I saw a thread on the movie already, but I'll go ahead and give it a quick review.
Downsizing is being advertised as the "best movie of the year." It really isn't.
Downsizing is the story of Paul Safranek (Matt Damon), a somewhat down on his luck middle class guy, who's looking for some sort of purpose in his life. As population growth steers the world closer and closer to disaster in the form of disease epidemics, drastic climate change, and general over-crowding, a set of scientists develop a new technology which permits them to shrink most organic matter down to a fraction of normal size. This technology is lauded as a possible solution to the world's overcrowding problems, but not everyone is onboard with "getting small." Unfortunately, that's about as far as the movie really goes insofar as developing that theme. The shrinking technology really just serves as a catalyst for Paul to make a change in his life, so the audience can follow his character arc, which sadly is also not very developed.
As you know from the trailers, Paul shrinks himself, but his wife can't bring herself to go with him, so he sets of on his new "small" life alone, looking for new purpose. The trailers make the movie seem like it might be a broad comedy with some touching moments, focusing the ads on some of the comedy stars from the cast. However, those stars are only in the movie for about 10mins, and the film really doesn't do much with the potential comedic scenarios that could result from the small/big world dichotomies. Additionally, Paul doesn't go through very much of a real character arc. At the end of the movie, it's not really very clear that he's learned any special lesson about life, or even what the film makers might have wanted that lesson to be.
The other characters are also underdeveloped and even self-contradictory through the movie. Christoph Waltz's character seems like a money grubbing douchebag, but then he also somehow is tied to humanitarian efforts, but he also tries to help Paul avoid doing volunteer work, etc. Even Paul's primary love interest is undeveloped and the love story proceeds weirdly quickly.
The effects for the movie were good, but not amazing, and the film makers didn't leverage the small/big distinctions enough to highlight anything special. The plot was weak and familiar, and the character development was lacking. Overall, I was disappointed in how vanilla the movie was.
There was a little foul language and suggestion of sex, but no nudity or actual sex or violence.
Overall, I would recommend passing on seeing this in the theaters. It's a decent weekend afternoon TNT or TBS movie.
Slowguy
(insert pithy phrase here...)
Downsizing is being advertised as the "best movie of the year." It really isn't.
Downsizing is the story of Paul Safranek (Matt Damon), a somewhat down on his luck middle class guy, who's looking for some sort of purpose in his life. As population growth steers the world closer and closer to disaster in the form of disease epidemics, drastic climate change, and general over-crowding, a set of scientists develop a new technology which permits them to shrink most organic matter down to a fraction of normal size. This technology is lauded as a possible solution to the world's overcrowding problems, but not everyone is onboard with "getting small." Unfortunately, that's about as far as the movie really goes insofar as developing that theme. The shrinking technology really just serves as a catalyst for Paul to make a change in his life, so the audience can follow his character arc, which sadly is also not very developed.
As you know from the trailers, Paul shrinks himself, but his wife can't bring herself to go with him, so he sets of on his new "small" life alone, looking for new purpose. The trailers make the movie seem like it might be a broad comedy with some touching moments, focusing the ads on some of the comedy stars from the cast. However, those stars are only in the movie for about 10mins, and the film really doesn't do much with the potential comedic scenarios that could result from the small/big world dichotomies. Additionally, Paul doesn't go through very much of a real character arc. At the end of the movie, it's not really very clear that he's learned any special lesson about life, or even what the film makers might have wanted that lesson to be.
The other characters are also underdeveloped and even self-contradictory through the movie. Christoph Waltz's character seems like a money grubbing douchebag, but then he also somehow is tied to humanitarian efforts, but he also tries to help Paul avoid doing volunteer work, etc. Even Paul's primary love interest is undeveloped and the love story proceeds weirdly quickly.
The effects for the movie were good, but not amazing, and the film makers didn't leverage the small/big distinctions enough to highlight anything special. The plot was weak and familiar, and the character development was lacking. Overall, I was disappointed in how vanilla the movie was.
There was a little foul language and suggestion of sex, but no nudity or actual sex or violence.
Overall, I would recommend passing on seeing this in the theaters. It's a decent weekend afternoon TNT or TBS movie.
Slowguy
(insert pithy phrase here...)