(ESP-ENG) The Watchers [2024] - Movie Review!
Hello friends, good vibes to all.
I've been saying it for some time now, the world of cinema is suffering a huge creativity crisis and it's becoming more and more common to find things that already exist and that in many occasions end up being a copy of something already known. I can understand the term “influence” but the issue is when that word becomes “copy”. Why do I say all this? - Because of Ishana Night Shyamalan's movie which for me is a copy of the series FROM, which is waiting for the third season. I don't know if you have seen this series but it has been one of the most acclaimed for the terror and suspense it injects, even Stephen King himself has praised it a lot. The Watchers comes with the intention of reducing that story in almost an hour and a half.
This story begins with Mina (Dakota Fanning), a woman who is living her life almost by inertia as she has unresolved issues from her past. She lives in Ireland in a meaningless job and immersed in a routine that does not help her. One day she is asked to take a bird to a place (she works in a pet store) and she accepts it just for a change of air. She embarks on a journey through the beautiful landscapes of western Ireland until she reaches a dense and dense forest where everything stops working: car, cell phone, absolutely everything, it is as if she enters another dimension. The thing is that this forest is not like the others, there is a strange aura, the atmosphere is heavy, it is as if you feel watched.
It is very easy to lose track of everything, of time, space and reality itself. The deeper Mina goes into the forest, the more lost she gets until she meets a person who takes her to a kind of shelter in the middle of the forest. There, together with two strangers, they try to make a life for themselves while being at the mercy of these creatures that lurk in the darkness of the forest; it is as if these people were the pets of these beings. The point is that they must find a way out of the forest without dying or going crazy in the attempt and yes, that place pushes you to lose your sanity little by little. As you can see, it is a horror and suspense movie, or that is what it tries to be, the thing is that something happened to me that damaged the whole experience.
I saw FROM, obviously it's not exactly the same, but the premise is identical. Having that in mind I knew what could happen, what could be those creatures and what was all that forest so I never had the surprise factor. The plot is not bad but I fall back to what I said before, I felt it rushed, I think there is no chance for terror to invade you, in fact there are no jumpscares or anything like that, the only thing you feel is a tension to the unknown, it is knowing that something imminent can happen but you don't know when. I say this to those people who are not familiar with the series in question. There is an attempt to do something good but I personally feel it falls short.
The setting is cool, that's if achieved, the little CGI that there is also passes the test, it's not something extraordinary but I think it's halfway decent. Another thing to mention is that at the end there is a plot twist, I'm not going to say that I expected it but at some point in the film you can imagine it. It's good because if that didn't happen I think the film would have been terribly flat; with this change we see some depth in the whole story. The characters. I like Dakota, she is a very good actress. Here we don't see those gifts because the movie doesn't give for that but it's not something to criticize either, it's all very simple. The other characters for me are secondary, only one of them, Madeline (Olwen Fouéré) is perhaps the one who contributes the most but nothing special.
It is a film to pass the time. It's not a disaster but for me it falls far short of its intentions. If you've already seen FROM, you know what's coming. If you haven't then enjoy the film, I think those who haven't seen anything will have a slightly better time. I give it a 5.5/10. It's a little over an hour and a half long. I leave the trailer below for you to check it out.
¡Un abrazo a todos, nos vemos en la próxima!
Well my people that's all for today, I hope you liked it.
A hug to everyone, see you next time!
Yeah!! I got the same feeling watching this, it looks more like a duplicate of "From" but then some scenes still made a different impact though not perfect.