I can really respect it's form and style, as I loved the presentation and it's non-conventional use of sound and cross cutting to paint an unbiased depiction of a scenario such as this, but there's a big difference between being unbiased and being overly ambiguous. Though ambiguity in telling a war story can certainly be effective, the film seems to struggle in what is arguably the most important aspect of exploring this world. For a film that seems to pride itself on its concept of "What if a Civil War broke out in modern day America?" It barely delivers on what makes that concept exciting. There's no real background to the why's, how's, or even who's, only the where and when. This isn't necessarily to say that I would want to see is 20 minute exposition dumped on the viewer, but a little more to chew on would be nice, and the fact that the film doesn't offer much subtext besides the obvious thought-experiment doesn't make this film hold up very well at all, even only two years after it's release. Considering the film released before...Recent events, seeing it with such a perspective can certainly poke holes in the plausability of the film, but then again, if a story such as this did stack up to what we're seeing currently, wouldn't that make this a much more engaging and thought provoking movie? I mean, we get few lines of actual context around this world, all there is to know is theres a war within the United States. Watch these journalists snap a shot and leave, the end.
Yeah, this is a good time.
Finally. I have waited a lifetime for this film. To put in perspective just how long it has been, I have been anticipating a new installment in this franchise since I started high school. I have now completed my University degree.
My thoughts? Damn, this movie was good. Like unreasonably good. This easily puts the rest of the franchise to shame. Considering the other films, the period of time between sequels, and overall horror reboots, I'd lie if I said I wasn't a little worried in the leadup to the release, resulting in my expectations for this movie being "at least it'll be a bit of fun". But in rewatching the series with my partner, these fears were put to rest, considering the abomination that is the 4th film, so at least this one could not be any worse than that.
As for the film itself, it achieved everything it had set out to do pretty well, with the main selling point being done with a very artistic and creatively driven approach, at times to it's own detriment, with the over use of Dutch-Angles and bloated VFX. The rest of the visuals, story and set pieces were also way better developed than what a lot of the previous films managed to achieve. For starters, there is some really creative world building to give this already strange universe a lot more to chew on, and the characters were actually pretty fun to watch! Shocking for a horror reboot, I know.
Without spoiling anything, I really loved the "Bloodlines" aspect of the film, and how it ties in with the overarching story. Tony Todd's return was insanely bittersweet, and his presence was very much felt. The kills were great and for the most part avoided the laziness of the previous films, boiling down to: "water did it".
I did have one issue with the film and it's ending. It certainly was a Final Destination ending, but weirdly felt like the movie just stopped rather than finished, if that makes sense. I also felt there wasn't too much in subtext but..This is Final Destination, if you want subtext go watch Three Colours: Blue or something, I dunno.
Overall, yeah watch this movie. It's a very fun return to the franchise and the feat it has pulled off as being my favourite entry in the series and works very well on it's own- very impressive.
Take notes, Scream 7.