The Watchers - Movie Review

hey guys it's Kevin and mariew for the Watchers and this film we focus on this artist known as Mina and she lives in Western Ireland and one day she ends up getting trapped in this forest and uh eventually ends up finding shelter alongside three other strangers and quickly comes to realize that these strangers are trapped in this uh you know they're they're basically trapped in this um you know glass sort of room sort of this Safe House of sorts where they they every single night they are constantly stalked by mysterious creatures and so Mina has to try to find her way to navigate the situation but also adapt to her new surroundings and I was very excited uh for this film uh this is a movie that kind of came out of nowhere for me like I knew that it was a thing but I really wasn't that excited for it until saw the teaser before I believe it was the first time I saw Doom part 2 they showed the teaser for this movie and honestly like really blew me away like I thought it it looked so incredibly Eerie it had such an interesting concept to it I loved the uh you know the dark and ominous sort of imagery that was presented and it really just seemed like it had the potential to be a very effective sort of Thriller I like I said I didn't really know what I was getting myself into but all the marketing really worked out for me I was really excited to see also that this wasn't directed by ight shamalan but his daughter I wanted to see what she would really bring to the table and I was really hoping this film would end up delivering something really effective and I could come away and saying this is yet another really strong directorial uh debut for horror and things like that and while there certainly are effective moments throughout this film as a whole the Watchers just really didn't end up working for me uh and honestly did leave me feeling quite disappointed uh but we are getting into right now starting off with the cast here now when it comes to the cast in this movie that is an area of this film that I think mostly does Excel very well that was one of the things I was most looking forward to and I think everyone here does really deliver especially when it comes to Dakota Fanning who I feel like as an actress you know she's been trying to have this surge lately but she really hasn't had like that one specific role that just like really reminds us of her talents there's been things that she's popped in on and she's been good in but this is easily her strongest performance in a really long time and what I like what I'm glad to see that this is a film that really does utilize her very well I mean this is the kind of character that you know has her own sort of personal tragedy that she's going through but she also very much feels like the audience you know she is just as terrified and unsure of herself throughout this situation you know throughout this situation as we are and I think that she just does a really great job at you know showing how she reacts to the situation showing how she kind of evolves as the film goes on um she also adds a sense of heart to the film that I think otherwise wouldn't be there I just I really enjoyed her performance in this film and I think that she added layers to this character that really just wouldn't have been there otherwise and I really enjoyed the work that she was uh doing overall so I thought her performance was really strong here and Georgina Campbell once again I think gives another really good performance here this is not at on the level of like a barbarian but I think she once again shows like just how strong of an actress that she really is ESP we'll talk about the character she's playing a little bit later but I think performance-wise I really liked what she ended up doing in this film but the other performance that I think really sticks out here is that of Owen Fior I've always been a fan of hers and I think that she's given some really strong performances but here I think this is easily some of the strongest work I've ever seen from her the second that she uh that you first meet her in this movie she is just so incredibly captivating but also such a endlessly intriguing character she adds so much heft to the movie She adds she adds so much tension especially you know KN see you know uh you you are uh very fearful of who she is but she also kind of seems like the person that is the most levelheaded out of the group and I think that she does a really good job of kind of uh diving uh head first into that there are some monologue she has that I think are really strong this movie and I think she does give a really good performance all the performances here are really good here definitely there are quite a few issues with this movie but for the most part I think the performances are one of the stronger aspects of this film but now we got to get to the things that unfortunately really do bring this film down and that is the directing and the writing now look when it comes to Asana knight shamalan uh this was really the main reason I was excited to see this film I wanted to see what she would bring to the table but also I wanted to see how her style would differentiate from that of her father's I mean you know we've seen a lot of debates recently about like nepo babies and things like that and is there Merit to having your child you know direct a film or act in a film or is this just trying to leech off of that actor or director success does the talent remain within the family or is that just in one you know with the um original relative of that family is that something that is able to be maintained throughout this film and I can say this I think ASA as a director does have a lot of promise there are things that she does in this film that I really do like particularly the way she crafts suspense I think is really well done the movie has this very ominous uh feel to it especially throughout the first two Acts or so of