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yelosonI wanted to like this movie... but. The premise sold to me was, "Little girl gets kidnapped by monster into magical world", which, is pretty much story crack for me, as I'm down with magical door fantasies in general.
What I got was one white dude who's a dick, and his manpain, and another white dude who's a dick and his mansplaining.
There's two groups of spirits at war - the Storytellers - who bring people good dreams while they sleep, and the Incubi, who bring nightmares. And then you have Emma, a girl with a strong imagination who's basically living her life, when, Ink, some strong monster spirit who kidnaps her in order to deliver her to the Incubi, so he, too, can become one of them.
One of the Storytellers, Allel, is charged with rescuing Emma. She ends up working with Jacob, a blind "Pathfinder" who is supposed to be able to find her and has unnamed magical powers. Allel is portrayed as being this tough, kinda awesome warrior, who... doesn't get to do much, while Jacob basically says a bunch of stuff to piss people off because he finds it funny, and randomly blurting out supposedly deep things about the universe. (Also: magical disabled character!)
Yeah, that got old real quick.
Along the way, one of the Storytellers also gets captured and tells Emma, "The second you stepped into this world, you began transforming into a lioness." So, we have the set up- girl with lots of imagination, in a dreamworld, being told she is a lionness... you're expecting awesome "I've discovered my power" kind of stuff right?
Well, instead it ends up focusing on her estranged father, who is a high powered executive who has basically lost custody after spiraling into the winning trifecta of overwork-alcoholism-drug abuse. It becomes clear early on that Ink is some kind of version of him, hoping to become an Incubi and become "Numb" to his life's fuckups. Yes, it's about him and his manpain.
Overall, this looks like the kind of movie I would have thought was awesome when I was 16. Now I'm just disappointed.
The visuals were awesome. I liked the idea of the Storytellers as dream-pakour-warriors with women and POC kicking ass all over town. I liked the Incubi's creepiness as smiling glowy weirdos in glasses. I even liked their funky doors to alternate realities set up... but I didn't get to really learn a lot about any of that, instead it was a movie about assholes and the women who get run over in their bullshit.
Meh.
What I got was one white dude who's a dick, and his manpain, and another white dude who's a dick and his mansplaining.
There's two groups of spirits at war - the Storytellers - who bring people good dreams while they sleep, and the Incubi, who bring nightmares. And then you have Emma, a girl with a strong imagination who's basically living her life, when, Ink, some strong monster spirit who kidnaps her in order to deliver her to the Incubi, so he, too, can become one of them.
One of the Storytellers, Allel, is charged with rescuing Emma. She ends up working with Jacob, a blind "Pathfinder" who is supposed to be able to find her and has unnamed magical powers. Allel is portrayed as being this tough, kinda awesome warrior, who... doesn't get to do much, while Jacob basically says a bunch of stuff to piss people off because he finds it funny, and randomly blurting out supposedly deep things about the universe. (Also: magical disabled character!)
Yeah, that got old real quick.
Along the way, one of the Storytellers also gets captured and tells Emma, "The second you stepped into this world, you began transforming into a lioness." So, we have the set up- girl with lots of imagination, in a dreamworld, being told she is a lionness... you're expecting awesome "I've discovered my power" kind of stuff right?
Well, instead it ends up focusing on her estranged father, who is a high powered executive who has basically lost custody after spiraling into the winning trifecta of overwork-alcoholism-drug abuse. It becomes clear early on that Ink is some kind of version of him, hoping to become an Incubi and become "Numb" to his life's fuckups. Yes, it's about him and his manpain.
Overall, this looks like the kind of movie I would have thought was awesome when I was 16. Now I'm just disappointed.
The visuals were awesome. I liked the idea of the Storytellers as dream-pakour-warriors with women and POC kicking ass all over town. I liked the Incubi's creepiness as smiling glowy weirdos in glasses. I even liked their funky doors to alternate realities set up... but I didn't get to really learn a lot about any of that, instead it was a movie about assholes and the women who get run over in their bullshit.
Meh.
