Leslie Young

SINKER. The first twenty minutes of exposition drag with mediocre dialogue, the main actors are requisite woke: female lead POC, Gay flight attendant, scared adorable child with stuffed animal, obnoxious preppy white guy, Black quasi boyfriend, spunky grandma, wizened bodyguard, and a disposable litany of white folks who die sucked out of the plane or upon impact. You have to utterly suspend disbelief to see the killer-sharks-on-an plane swimming backwards, the plane still illuminated 40 meters down, and pro divers act so doltish only to get chomped. The CGI is silly and the plot points laughable—- if there was any humor here. Watch while you scroll Instagram.

Not even Peter Dinklage--- a brilliant actor whose joy, frustration, pain, longing and vulnerability is written all over his ever-evolving face--- could redeem this turkey of a film. Dreadful, awkward, forgettable demi-operetta songs, designed to make you think, "oh, Les Mis", simply fail. The dance choreography, which seems more farcical than genuinely meant to charm, instead makes you laugh in its ludicrousness. Very PC with a black actor as the object of Roxanne's mistaken passion. Sorry but that simply would not have happened in that century. Why must we rewrite stories to fit our modern mores? The costumes are lovely but cinematography not stunning, and most of the cast merely average. Why make a musical with actors who cannot really sing? I watched to the end only because I wanted to see how bad this film could get. Please do yourself a favor and see Gerard Depardieu's Cyrano to really feel the heart, soul and tragedy of this story of star-crossed love.

Impossible to relate to or sympathize with any of the characters. Overbearing soundtrack, far too much emphasis on violence and VFX which will appeal to a younger generation who certainly never even read the source material. I wasn't fond of David Lynch's film, but at least it had the brilliance of Brian Eno's music. Timothee Chalomet is simply miscast, as are various other players. A truly great film advances the story without the need to have first read the book. For anyone unfamiliar with the book, this film leaves you bewildered as to why any of this world building is going on, why spice is such a precious commodity, and why these noble families are warring for control.