Mary Medina

Alex Garland. A man that just missed with this one. Severely disappointed. The film had all the components it needed to be great. Great cast, great premise, great technical elements but somehow the potential was not reached. The writing was what doomed the movie most. There is not any need to add context like others may have criticized, but the lack of character development was very disappointing and led to a weak story overall. Also very odd and inconsistent dialogue between all the characters. Also a huge misuse of score. The movie uses sequences and slaps a song on it to transition to another part in the story which was a weak choice and could have opened up opportunities to add the needed character development. Kirsten Dunst's character journey was not fitting for the character. I was not convinced that she would act the way she did when the news was broken to her about the surrender. We as the audience know that she has seen and been through awful things which brought her to where she is now, very poised, emotionless but still strong. A wrong direction to take the character. I also was not convinced by Cailee Spaeny's character journey and I think her photographing her "hero" during her last moments was a weak attempt for a plant and payoff. There were a lot of unnecessary scenes, Dunst trying on the dress, Spaeny developing film. Overall this movie felt like a rough cut that needed a lot of improvement before the finished product. Severely disappointed, hoping for a comeback from Garland.