08-02-2016 Listening (2014) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3153582/
Today I watched a bad movie. A very bad movie. I hated almost everything about it, except for its exciting premise and one or two of the twists it had in store for us. Actually, Listening, written and directed by first timer Khalil Sullins, a person who does not know how to write a story, how to tell one, how relationships work or how to direct a movie, is the worst movie I have seen in a very long time. I donât mean to hate on it so much, but there are just too many things wrong with it.
To start with one of the things I did like; the premise. Three college students (Thomas Stroppel, Artie Ahr and Amber Marie Bollinger), who are all in dire need of money, find a way to listen to a personâs thoughts. The focus is on the area between thinking about something and actually doing that thing, I like that part. All hail science fiction technology and countless positive opportunities for the future, but of course, it canât go well for a long time. The government finds out, the three get expelled for stealing University property and all hell starts to break loose around them.
Listening is trying from the very start to be very cool, with the score (one that sounds exactly like one you would expect during those quasi-exciting moments during Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?), following up a cheesy one-liner that goes right into the c0o0L opening credits. My hopes werenât all shattered at this point though, but I found out quickly enough that this wasnât going to be any good. First of all, the students look way too basic to know all about this mind-reading kind of stuff, in which they are so good that they make older scientists look dumb. The one-dimensionality is dripping off of them, and a heartbreak or two along the way doesnât make this any better. If youâd thought that maybe the movie would be at least interesting to look at, in an audiovisual kind of way, you are terribly mistaken as well; the cameraman uses the most boring of the available colour palettes, turning a lively park or neighbourhood in just a place drowned in bleak colours, acting is truly bad and the editing is as generic as it gets (only the sequences in which two characters are actively âreadingâ each otherâs minds are interesting). The worst thing about this all is that I came to all these conclusions when there was still an hour left to go in this movie.
Other low-budget sci-fi movies released over the last couple of years (like The Signal or Coherence) worked for the one reason Listening is failing so badly: they didnât strain themselves trying. Listening is trying way too hard and doesnât succeed. If this movie was to be a short subject (20 minutes or so), it might have worked, and while this argument is presented for many movies many times, I have never felt this strongly about it. Maybe I will edit it into something thatâs worth to watch. I feel mistreated.
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