MovieChat Forums > Mandy (2018) Discussion > I really wanted to love this movie, but ...

I really wanted to love this movie, but it just didn’t deliver for me.

posted 6 years ago by PeteyandJia (300)
9 replies | jump to latest

Just saw it...

There are definitely some good aspects, but ultimately it’s like salvaging around in a junkyard. I could pick out a great 10 minutes, and have a very fine short film. Not worth the drek through the other 110 though. That was fucking laborious.

And I don’t mean slow - I love slow. This was poorly paced, and lazily written. Bad combination. Overall it felt like a music video or TV commercial director, trying to be a feature film director. All style, and no substance.

The good: The cinematography, & the score. That’s it. The look of the film is great, & interesting. The original synth score was well-made, if overbearing at times, used quite often in place of any real storytelling or pacing.

I would put Cage in the good column; but he’s not in it enough, and doesn’t have much to work with. What he is given, he makes the most of.

It’s hallucinogenic, but tediously so after a while, because most of the elements are weak. Cage is great, but all of the other characters are all really hacky, and the film spends a ton of time away from him, & with all of them. The plot acts like it's going to be bigger than it is at first, but then quickly just boils down to a simple series of cliches, & ends up being 100% predictable from beginning to end. Which takes seemingly forever.

The action is cheesy, and only takes up a short portion of the film; both people looking for a hard-hitting psycho thriller, and people just looking for a fun action ride, will likely both be disappointed. This film is neither, it is just kind of a shiny but shallow thing, that takes way too long, to do not much. An experiment that sounded great on paper, but ended up mostly failing in my opinion. 5.8/10

[–] RAJH (533) 6 years ago

Disagreed with every word you've said lol. This was a great film.

[–] PeteyandJia (300) 6 years ago

I respect your opinion... I don't want to change your mind or anything! To each their own, glad you enjoyed. I definitely wanted to like it

[–] RAJH (533) 6 years ago

It is pretty slow so I can understand why someone wouldn't enjoy it.
I was just caught up in the beautiful cinematography and score.
It definitely could've been better though, I was actually hoping for more violence lol.

[–] PeteyandJia (300) 6 years ago

I agree with that, the cinematography & score were wonderful! Definitely want to get the soundtrack/score. Sadly, apparently the composer died shortly after making it. Icelandic fellow, who had a bad reaction to mixing cocaine with some medication. Very sad. He was far too young, & clearly immensely talented.

[–] Jimsalabim (7) 6 years ago

i didn't like Cage at all in this movie like most of you did. that screaming part was totally not believable and his cheesy lines were beyond cringe worthy. There was almost no story, or development of characters going on. No interest in what was going to happen, besides being totally predictable. I really loved The neon demon, audio visual in the same category, but this one just didn't touch me

[–] BaronSixThousand (4) 6 years ago

Tell me about it. DVD description sounded nice, but I found it boring. It was too long, dialogue was mostly bad, and few action scenes felt cheap.

Main villain scenes were very good, soundtrack & cinematography was good + nic chugging vodka

Maybe it was representing some kind off drug trip where in the end nothing meaningful never happened after all. But at face value it was boring and I didn't get it

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

Pretty much how I felt. And like the OP I really wanted to like it. To some this will be a surreal masterpiece but to me it just missed the mark.

[–] mitzibishi (1617) 6 years ago

I give it a 6 for the effort. Was good, some great sound and vision. Could have been cut down at least 20 to 30 minutes.

I felt like I was being tested with its laboriousness by the end as I was with "Solaris". Yet Solaris was Tarkovsky's 5th film and it was made in 1971 when experimentation of film was still prevalent and worthy.

Slow burn horror is great if done well, this is good but drags out too many shots to make a 1:30min film 2hours long and leaves you bored.

I yearn for the days of Evil Dead 2, Re_Animator, From Beyond, Return of the Living Dead etc

Fast paced horror, 1:30 minutes boom and done.

Not every Director can bring what Kubrik or Lynch can do to the screen so why not aspire to Raimi, Carpenter, Romero, Craven.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

what about all that red ??