Re: What movies have you seen recently?
Wish Upon
Falls right into the "so stupid, it's entertaining" category. It actually has a bit of a Final Destination vibe going for it, something I did not expect and brought up the shock value more. They were very self-aware about what kind of movie they were making and didn't shy away from it. Would have I preferred something a bit more serious in this setting? Sure, and in fact I will mention a few rewrites I would have asked them to try and make. Nevertheless, what they did is also completely harmless and makes for a somewhat enjoyable watch.
This wastes no time jumping right into it: our main girl Clare receives a Chinese wish box and is allowed seven wishes, so for a 90-minute runtime you know you have to go back to that box every ten minutes or so. Here are the rules (to the best of my knowledge), something that develops over the course of the story and the characters start to learn over time: when you wish upon the box in your hands, your wish will come true at a blood price (loss of life for another, someone close to you). After seven wishes are made, it will claim your soul; however, if at any time you abandon or changeover the box, the wishes will be undone.
This film contains a lot of dramatic irony, where the audience is informed way beforehand of the box having deadly consequences whilst Clare is largely not in the know. Unfortunately, once this character finds out about how it works, she doesn't become much better of a person by taking the high road and acting against the box, but rather she either continues using it for selfish purposes or tries to remedy the situation through more wishes. Ultimately she doesn't feel like a very likable main character, especially after the turn of about the first hour or so.
I'm not a big fan of how the writers went about the box's powers. First of all, if you wish for something it will come true, like pretty much automatically, in like a *POOF* kind of way. I wasn't a fan of this, and would have loved to see them find a way of "realistically" doing it. The first wish actually does have an okay explanation as to why that thing occurred. The rest do not, and what makes matters worse is the wishes literally have power over people's thoughts and emotions, no matter what they thought just seconds before. I think the consequences were largely fine and acted as freak accidents, again in a very Final Destination kind of way; what I do think could have been very cool is if they found a way to creatively work the deaths into the wishes, either that the death is literally the result of a wish that occurs or the wish is a result of a death that occurs. Think of The Monkey's Paw: somebody wishes for a lump sum of cash, where in turn the husband is killed in a factory accident and the wife receives that money from his insurance. There is a natural give-and-get.
They could have also done better about ending the film. I'll just let you know one thing that doesn't happen: she doesn't try and ditch the box so that it would undo her wishes. One reason I would have liked this alternate ending, although a lot less cinematically powerful, is she would have to go back to her sour taste of life (she's single, bullied, broke, and lives with her pathetic father) while the consequences to the wishes aren't ever undone, since the box only says that the wishes will be undone. I thought that would be a neat little twist. Instead, she kind of acts like an idiot, though I understand what she was trying to do... but still, the character doesn't think through a lot of what she does with the box. They also try and pull off a twist at one point that doesn't work at all, because as a viewer you kind of ask yourself: "Wait, didn't we kind of already imply that?" So maybe it was only intended as a twist for the character and not the viewer, I don't know.
Anyway, I thought the first hour was the perfect amount of stupid to really work, especially watching with others and having some popcorn. The last half hour kind of falls flat with poor character choices and somewhat uninteresting developments, if not just less concerning. I think they had a good opportunity to use their creative bones and come up with less supernatural ways of the wishes coming true, but some of them couldn't be possible without really just being a *POOF* of magic. There are one or two questions I do have about the film, but I'm not sure who in the world would care to have a discussion about the film to provide that answer even if they knew it, never mind the fact that I too almost don't care enough to research it. There is a mid-credits scene that is kind of worthless if they don't plan to make a sequel, and based on the box-office and critical flop that it was, I don't imagine this happening.
Wish Upon
Falls right into the "so stupid, it's entertaining" category. It actually has a bit of a Final Destination vibe going for it, something I did not expect and brought up the shock value more. They were very self-aware about what kind of movie they were making and didn't shy away from it. Would have I preferred something a bit more serious in this setting? Sure, and in fact I will mention a few rewrites I would have asked them to try and make. Nevertheless, what they did is also completely harmless and makes for a somewhat enjoyable watch.
This wastes no time jumping right into it: our main girl Clare receives a Chinese wish box and is allowed seven wishes, so for a 90-minute runtime you know you have to go back to that box every ten minutes or so. Here are the rules (to the best of my knowledge), something that develops over the course of the story and the characters start to learn over time: when you wish upon the box in your hands, your wish will come true at a blood price (loss of life for another, someone close to you). After seven wishes are made, it will claim your soul; however, if at any time you abandon or changeover the box, the wishes will be undone.
This film contains a lot of dramatic irony, where the audience is informed way beforehand of the box having deadly consequences whilst Clare is largely not in the know. Unfortunately, once this character finds out about how it works, she doesn't become much better of a person by taking the high road and acting against the box, but rather she either continues using it for selfish purposes or tries to remedy the situation through more wishes. Ultimately she doesn't feel like a very likable main character, especially after the turn of about the first hour or so.
I'm not a big fan of how the writers went about the box's powers. First of all, if you wish for something it will come true, like pretty much automatically, in like a *POOF* kind of way. I wasn't a fan of this, and would have loved to see them find a way of "realistically" doing it. The first wish actually does have an okay explanation as to why that thing occurred. The rest do not, and what makes matters worse is the wishes literally have power over people's thoughts and emotions, no matter what they thought just seconds before. I think the consequences were largely fine and acted as freak accidents, again in a very Final Destination kind of way; what I do think could have been very cool is if they found a way to creatively work the deaths into the wishes, either that the death is literally the result of a wish that occurs or the wish is a result of a death that occurs. Think of The Monkey's Paw: somebody wishes for a lump sum of cash, where in turn the husband is killed in a factory accident and the wife receives that money from his insurance. There is a natural give-and-get.
They could have also done better about ending the film. I'll just let you know one thing that doesn't happen: she doesn't try and ditch the box so that it would undo her wishes. One reason I would have liked this alternate ending, although a lot less cinematically powerful, is she would have to go back to her sour taste of life (she's single, bullied, broke, and lives with her pathetic father) while the consequences to the wishes aren't ever undone, since the box only says that the wishes will be undone. I thought that would be a neat little twist. Instead, she kind of acts like an idiot, though I understand what she was trying to do... but still, the character doesn't think through a lot of what she does with the box. They also try and pull off a twist at one point that doesn't work at all, because as a viewer you kind of ask yourself: "Wait, didn't we kind of already imply that?" So maybe it was only intended as a twist for the character and not the viewer, I don't know.
Anyway, I thought the first hour was the perfect amount of stupid to really work, especially watching with others and having some popcorn. The last half hour kind of falls flat with poor character choices and somewhat uninteresting developments, if not just less concerning. I think they had a good opportunity to use their creative bones and come up with less supernatural ways of the wishes coming true, but some of them couldn't be possible without really just being a *POOF* of magic. There are one or two questions I do have about the film, but I'm not sure who in the world would care to have a discussion about the film to provide that answer even if they knew it, never mind the fact that I too almost don't care enough to research it. There is a mid-credits scene that is kind of worthless if they don't plan to make a sequel, and based on the box-office and critical flop that it was, I don't imagine this happening.
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