nova

It was okay. (edited to lower the rating. I edited this before to change it from a 3 to a 2- I was WAY too generous with that 3. Now I’ve realized I was much too generous with the 2, too. I’ve been so fixated on how bad this movie is like it’s been eating away at my mind all day. I hate it so much. So it deserves a much lower rating for occupying so much of my mind- sure, I PROBABLY sound insane... but they DID totally ruin my special interest, so I have every right to be upset about it.. XD) I wasn’t a fan of how modernized the film was; zoom, iPhones? This was set in the late 90s-2000s for goodness sakes! The lack of modern technology fads kept the original film timeless. This and other factors make the film feel as though it’ll become dated very quickly. I wasn’t a fan of how much the film strayed from the original plot, either. It kinda felt like a fanfic re-write of the story of sorts. Which isn’t an inherently bad thing; I love fan takes on my favorite shows and movies! But when it’s the studio themselves doing this? C’mon man. Some of the characters seemed quite mischaracterized to me, too. Also- don’t know if this counts as a spoiler or not, so beware- why wasn’t Gantu there??!! Gantu is such a solid villain and such a major part of the OG movie’s plot. What was the point on removing him?? Some scenes also seemed a bit rushed. Will try not to give any spoilers, but the opening scene is a prime example of this. If you’ve seen it you know what I’m talking about. Minor spoiler, but hearing Cobra mention tiktok made me cringe. SO. bad. Some of the writing could’ve been better, too. Especially how the characters were written. This film wasn’t totally horrible. I found it really funny, and it’s enjoyable. Although its enjoyability for me was diminished because I couldn’t distract myself from thinking about everything wrong with it. I loved some of the finer details SO MUCH. Another spoiler warning, but I loved how Nani’s past in surfing was expanded on. I also especially LOVED the reference to Reuben/625. Even if he was only there for, like, a split second it made me SO excited!! It had potential. Start by adding Gantu back in and pushing the time setting back to the 2000’s and youd’ve been en-route to an incredible adaptation. Still very disappointed however.