Review of Flakes

Flakes (2007)
1/10
Tries way too hard, fails badly.
3 December 2009
Having somehow sat through this movie, the one good thing I can say about it is "well, at least the concept is original". The rest of it, though? Utter garbage.

The film is horribly acted, the characters mumble and groan their lines in disinterested fashion, and Zooey Deschanel attacks her role as Miss Pussy Katz with the same dull, wooden lifelessness that she always does. How she is thought of as a good actress by anyone is beyond me.

The writing is poor, and it tries way too hard to appeal to your typical hipster demographic, though the fact that it somehow manages to have more painfully faux-indie dialog than Diablo Cody's "Juno" is an accomplishment in and of itself. The two main characters are also absurdly named, reinforcing the whole notion that the movie is simply trying too hard. Calling characters "Neal Downs" and "Miss Pussy Katz" is beyond silly, and feels like it's been done sheerly in an attempt to be quirky.

The message of "Capitalism is bad!" gets shoved down your throat from the start - Deschanel even quips that "you can't nurture your soul while sitting atop a pile of money" - and by the end, you're praying for this garbage to end, which it does, in the cheesiest, most predictable way possible, a shame, since you'd think a movie with an original concept might have an original ending.

The "comedy" is virtually non-existent, and not once during the movie did I laugh, nor did I even spot many attempts at making a joke. May I just don't "get" it because I'm not cool enough.

A dull, lifeless, 85 minutes (or thereabouts) that feels like twice that. Avoid it.
3 out of 8 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed