10 J
Great movie, tearjerker but most of all, all about a Mother's love past death.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
06/22/23
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ashley s
Awful storytelling and lots of inconsistencies.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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BB
very different zombie movie
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
10/31/20
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Audience Member
I didn't see it. Soo I don't know it was rated. So I'm leaving it like that
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/19/23
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jesse o
No review yesterday for the movie I watched on Friday because it was a repeat (The Priests: Exorcism, in the most generic horror title in the history of humanity). So there you go, I was planning on watching a repeat of another movie as well, The Piper, but I'm probably gonna watch The Meg instead. Regardless, neither here nor there. Part of me is sometimes happy when I watch a repeat, because I don't have to do this. Not that I don't enjoy doing it, but sometimes I just want to do something else instead. Like watch porn, as an example. I've said too much. Let's move on. In all seriousness, however, the topic of the dead coming back to life is one that has been quite worn out in the world of horror. I mean, I don't know if you know this, but there's such a thing called the zombie genre that has been oversaturated ever since the first season of The Walking Dead. Every once in a while, however, there's a movie like They Came Back, which was then adapted into an excellent television series called The Returned, that pushes what the boundaries of the genre of the undead. In the movie, the undead just wanted to go back to living their former lives. They weren't all there, of course, since they didn't actually talk or really do anything, but they just wanted to go back to what they knew before their deaths, they couldn't develop any new skills or new memories, just what they knew. And The Returned pushes that concept even further where, really, the returned (sorry) are basically the same person they were before they died. It's a really great show and, if you haven't seen it, then you're really missing out in all honesty. And then along comes this movie. I'll be honest, it has some interesting, if basic ideas. To put it simply, the RVs are murder victims that came back to life in order to carry out justice, they kill those who murdered them (who weren't punished for their crimes) and then they vanish and disappear after their mission is through. Seo is a cold-hearted prosecutor whose mother was murdered in a robbery seven years prior to the events of the movie. Seo's mother comes back from the dead, of course. But, there's a bit of a caveat here, in that Seo's mother, shortly after arriving, attempts to kill Seo and she falls into a coma. Seo didn't physically kill his mother, but she says that he made her die. And this is where the problems begin for this movie. There was someone convicted of Seo's mother's murder but, of course, with her return from the dead, this is revealed to be a cover-up and framing of an innocent person by National Intelligence. MAJOR SPOILERS here, so just skip ahead if you don't want them, it is revealed, later, that the person who murdered Seo's mother was the first South Korean RV, who was killed by Seo's mother two years prior to her death. It honestly gets a little convoluted. Regardless, this sets off two investigations that are happening concurrently. Seo and his people are investigating who actually murdered his mother. There's a group of detectives investigating Seo and whether or not he's actually guilty of something illegal, like if he had any involvement in his mother's murder. And then there's National Intelligence controlling and manipulating the information that gets out. The National Intelligence, also, quite horrifyingly, like I said, framed an innocent man for the murder of Seo's mother, they kill him or whatever, and then dump his body in this river. Seven years later, it is revealed that it was actually TWO people that stabbed Seo's mother. The guy who was trying to steal her purse and the RV, who delivered the killing blows. National Intelligence, who are looking after Seo's mother as she's in the coma, gain custody of the first guy who stab her. They put him in the same room with Seo's mother, she gets up and they let her kill him. Then they dump his body in the same river they dumped the body of the innocent man, hoping that, if he washes up, it'll be framed as a suicide. National Intelligence are awful people in this movie and, yet, at the end of the movie, they suffer literally no consequences for their actions, as if they didn't do any of the horrific shit that they did. That, to me, is easily the worst part of this movie. They leave this huge plot hole unresolved because that's not what the movie is about. The movie is about Seo and his mother and their reconciliation, as Seo was somewhat of an uncaring son. Oh, and also, he's guilty of something pretty major that he has no memory of. The movie is honestly so convoluted, because everything that it adds to this mystery of what the RVs are, what Seo's mother's intentions are, why she wanted to harm him, who's the little girl that Seo keeps seeing, what Seo did, the cop that Seo's mother framed and his guilt over the events that transpired, the detectives investigating Seo for what they believe he did, National Intelligence being a bunch of assholes, what happens if the RV comes back and fails in avenging their death. In short, in all honesty, the movie never really does anything that is truly interesting with all of these ideass that I just mentioned. The problem comes in the fact that this movie doesn't know what it wants to be. It doesn't know if it's a murder mystery, a thriller, a horror, a police procedural or a family drama and in trying to do all of them at once, it loses all focus and sense of identity. There's also some major character inconsistencies in this movie. Because, at first, Seo's mother tries to attack him. Then, during the climax, when Seo finally figures out that he's responsible for the death of a little girl, who's about to kill him (she's also an RV), his mother comes and quite literally pleads with this girl to spare his life. In life, she was a very devoted mother, she did everything for Seo. In fact, she's so devoted to Seo that she's, quite frankly, a terrible mother to Seo's sister. That's another thing I don't like about the movie at all, it is so centered around Seo's relationship with his mother, but it's like his sister is completely invisible and she doesn't really matter. I find that's poor storytelling because a great parent is a great parent to all of his/her children, no matter how many they may have. In this movie, all of Seo's mother's efforts are centered on him and his sister is treated poorly. So, to me, Seo's mother is kind of a terrible mother and character. Anyway, the point is that Seo's mother undergoes a character transformation. Like why the hell was she so aggressive at first, but then she reverted back to the devoted mother that she was when she was alive. It doesn't make any sense and the film does not care to give you an explanation for, really, anything that is going on. Like I mentioned, National Intelligence doing terrible things, that goes unanswered as well. And, to me, the biggest problem of all. Well, it's not the biggest, since I feel I've gone over all the biggest issues I have. Anyway, and you knew this was coming, is the sentimentality. Essentially, the movie becomes this wishy washy thing of Seo remembering the crime he committed, coming clean and paying for his crime, and, of course, realizing that he was an uncaring son. The endgame isn't Seo coming to the realization that he did a terrible thing nine years prior to the events of the movie, the endgame is Seo realizing that his mother deserved better. And, honestly, considering how terrible she was to her OWN fucking daughter, I'm not sure she deserved better from anyone. Not saying she deserved to be murdered, but she's not a good person in the slightest and the fact that the film simply refused to show Seo's sister side of things is one of the worst things about this movie. I imagine that her story would be far more interesting to watch, to be completely honest with you. I think another major issue that I have is that, essentially, it's like the concept doesn't really have any relevance in where the film ends. You could literally tell this same story and, instead of using this concept, you could do where Seo goes on this goose chase of letters that his mother left all over in order for him to remember what happened. I literally came up with that ON THE SPOT. The resurrection of the dead serves as one of the worst plot devices I've seen in ages. It doesn't really do anything, it just allows the story to be unnecessarily convoluted. The mystery isn't interesting, the concept is wasted on a meaningless story about a mother and son reconnecting when, really, both are just terrible fucking people. It's got an identity crisis, plenty of plot holes left unresolved and, overall, is just poorly written. I was gonna go with two stars for this, but I've decided to downgrade my rating. Two stars implies that it was fairly watchable, if not good. This isn't watchable. This is a bad movie. It's not terrible, but it's still really bad and it's one of those movies where, the more I wrote about it, the more I disliked it. I feel this one takes the cake though, cause I started with an average score in my mind, then I started writing the review and it got downgraded to two stars and then I kept writing MORE about it and then THAT got downgraded to the rating you see now. This is just a mess of a movie and I regret having seen it. So, yea, I wouldn't recommend this, unless you want to torture yourself with an insipid and nonsensical narrative.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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