a review of 移魂都市

the whole time i was watching this i just kept thinking to myself this should have been a graphic novel, this would work great as a graphic novel...then i log in to review it and see a certain popular review from ptabro (whoever that is) and suddenly i feel less alone. there is just too much backstory and context that gets added at certain points and doing it through lightning-quick montages and having characters directly explain it in monologues isn't working for me. a graphic novel would have ruled and also avoided the limitations of trying to tell this story on film (well digital film) in the late nineties. this is a cool story...but it's just too hampered by how shitty the late nineties cgi looks. maybe if they had a bigger budget it would have worked, but they didn't. it all just feels a bit forced and scattered and also somehow rushed (and this was the director's cut that i watched). i also kinda low key hate most remakes, but this deserves a remake. i think it's really neat source material and it would be cool to see what someone could do with better actors (no shade to jennifer connelly, i love her) and modern technology (give it to jordan peele please). the final "battle" or whatever. holy hell i couldn't make myself believe that was real if i tried. (also, wtf the "battle" lasted like thirty seconds and then all of a sudden the entire conflict of the movie is resolved without any explanation.) it would be cool to see a version where literally every single person in the entire fucking movie is not white. there's also just too many times the director asks me to buy into something that's clearly inconsistent with the world he's built. why the hell does john need a sledge hammer to get through a wall? we've already seen him "tune" multiple times. (also wtf is up with tune? this is like the most hilariously unexciting thing to name this power.) why can they all of a sudden make him sleep when there was a whole dialogue about how they couldn't make him sleep? WHY IS EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHITE. i see a lot of people comparing this to the matrix, which i super don't get. yeah, it's a product of the same era, but this hits me more like hellraiser meets truman show (and maybe sin city thrown in there too). i wish the writing was better. this concept deserved better writing. literally at least half of the plot points are revealed to us through a narrator being like "hey this is what's going on" or through a montage that's also like "hey this is what's going on". it doesn't need to be like that. you can tell stories without doing that (obviously). i read that the theatrical release is maybe even worse in that regard. a literal voiceover synopsis of the entire overarching plot of the movie delivered during the opening credits? i'm sorry, but if you are not george lucas, you cannot pull that off. cool concept, and solid enough movie that just came out a little rough around the edges.