363: Orion and the Dark

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[00:00:10] Animated film Orion and the Dark

[00:00:14] This one is directed by Shawn

[00:00:16] Karmitz and written by Charlie Kaufman

[00:00:19] It stars Jacob Tromblay, Paul Walter Houser, Colin Hanks, Mia Kimmy Brown,

[00:00:26] Ike Barenholz and a few others

[00:00:29] And the synopsis is a boy with an active imagination

[00:00:34] Faces his fears on an unforgettable journey through the night with his new friend a giant smiling creature named Dar

[00:00:42] So my main interest in seeing this one besides just being

[00:00:46] one-off animated film that that's something intrigues me. My main interest was

[00:00:52] Charlie Kaufman who done things like

[00:00:55] Eternal Sunshine

[00:00:57] Being John Malkovich adaptation

[00:01:00] on a Lisa which I loved and a few others

[00:01:04] I'm thinking of ending things. So he's a very very unique

[00:01:07] Writer and sometimes director. So that was the main draw and I heard

[00:01:13] Decent things about I didn't realize those done by Dreamworks at least partially

[00:01:18] But I think overall I liked it. I thought it started off really well

[00:01:25] The opening narration where this young boy Orion is

[00:01:29] Talking about all those very irrational fears like oh like how long has this light been hanging there?

[00:01:35] What if a school bus blows up or you know, just really irrational crazy things that

[00:01:40] Would almost never happen in real life

[00:01:42] But I've known plenty of people in my life who have those sorts of fears and it just runs out of control

[00:01:49] so I thought those were very

[00:01:51] creative and very

[00:01:53] at least in some ways relatable I guess and

[00:01:57] So I thought that was a very very strong refreshing point of the movie

[00:02:01] And I thought the introduction of the dark character

[00:02:04] Played by Paul Walter Hauser who I really really like. I think he was in Richard Jule and he's pretty interested in character actor

[00:02:12] I thought all that was very well done very thoughtful. It took its time the

[00:02:18] Scenes with Orion and his parents saying hey, would you leave the door open more and more and like because he's so scared of the dark all

[00:02:25] That stuff I thought really worked and that I do feel like once it really gets into

[00:02:31] The second act where they go in this journey. It really starts to get

[00:02:35] Lost in the shuffle over stuffed

[00:02:39] really frantic in

[00:02:41] Pacing and style like visually the movie looks great. I think and the score is awesome

[00:02:46] I love the score, but I

[00:02:48] Felt about 40 minutes in or so. There were so many different locations

[00:02:52] The pace was so quick. There's so many different characters being injected

[00:02:56] I was starting to lose track of why are we going to this place?

[00:03:00] What's our objective here?

[00:03:02] Like I understood the overall idea of a boy facing his fears and learning to not be as scared and all that and passing

[00:03:08] That on to his kids which I thought the sort of meta

[00:03:12] inner generational

[00:03:15] Timeline was interesting. I won't go into it too much, but I thought that was well done

[00:03:19] but surprisingly for a

[00:03:22] Charlie Kaufman script which I don't know exactly what all was involved. Maybe it was studio

[00:03:28] Issues direction issues or as maybe just his script could be I

[00:03:33] Felt like the story was really lost on me like story beats pop points

[00:03:38] I the journey was very very muddled and I could not keep up or keep focus

[00:03:43] I was really starting to lose interest off and on so in the end not an amazing movie. It's alright

[00:03:50] It's still got some very unique visuals some good ideas and some very good messages for especially young people

[00:03:56] And I think for a day and age where there's so much anxiety and fear and paranoia

[00:04:00] It definitely does hit in that way. There's just not enough of that where in the last half especially

[00:04:06] I wish they had taken more time in certain scenes and

[00:04:10] Let you live in those moments like they did in the first act because it seemed like there's a very

[00:04:16] vast difference in pacing

[00:04:18] From the first act to the second and third act so a little disappointing

[00:04:23] I was thinking this movie is gonna be amazing when it started out and it didn't really get there went down

[00:04:29] More and more unfortunately as time went on

[00:04:32] Not really one I feel the need to go back to anytime soon

[00:04:35] But I think if you want something a little bit different if you like Charlie Kaufman, it's worth a watch

[00:04:39] It's not terrible for sure and I can see why did get released on Netflix. It's sort of makes sense

[00:04:45] I guess because for one I can't remember much about at all

[00:04:50] Still love Charlie Kaufman, but this is probably one of his weaker scripts or weaker end results due to whatever reason

[00:04:59] so that one is a

[00:05:01] three out of five