this movie I'll I'll talk about some of the other things in a little bit but I think that she does a good job of knowing when to craft suspense knowing how to add the sense of tension I think she does a really good job with that but also adding this sort of like fantasy type angle to it I I think does work really well the issue for me is that I just don't think she has fully honed her skills yet and if you really do watch this movie and it feels like this is a firsttime director and I hate saying that because I think we've had some really great examples lately of firsttime directors that just right out of the gate have given us such incredible starts and make it and make themselves seem like they have been doing this forever and it this doesn't seem like their first like real Fay unfortunately for Rana it does kind of feel that way I think that like I said I'm excited to see where she goes as a director from this movie because I think she does have potential uh it just isn't that it just doesn't feel like she has fully found her Niche yet she's still trying to figure out what really is my style what really am I trying to convey what am I doing differently from that of my father I I think she still needs to kind of figure that out see like I said when it comes to like building tension when it comes to crafting a solid mystery I think she does a really good job with that it just doesn't feel um like she has fully realized what she wants to do yet and I think that is something that I can't fully hold against her because this is her first time directing and I feel like she she definitely can get to a place where you know she gives us a film and we really get to see her you know hone her skills as a director and really understand her style and become a lot more confident it just kind of feels like she's holding back here a bit and I think that is like the one thing I will say about her directing but what I can say is that uh while I think she's very good directing wise writing wise I really do not think she is there yet uh because that is easily my biggest issue um when it comes to this film now I will say this the first like 40 50 minutes of this movie I actually thought was pretty solid I I thought they did a good job of you know crafting this really simple idea you have these four characters that like I said they're in kind of this bunker of sorts that they've nicknamed the coupe and you see them kind of you know their day-to-day lives of them trying to do what they can to you know occupy themselves but then also have to protect El from these creatures There are rules that are established that I think are really interesting and they they do a really good job of laying out the ideas of of what this is all about and I was like okay I actually like where we're going with this I think that it it's a very simple premise but it is one that is very effective there are many moments in this film where you know there are characters that are there are moments where they're very close to being caught or something is going to go wrong and I really did find myself uh quite um you know tense not knowing what was going to happen I think those moments are really effective and I think the movie does a good job in in building that and like I said I think the the first 40 minutes are actually really good but I will caution you right now I'm not going to tell you what happens but the central premise of this movie really only is the first 40 to 50ish minutes of this film once we get to a certain in point the movie kind of deviates into something else and once it turns into that something else the film just kind of lost me uh from there and I wasn't really a fan of what they were trying to do I think the movie it just it dived a lot more into like the lore of this world and how of this you know place and how these how this all came to be and really just started to explain things that I didn't need need explaining I felt like it honestly was better off not being explained and I think it would have been that much more effective as a results and I think that was something that really did hurt the film for me so that already was a big problem is that like I said I think the first 40 minutes um you know kind of had me but then once it got to a certain point and they started to kind of overe explain things I I really just started to check out a B I was like okay this is just starting to feel a bit more conv itional I'm not really liking the directions that this is going um but even prior to that even though I was enjoying the first you know a bit of this movie there were still some pretty significant issues for me and the biggest one unfortunately is that I just could not connect to a majority of these characters now Mina the main character I I think is pretty good she has a personal tragedy that she herself is going through and it's really eating away at her and you see her kind of struggle with that throughout this movie um you kind of see her using this Coupe as a way to kind of punish herself with the constant grief but also the guilt that she is feeling there is something that has happened that uh you know that that happened within her childhood that is really just kind of plagued her and I think that part of the film is very effective I found myself connecting to her character I really latched on to the Dilemma that she was going through I think the movie does a pretty good job with that when it comes to the characters in this film I really just had a hard time latching on to them Georgina Campbell's character she has this thing where she has her husband that has gone missing and there's a part of it that is you know somewhat effective but it feels so incredibly underd we never really get a sense of what really is going on we don't really dive any deeper into her character beyond that and so I just had a hard time really latching on to her um when it comes to Owen fi's character m we're supposed to believe