Christopher_Reid

This is a very fluffy, frivolous movie but heartwarming nonetheless. The overall story and visual effects feel very childish and low effort, but the acting is decent and there are some nice moments and values. It's a good movie for kids.

It's interesting how many famous people were in this, many before they made it big - Adrien Brody, Matthew McHoweverYouSpellHisLastName, the pigeon woman from Home Alone II (!!!), Joseph Gordon Levitt, Christopher Lloyd, Tony Danza and of course Danny Glover.

The concept feels a bit ridiculous and cliched and didn't really go in the direction I expected. The plot is really barely holding on to any semblance of internal logic. But it's more an excuse for some funny shenanigans and life lessons for the main characters. I think I especially liked the guy who was looking after the 2 kids at every baseball game, seeing the abuse he has to take and how he's gotten used to it. It's pretty hilarious.

Danny Glover feels like the most grounded character, skeptical, getting too old for this stuff, but embracing it anyway. I guess it's less about the angels and more about the effect they have. Definitely a bit of a theme of the placebo effect - believing in yourself and psychologically benefitting from that belief.

This is harmless but lazy entertainment. The acting of the main characters lifts the material, but it's nowhere near as iconic as something like Home Alone or other family-friendly classics. Even kids will roll their eyes at some of it or ask questions like "why don't they just do this" or "why didn't anybody else notice that", etc. The story is less about baseball and more about a boy from a broken home and in that sense, it's not a bad movie. Just a bit silly.

I kinda hated this movie. I get what it's trying to do but I hated the tone and style and complete lack of meaning. I suppose the closest comparison is the first half of Wall-E which also had no dialogue. The difference is that that movie really did look incredible, had cute and interesting characters and a good story. Things actually happened. And the dialogue was minimal, not non-existent. And the 2nd half of Wall-E did have plenty of dialogue (and wasn't as good).

Flow is a chore to sit through. It's vapid. I saw that some reviews called it "liberating" that it doesn't have dialogue, that it doesn't "impose a narrative". My goodness. Please, for the love of god, impose a narrative on me. Give me some kind of story or purpose. Any kind of meaning or commitment to something concrete.

One thing I resent about Flow is that the animals are just that - animals. It's all "realistic". So instead of personalities and characters, we have literal animals. Barking and meowing and growling and making other random noises. Wow. What a great movie. I recently went to the zoo and that was far more riveting than this. And the animals at the zoo were simply eating or swimming or walking around.

There seem to be efforts at humour in Flow. The fact that I have to word it like that is clearly a bad sign. At many times, I wondered "Was that meant to be funny?" but didn't know the answer. I just found it to be very lame. Like, the awkward silences, the animals staring at each-other after making one noise each. Sure, it's quirky and random, but also very boring.

The movie also feels super-pretentious. Like, the cat grabs some fish (why don't the fish have roles and why don't we have empathy for them?) and gives one to each of some other characters. Is this a lecture on generosity? Has any real world cat ever done such a thing? Again, is this realistic or cartoonish? The filmmakers can't make up their mind.

The reality is that nature is harsh and cruel. I've seen nature documentaries. That's why I prefer Disney and Pixar movies where the animals talk and have energy and personalities. They're basically human characters but with a twist. That's how you keep things interesting. But you don't go with literal animals.

I didn't particularly like the art style either. Some of it might be nice as a screensaver. But there's little or no personality to the characters. Think of the style of classic animated characters from other movies and TV shows. How cool they look. Now picture a cat. That's Flow. Just, a cat. And a capybara and some dogs and a big bird. They look like animals, no real expressiveness, no dialogue, no personality.

How on Earth people were entertained by this is a mystery to me. Are people that vapid and bored that seeing some animals float around on a boat and make noises at each-other passes for high art? The characters in Toy Story, The Lion King, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, Cinderella, and countless other classics - they had interesting and unique personalities. They looked cool. Plenty of those movies have lots of non-verbal moments - funny, heartfelt, beautiful. I usually don't like those films for their dialogue. But their characters and stories were vastly more rewarding than the tedious snoozefest that is Flow.

My expectations for this were very low but it wasn't all that bad. Some of the action scenes are decent but none of them stand out as phenomenal or particularly new. The story did interest me but ultimately didn't lead to much. The villain was okay. Overall, it felt like a glorified TV double episode.

One of the best parts was Harrison Ford. I feel like people miss the point with him. They dismiss him as a serious actor. I think he's great. If he's limited, well so are most actors. But Ford uses his strengths really well. If he seems like he doesn't care, it's because he doesn't. He doesn't care about media junkets or bad movies made by people trying to make money.

I think he does care about good movies and good acting though. Although the dialogue is far from great, Ford's performance is really good.

Anthony Mackie is alright, as is his sidekick, but the movie still feels small. It doesn't have real star power. Nor does the story have the scale of other movies. It's not ambitious enough. At least it's trying things, but in an amateurish fashion.

There's a girl spy who was decent. But again, lacking in charisma. And it seemed like she had superpowers at times, unless I'm missing something.

The villain has some nice moments but it's all mostly talking. Pretty good standards if it was a TV show, but not enough for a movie. Movies need to have that extra level, in the budget, in the actors, in the tightness/sharpness of the script, in the overall momentum. Brave New World is much the opposite - Safe Familiar World, with superficial spice.

It's better than the Falcon and Winter Soldier show, but nowhere near as good as Captain America 2 and 3. I still think Bucky should have been chosen. Or, god forbid, lay the character to rest and let Falcon be separate.

In the end, the movie doesn't have much to say. I fear that politics softens the ideas too much. There's more posturing and lecturing than any tough ideas being confronted in mature ways.