Moviegoers are basically stupid. We fork over hard-earned (well, in some cases) cash for 90 to 120 minutes of theoretical enjoyment. So far so good, and we as a public are willing to buy into the idea that our six bucks entitle us to an hour-and-a-half of escapism. The problem is that going to see a movie is a crapshoot under the best of circumstances, and, well, in the worst case, it can be the grounds for a class-action lawsuit against the studio for a severe case of libel, i.e. they promised us this would be interesting, shocking, fun, etc.
None of which The Return is. And, honestly, I knew it was going to be weak when I saw the trailer. It looked like a retread of The Grudge, another Sarah Michelle Gellar joint (also a fairly craptacular movie but at least that took place in Japan), and, yes, I went to see the movie for the girl. So color me double stupid for expecting anything else. I pretty much figured I would sit through a tepid remake of a tepid remake, I was prepared for that.
But I was not prepared for the mind-numbing banality that is The Return. Gellar plays Joanna Mills, a woman so devoid of a personality or any human characteristics it's extremely hard to be interested in her, let alone care about her. Joanna is apparently seeing things (dead people, a possible killer, a mysterious tavern) and these visions lead her to some nowhere town in Texas where everything is a pasty brown and everyone acts strangely, and they ALL act as if they know something we don't, which of course they do, because we are never told what in the hell is going on.
I mean it. I literally had no idea what in the hell was going on through the first two-thirds of this movie. Joanna goes through the motions of tracking down what's going on in her visions, but she picks up clues because she needs to, not because it makes any sense that she does. The movie does eventually disclose what happened, but much like an Agatha Christie novel, there's no damn way you could have figured it out and even when you are told, it isn't very satisfying. And then we are only given Joanna's possible connection to the main story in a teaser at the end of the film, by which point we don't care what half-assed plot twists might be in store, we just want to get the hell out of there as quickly as we can.
It isn't a horror film, as the trailer promises. If only it were a retread of The Grudge, that might have merely been bad. But The Return takes boring to a whole new level. Watching Gellar play a character a good 50 IQ points lower than she is was painful, and I wondered over and over what the hell she could have been thinking in taking this role (can she really need the money that bad?). Maybe it's because I've seen her be so good in just about everything else she's done (even the later embarrassing seasons of Buffy come off like Shakespeare next to this leaden claptrap), but this is the kind of film you only do for love, money, exposure, or because you lost a bet. So I hereby pardon everyone else in the film (an impressively uncharismatic bunch of unknowns and unrecognizables, except for the one actor who had a recurring role on Dark Angel, and that tells you a lot about the average talent level Sarah ended up working with here) as, hell, a break is a break. But I can't fathom what in the hell Sarah was thinking in accepting a script this tepid.
I've beaten this dead horse enough. This is the worst film I've seen this year, and I've seen Ultraviolet. If that isn't enough to scare you away from this movie, then you must have as little common sense as the characters in the film itself. I'll put it more clearly than the movie could: DON'T GO.
None of which The Return is. And, honestly, I knew it was going to be weak when I saw the trailer. It looked like a retread of The Grudge, another Sarah Michelle Gellar joint (also a fairly craptacular movie but at least that took place in Japan), and, yes, I went to see the movie for the girl. So color me double stupid for expecting anything else. I pretty much figured I would sit through a tepid remake of a tepid remake, I was prepared for that.
But I was not prepared for the mind-numbing banality that is The Return. Gellar plays Joanna Mills, a woman so devoid of a personality or any human characteristics it's extremely hard to be interested in her, let alone care about her. Joanna is apparently seeing things (dead people, a possible killer, a mysterious tavern) and these visions lead her to some nowhere town in Texas where everything is a pasty brown and everyone acts strangely, and they ALL act as if they know something we don't, which of course they do, because we are never told what in the hell is going on.
I mean it. I literally had no idea what in the hell was going on through the first two-thirds of this movie. Joanna goes through the motions of tracking down what's going on in her visions, but she picks up clues because she needs to, not because it makes any sense that she does. The movie does eventually disclose what happened, but much like an Agatha Christie novel, there's no damn way you could have figured it out and even when you are told, it isn't very satisfying. And then we are only given Joanna's possible connection to the main story in a teaser at the end of the film, by which point we don't care what half-assed plot twists might be in store, we just want to get the hell out of there as quickly as we can.
It isn't a horror film, as the trailer promises. If only it were a retread of The Grudge, that might have merely been bad. But The Return takes boring to a whole new level. Watching Gellar play a character a good 50 IQ points lower than she is was painful, and I wondered over and over what the hell she could have been thinking in taking this role (can she really need the money that bad?). Maybe it's because I've seen her be so good in just about everything else she's done (even the later embarrassing seasons of Buffy come off like Shakespeare next to this leaden claptrap), but this is the kind of film you only do for love, money, exposure, or because you lost a bet. So I hereby pardon everyone else in the film (an impressively uncharismatic bunch of unknowns and unrecognizables, except for the one actor who had a recurring role on Dark Angel, and that tells you a lot about the average talent level Sarah ended up working with here) as, hell, a break is a break. But I can't fathom what in the hell Sarah was thinking in accepting a script this tepid.
I've beaten this dead horse enough. This is the worst film I've seen this year, and I've seen Ultraviolet. If that isn't enough to scare you away from this movie, then you must have as little common sense as the characters in the film itself. I'll put it more clearly than the movie could: DON'T GO.