Saw this last night. Found footage style film about teens who gain telekinetic powers that strain their friendship.
Theater was packed, which was good for the most part except for one loud dumb person.
Except for one or two floating objects, the majority of the effects were very well done. The flying scenes in particular were fantastic. Not just visually either - the sounds of the wind against the microphone and that the characters all had to wear winter clothes because in real life it’s frickin freezing a mile up, all added to the sense of verité.
The acting was good for the most part. There were one or two nice script moments but the story was fairly straight forward.
The first ten or so minutes have horrible vomit inducing shaky camera work, but after that he gets a new camera and/or flies the camera so it’s not an issue anymore.
Overall, this is a “what if” movie. There’s not a huge story to tell or genius dialogue to chew scenery with. It’s about taking an absurd hypothetical scenario and making it feel like a real experience. And at that it succeeds very well.
I loved it. It’s basically an origin story for a superhero and his archnemesis. Kind of predictable; I called the death of the class president well before it happened.
And damn, but that fight scene in downtown Seattle was well done.
Another entry in the “Found Footage” genre. This one about super powers. Overall I liked it. I found the found footage conceit added a bit of verisimilitude to the beginning of the story but i think by the end they kind of put themselves in a corner because they wanted a certain kind of climax and to stay within the bounds of found footage required a bit of directorial gymnastics that at times was little silly and/or distracting. Still, it was a pretty simple story decently told.
Saw it. Liked it, as did my 13yo son. Similar to a favorite movie of mine, Primer, with more teen angst and less restraint and more CGI. But immersive through its small-but-cool feel and a seemingly-realistic pace and progression.
I liked the movie well enough. The Seattle fight scene was pretty well done, though I do wonder how they could do that much flying around and not be seen. Am pretty tired of found footage movies, though the looseness with which the movie switched between sources helped a lot, even if it doesn’t make sense that someone would have edited all of that together (or how they’d have access to the final bit of video).
Quality work on a low budget. Hope to see more from the people involved.
I loved it. I thought it had a refreshing lack of most of the cheesy elements that every movie seems to have today like one-liner dialogue and yellow fireball explosions. It was real without being overgritty or dark. I liked the near total lack of plot - Kids get superpowers - what happens next? I genuinely thought that Andrew would become a superhero and get a handwave happy ending for much of the film.
I thought it was much better than cloverfield because it lacked the bombast and self-importance of that movie. I really think the two are really only superficially similar.
The only plot hole that annoyed me was the usual conceit that american students ride to school in perfectly preserved classic cars.
Saw this movie last night. Really, REALLY loved this show! Great cast, great plot, loved the premise, and LOVED the special effects. I can’t recommend this highly enough.
Classic movie Macguffin, i.e., no real explanation. Kids go down hole, encounter glowing thing, hole gets collapse-y, kids wake up outside hole and start to realize they have powers…
They can’t handle the powers and stuff happens bad, turning on each other both unintentionally and otherwise, but with a bit of cautious optimism at the end for those that make it through…
I saw this yesterday, and, I don’t know, maybe I’m naive (although I think of myself as a slightly-more-than-casual movie fan), but I was a little surprised when the Steven character died. I’ll just say I like letting myself be surprised.
Overall, I thought the movie was amazing. I caught myself wondering a couple times why it was edited the way it was, because as someone mentioned upthread, it didn’t really work within the “found footage” theme at all. The special effects were adequate, and especially considering the budget ($15m), I’d say they were more than acceptable. I liked the actor that played Andrew… I thought he looked a little like a young Leonardo DiCaprio, and he had by far the best stuff to work with. Didn’t understand the blonde female vlogger character’s purpose, and I think I would have liked to have seen a little more depth to the (step?)father’s character, but all in all a fun movie.
The Blonde’s purpose was to provide a second camera for scenes when they needed one. t was kind of silly but that was what they had to do to keep the conceit of Found Footage. That and when he steals everyone’s cell phones and iPads just so they could have coverage during the face off in the sky were things that made me roll my eyes a little.
Re: the Step Father. My friend who saw it with me and I had a disagreement about him. He thought it was implied the father was stealing the mother’s drugs. I thought at first that was going to be revealed but the scene by the bed side in the hospital seemed to me to indicate the step father really did love the mother but hated the son. He was still a shitty father but I didn’t think he was stealing the drugs for himself. What does everyone else think?