La Muerte De Un Unicornio

I came to this movie without having watched a trailer. The movie does take a bit of time to set the pieces up for the déroulement of the main story. The issue is that the movie has a few continuity problems, which is due to the fact that the movie has essentially three locations, not counting the airplane in the intro: the woods (and it's surrounding), outside the mansion, inside the mansion. This means that during the rampage, there are times where the unicorn must have taken a coffee break or something because its night time in one scene and the the very next one its midmorning.

I did enjoy Anthony Carrigan's performance as well as Jenna Ortega's.

I won't be too harsh on this movie since it doesn't take itself seriously and all the actors know that but they express their flaws quite brilliantly.

Death of A Unicorn is theoretically a horror-comedy underpinned by thematic denunciations of greed and environmental exploitation. The horror is essentially non-existent, the comedy is trite and predictable, and the thematic moralizing is as deep as a puddle. This isn't overtly bad or insulting; but it is stale and flaccid. The movie's one saving grace, such as it is, is a likeable cast that includes Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Will Poulter and Tea Leoni. They all seem to be trying hard to make something out of a script that didn't merit their talents, and their charisma makes you want to like the movie more than it deserves.

The good- pretty cool lore and set up for the unicorns. Promising father-daughter set up, some good satire of the rich and powerful. Will Poulter is the best of the cast.

The bad- The father's character development felt very unearned, most of the movie I was praying for his bloody comeuppance. The rich family was too one-note for the amount of screen time they get. CGI was noticeably mediocre but understandable for a low budget movie.

With a rewrite or two, and some more money for CGI and action sequences, this could have been a sleeper surprise with genuine sequel potential as I really did like what they did with the unicorns. But because most all the characters were one-dimensional, the movie drags in the middle third as you wait for the inevitable. When it does finally happen, it's somewhat entertaining but let down by its poor CGI, so-so action sequences, and clunky plot resolution. The first two are forgivable given its budget, the third is not.

I don't regret watching this movie, I just wish that it had lived up to its potential.

That could have been exploited more magically with awesome fantasy features. Instead it shows very good visual effects except the baby unicorn, mumbo jumbo human greed and getting high on unicorn calcific powder and rejuvenating extracts to narcissistic own use.

Jenna Ortega is averagely hard enough to watch with near zero youthful charisma, but when you have her as one of the executive producers the result is not bright.

The effects were good, the whole movie and cast weren't.

• Screenplay/storyline/plots: 6
• Production value/impact: 7
• Development: 7
• Realism: 7
• Entertainment: 6.5
• Acting: 6.5
• Filming/photography/cinematography: 7
• VFX: 8
• Music/score/sound: 6
• Depth: 5.5
• Logic: 5
• Flow: 7
• Dark comedy/fantasy/horror/thriler/drama: 6.5
• Ending: 2.

This movie could work with the strange premise and shoddy CGI. But, it requires characters to be likeable or at least relatable. That's the big issue here. It plays hard into the fame of Jenna Ortega. She's supposed to be the maiden with a pure heart. But, she comes off mores like an angst teenager with a terrible haircut. Paul Rudd is decent enough, but you find yourself getting annoyed with him immediately.

The Rich Family: take your typical evil greedy rich family and that's all you get here. They're ready to make a buck. That's their entire drive. There were hints of depth that were destroyed by misplaced comedy. When the father is standing, the son's immediately reaction was great. Then they went hokey.

In the end, this is a forgettable movie. The premise should carry it better, but the characters ruin it. The CGI is bad. But, you can let it pass if the characters are relatable. This movie fails here.