What a mess. They really thought they were doing something timeless here and it’s just terrible, off-putting and boring. Like the story is barely there and it’s so dumb I can’t believe it was made. And on the creepy CGI and hyper-repetitive songs and it’s just ridiculous.
Bumped up a half star by the two songs that aren’t completely awful and because I watched this with a group ragging on it which was good fun.
I was hooked from the first scene, holy cow what a movie. I’m incredibly amused by kids acting like adults so this was like catnip for me.
A few things don’t make a whole lot of sense and Brad has to be very dumb / drunk for this to work, but I do not care. Loved it, love the cast (great brief work from Kathryn Newton), laughed out loud many times and I was shocked they managed a satisfying ending.
I realize this is a made-for-TV Disney Channel teen drama. And yes, I did see this as a kid and probably have lingering affection from then. Yet I was really pleasantly surprised at how well it handles tough subjects like apartheid, racism, and systemic injustice.
The two leads do the normal teen drama overacting, but the writing is good enough for me to forgive most of it.
Probably the only g-rated Disney movie which includes multiple uses of the n-word and an 80's fashion montage.
Like a lot of the recent reviews, I saw this at a rare 35mm screening at the International House in Philly. It's Tarantino's personal print which has previously only been screened at Cannes in 2004 and for about two weeks at LA's New Beverly theater in 2011. Somehow the fine folks at Exhumed Films managed to convince Tarantino to lend them his copy for 3 showings.
Several of the additions here are already available on the Japanese version of Vol…
