Upon reflection, I realized this movie was just an iteration of The Little Mermaid told in Guillermo's style. Done wonderfully well.
- 1
I went into this expecting nothing and found a humorless remake of Splash featuring a creepy fish man who ate live cats and a desperately horny mute girl with some loose screws instead of a pretty blond and Tom Hanks. Seriously, there was absolutely nothing original about it except for everyone involved being cool with the heroine boning the amphibian. I guess I was expecting something better from the guy behind Pan's Labyrinth than a meh re imagining of a movie from 1984 even before they shoehorned in the racism and homophobia. Yeah sure it was the 60's in Baltimore, as such those folks would have known better than to go into that diner like they did and the obligatory gay man would have had places he could have gone to socialize instead of hitting on random waiters half his age. And of course the only straight, white, religious family man in the movie is a misogynistic, racist, psycho. It would have been a better film without any of it but if they felt the burning need to inject social commentary then they could have been less lazy about it.
There was some charm but that was outweighed by the violence, odd sex and its general lack of originality. The sets and the monster were well done though.
Damn it. Why did you have to point all that out? I didn't notice it, but now I do, and I can't argue with any of it!
Agree, for someone who made Pan's Labrytinth, this was a let down!
I went into this expecting nothing and found a humorless remake of Splash featuring a creepy fish man who ate live cats and a desperately horny mute girl with some loose screws instead of a pretty blond and Tom Hanks. Seriously, there was absolutely nothing original about it except for everyone involved being cool with the heroine boning the amphibian. I guess I was expecting something better from the guy behind Pan's Labyrinth than a meh re imagining of a movie from 1984 even before they shoehorned in the racism and homophobia. Yeah sure it was the 60's in Baltimore, as such those folks would have known better than to go into that diner like they did and the obligatory gay man would have had places he could have gone to socialize instead of hitting on random waiters half his age. And of course the only straight, white, religious family man in the movie is a misogynistic, racist, psycho. It would have been a better film without any of it but if they felt the burning need to inject social commentary then they could have been less lazy about it.
There was some charm but that was outweighed by the violence, odd sex and its general lack of originality. The sets and the monster were well done though.
"We've reached maximum wokeness. Actual Soviet Spies subverting the American Government are heroes in this movie."
So the Academy loved it, my review is officially vindicated!
If their criteria for best picture is good CGI and around 30 min of high quality viewing then just how many snubbed best picture films are languishing in bargain bins I wonder?