brianmlucas

Let's not fool ourselves for one single minute. But for the talent, star power, charisma, and gravitas of Sigourney Weaver, Miles Teller, and Anya Taylor Joy, not necessarily in that order, this is unwatchable. They make it happen. They make it entertaining, compelling the viewer all the way through the sacarine romance, ridiculous plot, bad CGI, not scary at all threats, not at all surprising plot twist to the even less surprising ending. But hey, that's what stars do. Stars shine. Anya Taylor Joy Miles Teller make a silk purse out of this cows ear. They do make you believe. It's barely a broadcast movie of the week without them. Put two random TV / soap actors into this and no one is watching. This movie is a perfect example of what good actors can do for a movie. They made it happen.

In case you ever wondered how to turn an acclaimed groundbreaking book about the famous and notorious outlaw motorcycle club into movie with the star power of Hollywood's flavor of the year Austin Butler along with A listers Tom Hardy and Michael Shannon, violence, romance, bromance, and excellent cinematography into an unwatchable boring morass, that goes nowhere, does nothing, without a single empathetic plot line, character or scene, ask writer director Jeff Nichols. There's not a single likeable or even empathetic character, moment, scene or plotline. The only thing worse than all the male characters mush mouthing their dialogue is the horrible fake accent of Jodie Comer which is literally painful to listen to and she has by far the most linesa of my life in my life. The only thing worth watching in this otherwise awful movie are the beautiful old motorcycles. Preferably on mute.

I disagree with those that say they gave away the shock reveal by letting everyone know in the trailer that Abigail was no normal little girl. It provided a lot of weight and tension to the opening scenes waiting for the reveal that might have been just a another caper opening. It was also fun trying to determine which kidnapper was going to die first, last, be turned, etc. And what a performance by Alisha Weir playing the title character. No way is she actually 12 I was convinced until I saw that she was when she filmed it. She deftly pulls off the shy little girl, manipulative liar, stalker, and even ballerina with equal aplomb. The writing, editing and effects are great, as are the costumes, set design and overall production.