They (2017) Review - Aimless, Meaningless & Just..Less

Without exaggeration, after sitting through all of this and having numerous breaks throughout it, this has to be one of the blandest films I've ever seen. The worst thing about it is that it actually has something interesting on its mind and in its visual language. The framing, shot placement and cinematography in general is the film's best aspect. The problem has to do with everything else revolving around its execution.

For starters, the cast is painstakingly dull. Not one person in this movie is legitimately pulling their own weight. They are all running on the same level of energy. Because of that, you get performances that feel almost the same and it gets repetitive, tiresome and boring because of it.

It's like everyone re-recorded their dialogue later in post (oh wait...they did). And you begin to think that way at a certain point. And once you do, believe me, you're not wrong.

You then get to the editing that feels at times choppy and uneven and it only adds to the awkward atmosphere created here

More importantly, the worst elements boil down to three things: pacing, sound design and writing.

Not only is the delivery of the dialogue already questionable (both in performance and technical choices) but the actual pace and cutting of the dialogue itself at points is annoying and unbearable as it is either overlapping too much or being drawn out too much.

Speaking of the dialogue, the writing itself is rather lifeless. It ranges from very basic to rather stale. Beyond this poem that J says to himself during the film, the writing isn't delivering anything unique or special.

And the worst I've taken notice of is the sound design, which is almost always delayed. There's a dinner scene near the beginning that holds (at least for me) some of the most obvious sound delays I've seen in recent years. Sounds will arrive a second later after the sound should have occurred. Good sound and good sound placement will help make a scene come alive. Here, even if the sound design was polished up, it just bathes in the same tone as everything else.

It all falls back to the direction, which isn't doing the story much favors either. This clearly needed a more clearer vision and more firm sense of approach because at times this feels oddly scattered and you just feel lost at points. Not because you can't understand what's going on but why certain elements are here to begin with. There's this occurring idea of plants and flowers that is trying to represent something about J. I can't tell you what it's trying to do. Believe me, I've watched movies I don't understand but are speaking clearly in a certain respect. This just feels like an afterthought and someone trying to use visual language that doesn't know how to use it.

Through technical miscalculations, dull performances, borderline careless direction, you're left with a story that has glimmers of something special and unique just waiting to come out. And at some points, it does. But it's not enough to save this and you're left with watching something that really does feel incomplete and you just flat don't care.

And it commits the greatest sin a film can do: being boring. Because that's honestly the best way to describe this. It's a very inexpressive and lifeless version of itself

Grade: D