that she's been here the longest out of everybody and on some level you care for her because she is the one that seems the most well prepared she you know there's a lot of mystery surrounding her character and I think that is very interesting um but just in terms of her development overall um I just wasn't really connecting to her I found myself quite disconnected from what was going on there and then when it comes to uh Oliver finnan's character of Daniel uh he's easily the most Blank Slate out of everybody there are many moments in and also I think easily the most frustrating character like if you want to talk about a film that has one character that just really gets on your nerves with these constant terrible decisions that he's making but also just really annoys you in in you know the him getting irritated and and him going against the rules that have been established I mean look no further than Daniel there are so many moments in this movie where it's like Daniel you know you're not supposed to be doing this why are you doing this and yet he does it anyway and he keeps doing it throughout the movie and it is so incredibly frustrating to watch and it's one of those things where it's it's hard to fully buy into it because you're supposed to believe that these three characters have been here for a long time but with the constant Reckless decisions that this guy is making I have no idea how they have survived up to this point like I generally don't understand how they have been able to survive when this guy continues to just be doing the the dumbest possible and putting them in active danger uh throughout the movie so I just I had a really hard time latching on to him I also didn't really feel the chemistry between these actors I didn't really feel a bond that was growing between them you're supposed to feel like they are getting closer throughout the movie there's one scene that I think does a good job with that but other than that um I I just didn't really feel like they did a great job at really connecting us to them as a group it feels much more like this is like very circumstantial and I think because a lot of these characters feel very distant it kind of causes us to not really feel any connection Mina especially um as much as I liked her character feels very distant and it doesn't really feel like she gets to a point where she's like loosening up or opening you know opening up more to the group about things that is going on that that doesn't really seem to be a big focus in this film I don't really think that a lot of attention was paid to these characters and so again I just had a hard time latching on to them and so I was intrigued I liked a lot of what the film was trying to set up what are you know what are these creatures all about why are they you know uh hunting these four characters why do they you know have this like void what what is the fascination with them what's really going on there I think there are a lot of interesting ideas that the film is trying to set up problem is once we get answers to those ideas uh it really just didn't end up working for me specifically when it comes to the third Act of this movie because aside from you know some moments that I did enjoy involving Mina's character like I said a lot of this third Act of the movie is plagued by just a lot of unnecessary backstory there's a ton of focus on lore but then there is another direction that the movie takes and I get what she is trying to do I get the idea of what she's trying to say the problem is there are things we are told early on in the movie and this completely contradicts it and really just makes the film so much more muddled as a result I a lot of things just weren't really making sense to me I found myself just having a lot more questions than I did answers and it just really kind of ends up breaking the movie unfortunately and so I really just think that the screenplay needed a lot of work I couldn't tell if it was just that maybe the ideas that Ashan is trying to tackle are too ambitious for a firsttime director maybe she needed time to kind of look over this movie and figure out what story she really wanted to tell it just felt like there was so much more that we could that this could have been and when it came down to the actual twist when it when it came down to the actual reveal of what's going on um I I just felt very underwhelmed and I I think the movie there there's so much more that they could have done dived into there's so many more ideas that they they could have tackled here and it just feels like it wasn't fully utilized unfortunately and especially when it comes to the third Act of the movie the the the actual you know there's this big reveal of sorts that ends up happening and really just ends up crumbling so much of the good work the film had set up up to this point there's just it's it just makes literally no sense whatsoever I'm trying to it's one of those things where like I'm trying to connect the dots I'm trying to understand what they are trying to say but it just didn't fully come together and I think it just really ended up bringing the film down so well I do think there are some good ideas at play it just didn't really end up amounting to all that much in the end and even things that were kind of working for me like I said Mina as a character and like what she was going through I I really did find myself invested in but the way they ended up concluding it it just felt very abrupt I think they really should have peppered that more throughout the movie it feels like they started off and they you know had this idea and every so often they kind of went back to it but I think that should have been a much bigger Focus uh throughout the movie because especially the end of the film was just really jarring for me the way they decided to wrap things up um it just didn't so again I think it the move it just feels like a first draft like that's the best way I