by Dai » Mon Feb 05, 2018 5:44 pm
Movies like this are the reason I don't like the current thumbs up/down system on Netflix because it was decidedly...okay, very much a 3/5. With only a few exceptions the acting is great, and the protagonist in particular lends a lot of credibility to the emotional side of the story. The script doesn't always give them enough to work with though. The overall tension and drama of the scenario works well, but there's a lack of imagination in its attempts at depicting 'high strangeness'. Most of the major setpieces feel like watered down versions of scenes you've seen done better in other movies. Also, while the larger plot can keep you guessing for a while, the progress of each individual scene becomes too easy to predict the moment it starts. It feels like an expensive TV movie, or a b-movie with actors who sometimes manage to drag it up a level. I can see why Paramount didn't want to risk pinning an expensive theatrical release and marketing campaign on it.
Oh, and the attempts to reverse-engineer this movie into the Cloververse stuck out like a sore thumb. Seriously, does anyone besides JJ Abrams care about Slusho in the slightest?