4 min to read
Homestead
How is Angel Studios' newest film?
The Good: Sadly, one of the only few good things about the movie was the cinematography. Not only was there minimal CGI use (there was a lot at the beginning, but after that it was extremely minimal), everything was shot in the beautiful mountains of Utah and everything was extremely nice on the eyes. Occasionally you would just be shown gorgeous shots of the mountains in the fall which were stunning. I just wish the rest of the movie was as good as this.
The Meh: While most of the character interactions felt pretty normal, there were some that felt very forced and were very poorly written. At one point one of the boys learns that a girl had a heart transplant as a kid, and instead of sympathizing with someone’s struggle or just being glad that person was able to get one, the immediate reaction was “Wait, you have somebody else’s heart?” Yes, that’s exactly what a heart transplant is. Additionally, there was another time where the woman in charge was trying to figure out what to do, and this was the monologue - “I had been searching for the light, but I realized it had been within me the whole time.” It was so cheesy and cliche it hurt, especially when this narration is supposed to be at a pivotal point of the movie. I know these are exact quotes completely out of context, but there was a good amount of dialogue that was written just like this that should have been changed to something better.
The Bad: While I love the idea that there is an apocalyptic event that takes place, a wealthy individual corrals people to protect him and his family during the event at his homestead (hence the title of the movie), but the movie did a lot wrong. Not only did they not do a great job explaining why the “apocalyptic event” caused things to spiral out of control, they also focus too much on the beginning of the apocalyptic event, not leaving enough time to feel out the consequences of the apocalypse and the status of the homestead over time. Because of this, the movie felt like it was all exposition and Part 1 of a 4 or 5 part series. Little did I know, but after the credits started you learn that the movie was actually just the setup for a TV show. They showed small clips of the show and it DID seem like it actually played through the “what actually happened to the homestead?” scenario! I don’t mind setting up for a sequel, but I think it’s a terrible idea to set up a sequel when the first movie/show does such a poor job and doesn’t draw people into wanting to see the show (i.e., the actual good stuff).
Additionally, the movie had too many subplots, and most of them were just based around the characters and their existing relationships. While I appreciate a movie that introduces characters and tries to expound on all of the significant relationships that are impacted by the movie, but the movie did such a poor job at letting you know who the characters actually are, what they care about, and what motivates them. Each character was just dragged from plot point to plot point, so when all of these subplots started to arise, I didn’t care about what was happening in them because I didn’t know or care about the characters, so these moments felt like they were detracting from and distracting to the story trying to be told. On top of this, the characters also had extremely little character development, so any decision by each character never really felt earned or that it had any real impact.
Also, why did they have laser tag equipment? (You’ll only get this if you watch the movie)
Overall: I really wish this was better than it actually was. The movie is very watchable, but it’s not always enjoyable. I want to support Angel Studios more, but I think they struggle with finding well written scripts for really good movie ideas. There were too many characters, there were very few impactful character moments, there was very little action, and, worst of all, this was just a setup for the TV show (which looks a lot more interesting), and it wasn’t even that great of a setup.
Rating: 1.5/5
Comments