I should've read the reviewsDownsizing was definitely not the movie I thought it was going to be. I was never quite sure what it was about the whole time. It was labeled as a comedy on Hulu, so I thought it was just going to be a nice little comedy. I spent a long time waiting for the comedy to start, but it never came.
I was pretty disappointed in Downsizing. It was a 2+ hour movie that moved really slow for the first 3 quarters and then really fast at the end. The entire first hour of the movie was spent explaining the reasoning behind going small and establishing that Matt Damon was an occupational therapist in financial trouble. It was really slow. There was a 15 minute scene showing the process of becoming small. It was mildly entertaining, but it definitely didn't need to be so long. I feel like the director chose to show realistically how life would be if people could miniaturize themselves instead of actually entertaining people. I had to take a break from this movie about halfway through. It was right after he got small. The movie took a total 180 after Matt Damon actually got small. His wife never showed up again, even though she spent a lot of time on screen in the first half. The narrative picked back up a year after he got small. It followed him through his normal life for a while. Eventually he found a famous war refugee and helped her with her prosthetic leg (he's an occupational therapist). Then, in a weird move, he tries to tell her he's going to Norway on an important trip (that's where the first small colony was). She said she's coming with him, so his plan goes to pieces. He didn't seem too upset though because he fell in love with her on the way there. They met the scientist who found out how to miniaturize people. He says they have a couple years until the earth gets overcome by global warming, so their colony is going to live underground for the next few thousand years. Matt Damon almost goes in with them, but chooses to stay with the refugee instead. This all happens in the final third of the movie. Why we needed all that exposition, I have no idea. It would have been a pretty good movie if they had started it at around the hour 15 mark. The fact that they were tiny didn't even play much of a role in the actual story after that point, so it really was like two movies. This really did have all the makings of a really good movie, but it didn't execute well at all. You can probably cut out at least a third of this movie and lose absolutely nothing substantial. Way too much time was spent building a conflict, only to throw it all in the garbage and start from scratch. The movie would have been so much better if they had added 40 minutes to the ending events and subtracted 40 minutes from the beginning. The beginning was not enjoyable to watch and it did not matter. There wasn't enough time after Damon became small to create and resolve a real conflict. It resulted in his character feeling disconnected. I think the writer realized at the end of the movie that he had to create an actual story, so he just through that in there. He tried to cover up his mistake by saying "it was all part of God's plan to bring me to Norway to help save humanity". That doesn't make up for the first hour and a half of aimless story. Downsizing had the opposite problems Turning Red had. Downsizing was a great idea, but the execution was not there. Turning Red was a terrible idea, but it was executed very well. 4/10
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AuthorHigh school student who definitely knows what he's talking about. Archives
April 2022
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