are all over the place, certain amounts of logic that really doesn't make any sense and characters that are not interesting and honestly, REALLY unlikeable.

The camerawork, the sound designs and the color presentations are pretty good. The performances from the cast members are solid as they have some decent moments of emotions. Including some solid special effects and make up used. But the negative components really overshadow the movie. Disaster movies like this I can watch just for fun popcorn but the unlikable characters, plot holes, and the messy writing makes it difficult to really believe much of this movie.

The premise of acid-rain and climate collapse was potentially interesting and thus why I watched it in the first place. But the cinematography and effects were confusing, I couldn't tell when or where's it was safe to go. So that ends up being disappointing. But the worst are the characters and their "development". You get a very hazy backstory, a sick girlfriend, and hostile divorced parents with a teenage daughter who lives up to the stereotypical obnoxious teenage girl role. Her father has this nefarious past, one of many storylines that go nowhere. It's hard to say if she even likes her parents. They have no real heart-to-heart talks because they're running for safety. I get that -except - the daughter makes no attempts because ALL SHE DOES is scream non-stop for either mama or papa...mostly because she thinks she knows everything and ignores their attempts to keep her safe.. and then she starts screaming for them again.

This could have been an interesting climate-change horror story, instead it becomes a story of people we don't get to know...except that they are stuck with an unlikeable teenager who, I suspect, none of us end up rooting for.

I watched this movie and thought the idea is good but why oh why do directors insist on stupid teenagers being stupid. It seems to be an after 2000 thing where teenagers seem to be spolt intitled idiots. In modern disaster films about global warming etc people moan about this that and the other but what do they expect. They caused it! To be honest we deserve everything that is going to happen to us. I'd love to be more positive about the future but as long as corruption and greedy people run this planet well this film theme could be the norm! A good movie should have characters we root for. I'm afraid in this one I didn't care enough about them to want them to survive!