"El Psy Kongroo!" Hearthstone Moderator
Sweetness & Lightning 4 - God damn this show is going to kill me with diabeetus, I love this show
"El Psy Kongroo!" Hearthstone Moderator
Wow, IET managed to really surprise me with the latest DE.
"El Psy Kongroo!" Hearthstone Moderator
"El Psy Kongroo!" Hearthstone Moderator
Colorful – 5/10.
Colorful is a movie I wanted to love, I really did. After all, it has an interesting premise, interesting characters, and a laudable message that I wanted to get behind. Problem is, after just over two hours of running time, I felt like it squandered both its characters and its potential.
The movie opens with the main character in what appears to be the afterlife. He has mysteriously won a lottery, and despite his reluctance, he is forced to inhabit the body of Makoto Kobayashi, a 14-year-old who committed suicide. Thus, he is tasked to live as Makoto and “remember the sin” that he committed.
Because of how the plot works, we’re just as clueless as the main character, getting snippets of information as we go along. We learn very early on, almost at the introduction stages, of major character flaws – a mother who is having an affair, a father who is rarely present due to a strenuous work schedule, a woman who is effectively prostituting herself for money – without any other information. Because of this, I’ll admit, I started judging them…after all, that’s all I knew about them. But, as I paused, I realized there were all (potentially) viable reasons as to why they did what they did. However, the movie never really explore these explanations, only offering that humans aren’t “monochromatic; they have many colors”. If Colorful had actually refuted my initial judgments properly, its message would be infinitely stronger (especially the girl who is sleeping with an older gentleman to ‘get nice things’… I try to not judge as it’s none of my business, but there’s a huge difference between selling yourself out of necessity and selling yourself for a fancy necklace).
The main problem of the movie, however, is the lack of focus and scope. Instead of focusing on a specific person, scene and/or problem, the film jumps around frequently and the result none of them feel very developed. At the end of the movie, I was wanting more – what did I really know about his brother? Of his father, crush, his schoolmate…? In all cases, not enough; in some cases, next to nothing. Instead of presenting many underdeveloped characters, give us two or three characters that developed well. Why is quality over quantity such a difficult thing to grasp?
The message that it did try and present to us was something I can really get behind: that humans are multifaceted and how we’re often suffering despite our attempts to appear stoic. However, a large amount of the time the movie literally spells that out by the character’s dialogue (especially the ending scene). While this can be a serviceable way to get your message across, the amount of times it did this weakened its message to the point of it being preachy and ineffective. Show me, don't tell me.
I hate to delegate this near the bottom in a small paragraph, but there is some good to be found in the movie. I found the reveal about the protagonist at the end to be very well done and resolved a few questions/problems I had with the beginning. In addition, I like the fact that the movie didn't they tackled some heavy flaws, ones that I felt uncomfortable with and challenged my beliefs. Unfortunately, it required me to challenge them by myself, but...
In the end, I'll remember Colorful as a movie that failed to live up to my expectations. It wasn't bad, just...ineffective.
"El Psy Kongroo!" Hearthstone Moderator