Swiss Army Man (2016)
…………………………………………………….
Swiss Army Man Movie Review
Swiss Army Man is a 2016 comedy drama film starring Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Dano. It is an original and sometimes moving, but mostly ridiculous movie.
…………………………………………………….
“You can’t just say anything that comes into your head,
that’s bad talking.“
…………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………….
It is about a man who, just as he is attempting suicide, sees a corpse wash shore and developed a friendship with it as it is half-alive and possesses a couple of interesting powers. Now the originality here is undeniable. However, there are two kinds of original works. One is admirable and groundbreaking whereas the other is bad or silly. This one falls in the latter category. It is just such a silly premise that you can’t take it seriously and some of its plot points were just too ridiculous to excuse.
Swiss Army Man has its strengths on the other hand. One is the emotion. Most of it is unearned and because the plot is silly, it doesn’t quite get through. But some of it felt genuinely moving and sweet. I liked the relationship between the two characters, it was a nice friendship. Another good aspect in this movie is its score. I just loved this score as it is uplifting, inspired and sometimes even magical. It thoroughly managed to lift some of the scenes to much greater heights because of it.
Daniel Radcliffe continues his quest into weird and odd territory with this movie and he is solid in it, but again probably a waste of his talents. Paul Dano is much better utilized and he was actually rather likable here where he is usually unlikable to me.
…………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………….
The direction is okay, but the editing is not and the film felt too slow and not enough happened in it to justify its somewhat long running time. It is too simplistic and the ending, although fun, is probably more ridiculous than the rest of the movie which really says something. Some of the imagery was memorable, but most of it was too hippie and silly. As for its humor, it is horrible. It basically consists of farts and talks about bodily fluids which is why the dialogue is also terrible. Those two destroyed what could have been a much more interesting and better movie.
Swiss Army Man is a ridiculous movie. Some of it was sweet and moving, the performances are good and the score is actually very good, but the film is original in its plot but in a negative way as it was overly silly and sometimes even stupid and the juvenile humor and dialogue hurt it the most in the long run.
My Rating – 3
…………………………………………………….
