Campus Code

No but seriously, am I high? That's the only way to make sense of the non sensical I just Watched 40 minutes of. (I had To give it a fair chance).

OK, so I have been a fan of Jesse McCartney since I was a kid. So I decided to check out his newer work in the acting industry. He kind of slid off my grid as I grew up. I kind of forgot about him. Recently I heard some of his newer music and I was very impressed. I also checked out his other movie Keith. I thought he did very well in that, very well. I only knew he did music, so I decided to explore his other achievements. I saw an interview on youtube of him talking about this interactive movie called Campus Life. I decided to check it out. I viewed Campus Life on the Jumpstreet website. I watched it 2 times to make sure I didn't forget or miss anything. The site was having issues as well. So here comes the review....(dun dun duuuunnnn...) I was not impressed with Campus Life. I love Jesse but this movie was a bad move. The acting was...odd...and the ending sucked. The effects were terrible as well. It was a movie I wish I never saw, I cringed as I watched, it was just bad. I won't let this get in the way of me continuing to support Jesse through his career, but I hope he doesn't pick up a small cheap low budget film like this again.

If it was only me, it would probably be OK. Then I could see this as some kind of surreal movie experiment. But it isn't unfortunately. This is about some college students (I think) go about their daily business and stumbling into "unusual" situations where they seem to gain supernatural powers. Maybe.

One reason this isn't very clear is that the plot is horrible. The weird, surreal things are laid one upon another from the start (and I mean start after the opening sequence) where people stop reacting, beat each other up, sell stolen stuff, bully one another for no apparent reason. And the characters "act" as this is all very normal. Then there is the "acting". It's horribly over the top on all accounts. Seriously, horribly bad including every cliché in an amateur directors "How-to manual" on directing. Including the goth group clad in black. :sighs: I guess it all somewhat is explained at the end, but even so - the explanation for everyones extremely erratic behaviour doesn't make much sense. Avoid if it's available for free on cable, run like mad in another direction if your significant other suggests you see it at a theatre.

Took me two days to watch this.

Let me start off by saying I only came across this film because I'm really into Conor Leslie projects right now.

This film is terrible right off the bat. The CGI, VFX, screenwriting, cinematography, lighting, and acting are all absolutely atrocious. It feels like a bad CW/Lifetime made-for-TV film that should never have been released.

This film had potential, maybe if given a better cast, budget, and creative team.

Perhaps a TV series could have helped execute it better.

Conor Leslie did great with what she was given though.

The concept was actually pretty good. The acting wasn't bad. The movie did suffer due to some of the dialogue, and I'm not expert on cinema, but I suspect the directing and budget hurt it as well. I was shocked to see Liotta and Martin Scorsese, then I realized that the director was Cathy Scorsese. I can only assume a family member decided to break into directing and Martin and Ray gave them a little help. Hey, that's cool. I would do the same for my kids. Everyone wants their kids to be successful. In any event, it's a weird ride that comes together at the end... well, as much as a low-budget mediocre movie can pull that off. It wasn't the worst way to spend a Sunday afternoon.