Just a bad film. Stay away.
I think one and a half stars is generous considering I started to wonder whether I even liked films while I was watching this. Same plastic, box fresh art direction as Top Gun Maverick, and same 2D characters and stilted, ‘that’ll do’ first drafty dialogue. Everyone is a unlikeable prick, product placement is out of control (obviously) and feels like the world’s longest corporate training video about the benefits of working as a team to make rich people richer. It took me four nights to watch this and every night I was like ‘oh no, I need to watch more of that film’.
This is hands down my favourite PTA film since There Will Be Blood, and it feels like a RELIEF to say that. I was wondering whether I was ever going to love one of his films again. Yes, I know people loved Phantom Thread and some people liked Liquorice Pizza, but I struggled to vibe with them. This, I vibed with, heavily.
I think most importantly, it’s fun. I’ve been saying for years that I’d love to see PTA put…
Feels stingy to give this anything less than 4 stars. It’s a big swing original, shot on film yadda yadda… And you can’t deny the cultural significance of this massive, smash hit popcorn movie that delivers some uncomfortable truths to white America under its genre trappings.
My interest curve crept up and up over the course of the first half of the movie. Nice world building, interesting characters, Delroy Lindo acting his socks off… It then dipped considerably with the…