Joshua
Joshua
A film of two halves, neither of them all that pleasing.
As the jealous older child, Joshua is a bit too precocious a child prodigy. This could have been much scarier with a normal child.
Besides the fact that they told us they loved each other, I dunno why the parents were together. And how they ended up with a brainy kid. I usually like Sam Rockwell, but he seemed a bit Carrey Lite in this.
Once Joshua's evil plot is expossed it becomes like "what if Michael Keaton in Pacific Heights was their son?"
And "it's a text book case of child abuse" made me laugh in it's lack of basis in the real world (lest we forget, Daddy has video evidence !") The ending was remeniscent of an old school film like Entertaining Mr Sloane or Harold and Maude. Beats Shrooms for current last place in my list - on account of Shrooms not really taking itself this seriously.
As the jealous older child, Joshua is a bit too precocious a child prodigy. This could have been much scarier with a normal child.
Besides the fact that they told us they loved each other, I dunno why the parents were together. And how they ended up with a brainy kid. I usually like Sam Rockwell, but he seemed a bit Carrey Lite in this.
Once Joshua's evil plot is expossed it becomes like "what if Michael Keaton in Pacific Heights was their son?"
And "it's a text book case of child abuse" made me laugh in it's lack of basis in the real world (lest we forget, Daddy has video evidence !") The ending was remeniscent of an old school film like Entertaining Mr Sloane or Harold and Maude. Beats Shrooms for current last place in my list - on account of Shrooms not really taking itself this seriously.
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Pretty good - it managed to stay ambiguous for long enough to have various alternative explanations start to float around, which is fun.
On the down side, the end doesn't really work - having pretty much explained the situation to his uncle, one can't really see their relationship working out. And he should be smart enough to know that... the motivations needed to be explained to the audience, not the uncle.
7/10
On the down side, the end doesn't really work - having pretty much explained the situation to his uncle, one can't really see their relationship working out. And he should be smart enough to know that... the motivations needed to be explained to the audience, not the uncle.
7/10
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Better than I thought it would be, but I would have liked a proper ending. It just felt like it needed more.
I loved the scenes when the dad and Joshua are alone in the flat (and the baby too) and the dad knows what Joshua's been up to.
Does anyone reckon the dad had been beating Joshua? I don't.
I loved the scenes when the dad and Joshua are alone in the flat (and the baby too) and the dad knows what Joshua's been up to.
Does anyone reckon the dad had been beating Joshua? I don't.
Bring her to me, you bum. I'll take care of business.
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- Running Zombie
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Really liked this a lot, an intelligent and subtle take on the "evil kid" genre. Richard Donner once said that he always conceived THE OMEN with the possibility that Damien might not actually be evil, that all the deaths were a mere coincidence that fed into the paranoia of the leading characters. This played on similar notions and left us in doubt as to whether the true problem was Joshua himself or his somewhat unhinged parents. Great performances and a nice line in black humour.
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