can sum it up it just it doesn't feel like there these ideas were really looked into so really that ends up being the biggest issue uh with this film and I think the thing that's even more unfortunate about it is that I think that knowing that this was her directoral debut and she was obviously going I I think she was always going to be viewed in the shadow of her father that's just kind of how it works when it comes to nepotism and things like that I don't think it's necessarily Fair um but unfort Ely that is what was going to happen I think that she really needed to try to do something drastically different here and honestly she really doesn't well yes I think she goes in kind of a Fantastical direction towards the end of this movie that's not unlike something her father hasn't done before so I really think she needs to either figure out more of her style or just really come up with different ideas and really do something that sticks out because right now I think that someone who isn't really uh you know pay that that that's like paid you know close attention to who's directing the movie and who's writing the movie they might go into this and literally just think that M Knight directed and wrote it because it's not that dissimilar from what he has done and that's unfortunate because as a film that is really trying to prop up his daughter I really really doesn't make a great case for that so I think that really is like the main thing that brings this movie Down unfortunately from a cinematography perspective I think this film is really well done uh they talked before how it was shot on real location and you really do feel it when you're in the woods or inside the coupe I mean you really get that isolated claustrophobic feeling there there's there's so many there you know when they're in the woods especially it's so vast there's so many places that they can go but yet they also feel so trapped because they have to be confined to this one location and I think the scenes inside the coupe especially are really good and I really found myself drawn to that part of the movie there is one scene in particular uh involving this mus involving music and things like that that I thought was just uh very effective uh and I really liked the way that was all handled so I think cinematography wise the film works out really well I think even the design of the creatures when we eventually do get to see that um I think is really impressive I think they really did a great job at you know looking at creating um you know this uh creating these creatures and what really they're all you know and uh really giving them a very distinctive look I think they did a really good job with that the score is pretty good in this movie it elevates the tension when needed and the editing I I just think this movie is way too short um I think there needed to be a lot more time to delve deeper into some of the ideas that this movie was presing particularly when it gets into like the backstory and things like that it just feels like we're being told way too much at once and so I felt so bombarded by all these reviews all these new details that weren't presented before it just felt like too much and it's so much to take in uh I honestly couldn't even remember half of what they revealed because there's just so much that is being thrown at you at once when I think they really should have taken the time to uh slowly present things to us and really see how it affects these characters I think the film would have been much better as a result but unfortunately the film seems to be a little bit too concerned about like lore and backstory as opposed to like characters and you know um height and tension and things like that I think it really kind of got away from what it was doing well so I think there's just a lot of things that was just very frustrating about this film The Watchers is not at all a terrible movie there are things that I do enjoy there's some good performances here uh there's some very interesting ideas some very effective moments of suspense but unfortunately it is bogged down by the fact that it is helmed by a director and writer that just isn't quite there yet I think like I said Asana does have a future I do see I do see the potential within her I think really the main takeway needs to be I think she just needs to figure out what she did well in this film and try to expand upon it because there are things that she does do well here I think when it comes to the Fantastical sort of nature that she dives into I think that's good I think her suspense is good I think the tension is good I think some of the ideas of what she's doing you know are are really good ideas I just think that she really needs to figure out what can I do to separate myself from the films that you know my father has done and I think when she does that she will be a much better director as a result but I also think that she just really needs to take the time to hone in on you know some of the ideas that she built into this movie and hopefully become a more and hopefully with time you know get to that point where she can be a much more Dynamic director I definitely think she has it in her I just don't really think she's there yet and I think that really is the main thing that does hurt this film the screenplay in particular is just uh really rushed there are a lot of ideas that the movie's trying to dive into but it just doesn't really do the greatest job with there are reveals here that just really end up undermining the film and honestly make it really hard to uh buy into they characters that are mostly flat aside from a couple moments here and there uh so I really just had a hard time latching on to this movie so having said all that I am going to give the Watchers overall a c but over guys riew the Watchers the guys saw this Mor all LIF her thoughts and I will see you guys in my next video and I will see you guys for that okay bye bye [Music]