Peyton’s review published on Letterboxd:
Hats off to the marketing team for this film, I am really happy that my 10pm showing was nearly full last night and I can see this film making money (It already has Neon’s highest turnout for Thursday night previews!)
But with that same marketing comes a lot of expectations for how scary this thing is that, in my opinion, the film does not deliver on fully. I expected that people were overhyping it, so I went in with an open mind, but even still I left disappointed. It is a worthy watch and a very entertaining film, but I feel like it uses a lot of good ideas in ways that actually hurt the overall impact of the experience. I love the static and cold nature of the camerawork, and the cryptic sound design. There are some really effective and well edited sequences, but there are also a few too many jumpscares that I felt hindered the experience most of the time.
Nic Cage is a darkly funny and creepy screen presence, and is a treat to watch, but his character is not given the menace or impact that I believe the film’s story wants him to have. He brings a sense of unease to the picture and Cage delivers a lot of personality to the character, but by the end I couldn’t help feeling like he never was established as threatening in a tangible enough way to work in the movie’s favor. For the marketing to have hyped his appearance and performance up this much, I think that may actually hurt the film’s reception by some.
Maika Monroe is excellent as well, but her character too feels underdeveloped. Early on she is established to be very smart and intuitive, but this is just another cool idea that the film seemed uninterested in following through on in an interesting way. The FBI investigation angle came across really shallow by the end, as it doesn’t motivate a lot of the film’s larger twists and turns. Instead, we’re given exposition that is neither naturally woven into the story nor feels earned at all. I found the film directly explaining itself to the audience more and more as it went on, instead of trusting the audience and leaving them with questions or interpretations to conjure themselves. For a film that seems to aim to get under the skin, I felt that was an important thing to evoke that it just missed the mark on.
Longlegs starts of very strong, but goes out on a whimper. I want to see it again, and hopefully I will connect with it more. I love that a film like this seems to be generating a lot of excitement, and I hope it becomes a success among general audiences, but I don’t see this being one of the more memorable films this year for me.
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