meagankwilcox

I'm torn. I really wanted to like this, an original story, for starters, not a reboot or franchise. Marketed as Guy Ritchie does National Treasure? Sign me up! I expected Krasinski to give us his take on some Indiana Jones charm... but something weird happened. Maybe he was going for suave and aloof, but it just felt like lines that should've been charming or even funny... missed. I noticed first the dialogue. Immediately, it feels like the characters are all trying to impress with pretentious speech, like describing something as cerulean when you could just say blue. Some of the dialogue feels like it's supposed to be crackling wit and snappy back and forth... and it neither snaps, crackles, or pops. But it's not entirely the writing's fault... line delivery is weird across the board. Almost like the actors can't tell if their character's sincere or not. I found myself going "now why would s/he say it like that". I began to wait for a plot twist like in Argyle (done well in my opinion), where just as you're about to roll your eyes at how unbelievable it all is, you are introduced to "the real world" and discover you've been viewing a cheesy book or movie. But after 30 minutes, I realized such absolution wasn't coming. And after a particularly tedious round of "hello again" dialogue (literally-it's said three times back to back and no one got the pacing down), I just had to stop. I feel like this could've worked, and I really want to know why it didn't. Did Guy Ritchie tell everyone to deliver the lines as awkward as possible? Are John and Natalie only children and not able to understand sibling dynamics? Was this whole thing actually an experiment in AI film production and nothing is as it seems? I don't know. And I wish I did.

I have to laugh at people complaining about this movie because it's a musical or mentions the moon a lot. Like... yeah. The trailer pretty efficiently covers that! Anyway... More than once I was awed at the colors and visuals. The storyline is sweet and a little sad. All of the songs were so beautiful. But what else can I expect from a movie starring Philippa Soo? Plus I love to see the representation!!