I'll be the first person to admit that I never would have expected this amount of attention and praise for Crazy Rich Asians. Indeed, after seeing the trailers, I fully expected it to (rightfully) crash and burn like every Melissa McCarthy movie. However, I'm not one to neglect a book-adaptation film that receives universal attention alongside a score of 74 on Metacritic and a 93%-fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So, naturally, I caved. You'd think that I'd be used to it by now, right? Regardless, after viewing it, I learned two things: My movie-quality predictions aren't always spot-on, and I can no longer take Rotten Tomatoes seriously.
Unlike plenty of early-20s-men, I've been known to be fully on-board with certain romantic movies. I thoroughly enjoy When Harry Met Sally, Crazy Stupid Love, Hitch, Silver Linings Playbook, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and--yes--even The Notebook. But my clear favorite is Her, which is absolutely beautiful. I tell you this because I'm not blatantly against the Rom-Com genre as a whole, just the bad ones (of which there are plenty). However, Crazy Rich Asians is on neither side of the curve; rather, just on the lower end of the middle.
To be fair, there were redeeming qualities that I should address. The cinematography was above-average, and the use of color added a lot to the movie's tone. A lot of shooting was done on-location, which helped with both of those elements. Upon further recollection, however, the tone was relatively inconsistent, as it changed from act-to-act. This was largely due to the lackluster script, but the score certainly didn't help. I'm fine with a dramatic or romantic movie having humorous undertones, but that doesn't green-light tonally shifting at a whim for multiple scenes and jumping back just as quickly.
Furthermore, several performances were standout aspects of the film. The two leads had observable chemistry, and several side characters brought a reasonable contribution to the table. Some actors tried way too hard to be funny or charismatic, but they weren't the majority. I thought many characters were inherently weak and unrealistic, but that's no fault of the actors. After all, they can only execute a trope so well. But, if nothing else, this was the second movie that I've seen recently that stars several impressive non-A-list actors, which is welcoming.
I was mostly bothered with the fact that so many character developments and arcs that should have taken place over the course of the film were glossed over in the last minutes for the sake of the ending. Growth and development were unfortunately traded for long-winded introductions, leaving little time for anything of substance. Which is amazing, because this movie could have and should have been 30 minutes shorter.
The biggest problem, though, stemmed from the screenplay. The dialogue wasn't terribly realistic, and it was only relatable to an extremely narrow audience. Furthermore, the cast is obviously entirely Chinese, which is fine; it just left itself open for tangents of the same joke. The singular joke being that American things in China is funny. Or something.
For example, a man is seen walking in a suit, and one characters says, "It's like the Chinese Bachelor." In another instance, a character says his daughter went to college and "came bas as Chinese Ellen DeGeneres." Get it? Because that's usually an American thing...but this time...it's Chinese...which...is funny? In simpler words, the attempts at humor weren't deep, were timed poorly, and were executed in a marginally better fashion.
Crazy Rich Asians is redeemably tangential of the mainstream romantic narrative--but only slightly. It deals heavily with a fish-out-of-water concept intertwined with difficult relationship and family dynamics. All of this makes for a constructive narrative, but the execution was lackluster at best. The exposition and backstory of the characters and their respective relationships was unnecessarily in the limelight, and the pivotal moments for the main characters got lost in the shadows. This also made for a wildly uneven pace, and an ironically abrupt climax to a story that became stretched way too thin.
You wouldn't have to look far to find a worse Rom-Com, but the fact remains that Crazy Rich Asians is an attention-getting film that is extraordinarily mediocre. (Make sure you read "mediocre" in the Immortan Joe voice.) Numerically, that means 58%, which also means that there would be no issue with streaming it on
Comments
Post a Comment