Chloë Grace Moretz – NZ Film Freak

dark places

Director: Gilles Paquet-Brenner
Writer: Gilles Paquet-Brenner (Based on Dark Places by Gillian Flynn)
Released: August 2015
Starring: Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult and Chloë Grace Moretz
—

Why do I do this to myself? I read the book, then watch the movie. Of course I’m going to be disappointed.

As per the Gillian Flynn book of the same name, this is a story about a seven-year-old girl, Libby Day, who witnessed the massacre of her family. She testifies against her 15-year-old brother, who gets jail for life.

Libby is still emotionally scarred by the murders 25 years on, and is struggling with depression, to pay bills, to even get out of bed in the mornings. When one day, some random (Nicholas Hoult) gets in touch to explain there is growing belief that her brother is innocent.

With the motivation of getting a bit of desperately-needed cash by speaking to this man, she begins to question what happened that day. Did she really see her brother killing her family?

Basically, what was a layered and intriguing mystery in the book, becomes a simplified one-watch film. It’s really nothing special. It’s just a good-looking woman skulking about, and figuring out the mystery with very little effort.

dark places 2

Beyond this basic storyline, is my annoyance at the casting of Libby Day. Libby is a big-breasted, short, red-haired woman with a temper. She is not a tall, athletic, beautiful pixie-haired woman… In other words, Charlize Theron should not have been the main character. But she produced it, so she cast herself despite the obvious physical differences. She don’t care. #richpeoplelife

It’s just so annoying! The integrity of the story is weakened by this obvious disregard for the main character. Then again, have you ever heard of an average-looking Hollywood actor getting a main part in a movie? I guess there’s a bigger force at play here.

I was able to watch Dark Places while simultaneously doing multiple other things and still felt like I experienced what little impact there was to experience.

Overall, it’s an easy-watch (even though it’s not supposed to be).

Jodie’s rating: 5/10

Directed by: Peter Farrelly, Elizabeth Banks, Steven Brill, Steve Carr, Rusty Cundieff, James Duffy, Griffin Dunne, Patrik Forsberg, James Gunn, Bob Odenkirk, Brett Ratner, Will Graham and Jonathan van Tulleken
Written by: Steve Baker, Will Carlough, Tobias Carlson, Jacob Fleisher, Patrik Forsberg, Will Graham, James Gunn, Claes Kjellstrom, Jack Kukoda, Bill O’Malley, Matthew Alec, Portenoy, Greg Pritikin, Rocky Russo, Olle Sarri, Elizabeth Wright Shapiro, Jeremy Sosenko, Jonathan van Tulleken, Jonas Wittenmark
Released: January 2013
Featuring: Dennis Quaid, Greg Kinnear, Seth MacFarlane, Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Naomi Watts, Anna Faris, Emma Stone, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloë Grace Moretz, Gerard Butler, Johnny Knoxville, Stephen Merchant, Halle Berry AND the rest of Hollywood.
—

Short review: It sucks. Don’t bother seeing it.

So it’s pretty much a series of skits, all directed and written by different people. The story line is how a crazed writer blackmails a producer to get his movie comprised of a series of short skits made. The finished product is the movie that is in the cinemas now, Movie 43.

I mean, obviously this film was not going to be good, you could tell that from the trailer.

I can’t say I actually laughed at all in this movie… The funniest scene was the first short with Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman but even so, I only giggled a little.

The scene where Halle Berry is dared by Stephen Merchant to blow out a blind kid’s birthday candles before he does would have got a bit of a laugh too, if I hadn’t already seen the trailer and knew it was coming. Oh, and Merchant’s plastic surgery results were chuckle-worthy too.

If you want to be grossed out in a way where you also feel targeted and creeped out, skip the horror movie and watch Movie 43 by all means. But if you want to laugh at something… See an actual comedy.

I would like to take this moment to ask Kate Winslet and Emma Stone: “WHY!?”

There were many things that made me cringe, like in the homeschooling scene where the parents want to give their son every high school experience including his “first kiss”, or the entire “iBabe” sketch, or the superhero speed dating sketch. It’s not that I was necessarily offended, it just… Wasn’t funny.

Like, I understood where I was supposed to laugh and why it should be funny… But it just really wasn’t. Like when you watch an episode of Dora the Explorer and she makes a joke, you know why it is technically ‘funny’ but you don’t laugh because the jokes are simple and lame. Obviously the lame jokes in Movie 43 are R-rated humour though.

If you want to see a TON of famous people making fools of themselves, I’m sure you will enjoy this movie.

But it is rude, crude with lots of nude.

Jodie’s rating: 1.5/10 (.5 per time I chuckled)