This year’s 12th edition of the Scary Movies festival at Film at Lincoln Center premiered Ari Aster’s extended version of “Midsommar” this past Saturday.
You'd think that based on the social media reaction after Sunday night's premiere it would be a fantastic film. You see, that's where you're dead wrong. Yes, the battle scenes pique your interest, for the most part, but that's just the problem. It's all out war and just war. At some point you just become numb to it all and wonder where has the character development gone. For all the crying and moaning I've heard about "The Force Awakens," at least that film developed its characters well enough for you to actually care about their outcome in its finale. "Rogue One" wants to be the "Black Hawk Down" of "Star Wars" flicks, but even though Ridley Scott's 2001 war movie was, mostly, about all out war and didn't have an ounce of character development, at it least it was based on true events and felt real enough in a goddamnit-you-are-actually-there-with-these-soldiers kind of way. "Rogue One" is stale, non-involving, beautiful to look at mind you, but, nevertheless, inconsequential. There's also the fact that the inconsistent tone must be due to re-shoots that happened. There are moments when it does feel like it was directed by a different filmmaker. This is overall just a mess of a film and many of the positive reviews you will read today will come from critics, bloggers etc. that bought the hype and, for good reason, were on an endorphin high seeing it in advance of everybody else. I couldn't find a single negative opinion from Sunday's Hollywood premiere, but now that the high has calmed down a bit you are starting to see some people come back down to earth. I was starting to think I'd be the only one disappointed by this film, but clearly there are many more with mixed feelings. More thoughts to come once I get my hands on my notepad ...
