Reviews

This was a tense little thriller, where one thing goes horribly wrong, and then everything spins horribly out of control. There were plenty of surprises and well-staged action. I liked the characters. I was sad it was over so soon.

I came across this on Netflix in 2018, thinking it was probably a movie I had already seen. I'm So glad that I kept watching, because this is one of the more charming and emotionally-impactful "solo mission in space screws with your head" movies out there. I can't believe I'd never come across it until now.

There are a handful of movies it reminded me of... but then I realized I was watching a 2009 film, and there have been many movies since then that borrowed pages. Regardless, the main premise of this film is fresh.

It trots out predictable tropes of the genre and then quickly - and superbly - subverts them at every turn. All the while, it keeps you thinking and feeling.

Fun, emotional, psychological and genre-subversive. Enjoy.

I recently re-watched this movie, having first watched the entire series + the movie 10 years ago. Revolutionary Girl Utena is truly one of a kind. The series is sweet, funny, fierce and surprisingly deep. Every character is conflicted and flawed and struggling to overcome their "demons," the things that scare each character and hold them back from becoming confident, fully-fledged adults. In the series, every character gets their turn to "shine" and then, in turn, to confront their "darkness." Revolutionary Girl Utena will probably go down in history as one of the queerest --if not *the queerest*-- anime out there... with just about every main character having some underlying relationship that's gay, just plain complicated ... or involves a problem/hang-up over the love of a sibling. Pretty daring for early 1990s. Everyone has a dark, not-so-veiled secret... and you love them all both in spite of -- and because of it -- anyway! The movie compresses what was 39 episodes in TV into 90-odd minutes... and so it necessarily takes shortcuts. Think of the movie as the more overt companion piece to the TV show. Dynamics that were more subtext in the TV show become main-text here. And at the same time, the movie revels in abstraction... with stories that were more drawn out and linear in the TV show being reduced to something more symbolic here. The show's rose-heavy Louis XIV France design, insistent, Gothic music and the shadow-puppet Greek Chorus are perhaps never so lovely (and cohesively) powerful as they are here in the movie. The Utena movie is a love letter to those who fan-girl/boy the original series, for sure. And there's plenty for someone new to the Utena world who's willing to hold its wounded and aching heart till it finds its noble reason for being.... and just go with it.

There's little that's new in the revenge horror genre... but this movie gets extra points from me for its almost entirely female cast.... and for the way it gets you hooked in the central story as the movie goes along. The women here are flawed, angry, deceitful, petty... and the power dynamic feels different from your typical slasher. It's a neat twist on an otherwise well-trodden genre. I thought the acting from the top 3-billed actresses was fine, and they were memorable, which is more than you get from a lot of horror B movies. I liked the revenge storyline. Some of the revenge violence set-pieces felt fresh. There's plenty of cringe-worthy humor, too. At first I showed up for Katherine Barrell (liking her other work), and for horror (a genre I love). I didn't show up for much plot... But I was pleasantly surprised that by about a third of the way through the movie I was suddenly curious to know what happened that fateful evening in the past that led to this smorgasbord of revenge... and what the revenge seekers ultimately wanted from it. The payoff at the end left me thinking about it. Definitely more than I was expecting.

This is an unbelievably dumb movie. So dumb, in fact, that I am motivated to write my first-ever IMDb review. We watched the whole thing transfixed not by the crisis of The super-humongous glacier, but by the horribleness of the whole story. The plot contrivances are so groan-worthy that we found ourselves at one point wondering what other oddly useful items the magical van would provide. The contrivances are so outlandish that they effectively take away any worry or concern I had for the characters. Instead. The real suspense was in wondering what jaw-droppingly dumb plot device would be employed next. If you watch the movie this way, it's actually pretty fun. Especially the stinker ending.