willxcore

i might be too generous by 1/2 a star, bc there's undeniably some sauce missing here. it's well made, though, and nails that particular flavor of suburban despair where things are fine/good on the surface but the foundation is rotten, or in this case... icy. not as good as similarly themed movies that do more with the material. stuff like american beauty and election come to mind, but it has its own unique stuff going on to make it feel like it earns its place in that crowd.

good: it looks phenomenal. whatever they did (or rather didn't do bc apparently the cinematographer forewent the use of lens filters that were popular in the 70s) to get it to be so crispy and delightfully grainy works extremely well. i want to hunt down any other movie that was shot even remotely similarly so i can soak in the visuals. the soundtrack is very cool, too. meh: the story is uneven-leaning-forgettable. i was intrigued from the start in the first act, but it becomes a one trick pony once they're in the jungle. watching the camera cut back and forth between one guy driving and another guy standing outside the truck frantically waving them forward isn't compelling. the men never really get any interiority beyond their first segments, and i suppose that's the point bc of the condition (both mental and geographical) that they're in, but it left me cold on feeling invested in the outcome. i did enjoy the one part where they rig the contraption to lower the rock onto the nitroglycerin, that was fun.

you can't make me care about a character who spends more than half the movie pretending to listen to a story they already know. of the two twists, one of them is too obvious and the other is too inconsequential, so neither have any impact.

the only non-OG crow that tries to do at least something with the two main characters instead of fast forwarding directly into "now i'm the crow with makeup." it doesn't work, but at least it tried.