Review by kikitata

The film certainly does hold some features of it that do make it shine in some parts - the cinematography, first off, is done in such an immaculate manner that it really did help the film progress in a way in terms of the shots that were used. Second of all, Janelle Monáe as a lead also made her excel in many ways possible as she delivered a great performance that really made me feel connected to her character as a whole (I also liked the rest of the cast as well). And last (but not least), can we just praise the marketing skills that they did to promote this film? The ambiguity of the trailers and posters I thought were spectacular and I thoroughly enjoyed how they advertised this film in such mysterious ways.

Unfortunately though, the film itself isn't particularly a masterpiece - it's flawed. The plot had several ways to potentially uplift itself to make such an interesting and unique plot that could've went differently from the outcome that we've got. However, I felt as if this was more so a style over substance flick than something that equally balanced the two together (which with a narrative that this film was going for, would've made it much more better if it had actually went into deeper depths of narrative exploration along with it's artful features). See, when you make a film that tries to make a point, you also have to dig deeper into the narrative that allows it's point to truly shine - however it's as if this film didn't bother to do that for the majority of the time. And the pivotal revelation of the film could've been executed much more better if it was shown at a later time in the film rather than it being shown too early (and even with that I'm not really a fan of the reveal).

I liked the score though, especially the soundtrack that played at the opening scene of the movie (which the scene and the score in itself were amazing). I just wished that this film could've explored more areas, y'know?