Hope

Hope is one of the most bizarre movies I've ever seen. Very funny. And a time period piece of sorts. But with the movie's three acts all being a fair bit different it makes it a bit too uneven and stretched thin. The suspenseful first act was my favorite despite the deep lore-dump on the backend. And for the first half my comparison was Attack on Titan as I was trying to process everything, for what that's worth.

The opening scene traces the overall odd shape of the movie's clever genre mashup. From there, it rips off into being a gory, suspense story. And then between head scratches and eyebrow raises, you start seeing just how many funny bits you're pulling out of the monstrous mash that is the movie lampooning the blockbuster world.

The comedy is spread fairly generously throughout. Really top tier comedy in some places (like the accurate story of the call of mother nature). But the unevenness of the endless chase scenes on the back half drag it all down quite a bit, even if building up to some outrageous and humorous

Very well acted within the confines of the movie, i.e. had to do a lot across the spectrum with comedy characters in a cross-genre, a la Widow's Bay. The CGI was absolute junk, but that doesn't really hurt the movie too much (except for the chase scenes) and the garbage CGI at least tries hard enough to make it somewhat scary.

The length becomes too much to look past, largely because what-would've-been-fine slow pacing in the second half could be forgiven with the deliberate genre cross-up but the nearly endless terrible chase scenes cannot be forgiven. Even when setting up a comedic premise, it's too much build up. Trimmed up just a bit it'd be an even more accessible meta-movie (or let it loose and be the TV series the very different three acts seemed to be reaching toward).

I recommend it, but only if you can buy into what they seem to be doing here.

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