Bunny🐰🪓’s review published on Letterboxd:
At least Shyamalan had the decency to keep the runtime short.
Man, that was somewhat interesting, and now I can't wait to see what's going to happen in the coming episodes...🦗🦗🦗
Oh, this is a... movie...? Oh Oh...
When you are working on a theme like this which focuses on an ET invasion or a pandemic or a mass cyber attack or a fucking apocalypse, you can approach this in two ways. Explore the outdoors with your characters as they are confronted with life-threatening situations while trying to reach a supposedly safe place, and their characters are built through this journey, which gets the audience invested in them emotionally, allowing them to stay engaged throughout the runtime Or, have a completely character-driven narrative where any sort of uncertain activity acts as a catalyst in affecting the everyday personality of your players, draining them not just physically but most importantly mentally. As the plot progresses, the veneer of sophistication, decency, and hollow virtues that they are carrying slowly fades away into nothingness, and all that is left is just a human being with flesh and bones, staring right into your eyes, just like an animal who can do anything for its survival.
But what we have here is probably one of the poorly written scripts, tackling a subject matter in the most tedious manner possible. And it's not like it never creates opportunities that would have a lasting impact on a character's arc, like the ones with the plane, Teslas, lady and the drone, etc... all of these events should have a major impact on breaking each one of these characters, slowly driving them to the edge of insanity. But fuck no... why do that when we can just chill, smoke weed, have some expensive alcohol in our big mansion, and try to bond with each other, literally telling the audience that they are starting to like each other because everything has to be said and nothing can be left to interpretation. But then again, they bitch about each other just when they are about to sleep and forget about everything the very next morning 😐. If you were going to do just this with your characters, why hire big guns in your movies when any other actor could have played these roles with ease on a lower pay? Because when I see these four actors, I want them to showcase the best of their acting skills, but for that, you need a script that challenges them and pushes them out of their comfort zone. Oh... fuck sorry, I forgot, If they weren't in this movie, then no one would watch it, so yeah, the mission is accomplished. What I wanted to see is how Amanda, Clay, G.H. and Danny would navigate this situation, not what Julia, Ethan, Ali and Kevin would do, because that's what it felt like, a bunch of celebs trapped in a house because of some 'fuck it, who cares' reason. Occasionally trying to get to the meat of things, but the moment the wine glass needs a refill, they say 'fuck it' and move on to some other bullshit conversation that has nothing to do with the situation, and continue to live their best lives without a worry in the world.
Now let's just for once ignore the above issues and move straight to the finale of the movie where the mystery is revealed. Each character possesses vital information crucial to the situation that would lead to interesting conversations. But when asked why didn't you share this info. earlier, the best excuse they could come up with is 'Oh, I didn't want everyone to panic.' MOTHERFUCKERS... show me... show me... where are you hiding your pacifiers, or I'm gonna punch you in the face myself. Now let's ignore this too and jump straight to 'The Mystery'. This could be something really out of the box for everyone, but to me, it's just another day on an American political YouTube podcast. There are literally dozens of channels that talk about shit that is very similar and even scarier to this. Now let's just buy into the fact that yes, it's something very original that you came up with. It still won't matter much because for 2 hours and 25 fucking minutes... you did nothing significant to explore the seriousness, impact, or depth of the mystery. Revealing it at the very end and leaving things in an ambiguous state is not helping your cause whatsoever. Because the wine cabinet is still full, and these fuckers still won't give a fuck...
At this point, I don't know if I'm angry at this lame-ass movie or the fact that I chose this over 'The Killer' to relax after my exam day.
Also, fuck F.R.I.E.N.D.S.