Well, for all who don't mind a lengthy reply to a three-lettered question: here goes:
This movie's failure had absolutely nothing to do with the acting abilities of its three main stars, who portrayed their respective characters as if they had themselves been pulled right out of the Saturday morning cartoon series or the comic books of the very same name.
Unfortunately, that is nowhere near enough to make it more than just barely tolerable enough to sit through the few times that I have.
The supporting cast mostly left me wondering why they were even in the movie at all, and not just plain written out like what happened to Sebastian, whose absence from this movie, at least to me, makes perfect sense.
In my opinion, Alan M. was not done justice at all by the script writers. A guy so wimpy that he can't even get underneath the hood of a car is supposed to be the most desirable guy in all of Riverdale? What makes even less sense is that he has to PRETEND to be a guitar technician just to be able to go along for the ride.
Reinventing a character for its introduction into one media from another is one thing. Turning a character that at least makes sense into something just plain stupid, however, is just one of many, many, many things that they did to this movie that just plain ruined it, and not just for me, but for everybody I have ever seen this flick with, as well.
Then there are Alexander and Alexandra.
I my opinion, Alexander, for the nearly utter lack of humor that his character provides this particular story, should have been completely written out of this movie.
Alexandra, his sister, provides at least some of the darker comedic value that we fans of the comic books and cartoons would have expected.... but unless you were enough of a fan of those other forms of this story, where would anybody else in the audience get the idea that her presence is for the good of the band instead of getting the notion that anybody who hadn't already found a way to leave her by the wayside is even less brilliant about anything than Melody is usually portrayed as being? All anybody I've ever watched this flick with seems to come away with about Alexandra is that their manager's sister is a bully and gets to keep on bullying them and there seems to be nothing they can do about it, which is why the role of Alexandra, portrayed rather nicely by Missi Pyle, by the way, also happens to be a big part of what ruined this flick.
Then, there's the plot itself: that the government is not only aware of the sinister corporate conspiracy to control everybody's minds by subliminal messages in recorded music, but in support of it; that whenever this corporate mind control fails to control a mind, the consequence is to be forcibly removed from society by abduction or murder.
Exactly what person in any audience isn't potentially alienated by this kind of overwhelmingly all encompassing plot?
If you watch this movie, you are told in much more than just words alone, that you are either an easily controllable imbecile, incapable of thinking for yourself, or a part of the conspiracy to control people's minds, or someone whose salary and livelihood are dependent upon that conspiracy, so you will never want anybody to make any waves about it, or that you are about to be forcibly removed from society by being murdered or at least abducted... and then what, if not murdered as well?
Who in any audience wants to be repeatedly insulted by the messages of this movie by watching this movie again, and again, and again?
I can understand a person loving the parts of this movie that more closely imitate the comic books or the cartoons, and I can understand a person loving the actors and actresses, and even love their acting in it. But, really, how can anybody even come close to loving the rest of it without just plain failing to understand what the rest of it is about?
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