by Sharon Sharpe
Spoilers ahead
It’s a Friday night, and my husband and I are settled in, ready to find a film to watch. I remember seeing ads for 'The Watchers' on social media, and some press releases hit my inbox, so when I see it available for rent on Prime, it’s an immediate yes—I rent it. Dakota Fanning is truly a beloved talent. Having watched her in films since she was a child, it's exciting to see her all grown up.
Although she’s taken a break from acting for a while, she is the reason most people tuned in for this film, myself included. So, what’s it about? According to IMDb, a young artist gets stranded in an extensive, immaculate forest in western Ireland. After finding shelter, she becomes trapped alongside three strangers, stalked by mysterious creatures each night. Sounds simple enough, right?
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Okay, so my husband and I go into this with an open mind, especially after learning that it is based on the novel of the same name by A. M. Shine. Books that have been adapted into films are a new go-to for me ever since reading the new book from my boss, 'The Snows of Khione,' and learning about the process of turning a book into a script.
It’s a lot, and I have the utmost respect for authors—just imagine, a scene we watch for two minutes can easily take an author five days to write. Anyway, I had high hopes for this one—a book turned into a film, Dakota Fanning, M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter; I mean, what on earth could possibly go wrong? The entire film was bad.
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Dramatic pause…
Every now and then, my husband and I would exchange a look of annoyance because why did we just waste $19.99 in this economy? Let’s start with the acting. I believe the acting from the cast was believable—Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouéré, and Oliver Finnegan give stellar performances. But then we have Ms. Fanning, who looked absolutely bored and disinterested. She looked like she had better things to do and wished she was doing them.
It was a simple, bland, and uninteresting performance. She was no better than Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman (both films), and we all know that was a terrible performance. Dakota, I am not sure, but her facial expressions were impassive for most of the movie. I think the only time we saw some emotion was when they went down into the bunker and watched the tapes from Kilmartin.
Image Credit: Leon Bennett | Getty Images
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Thankfully, she let a tear drop and let us know she was still in there somehow. I get it; I believe because her character is so fearless and kind of defiant, you know she goes against the grain, which we saw a clear example of in the flashback scene in the car ride that ended her mother’s life. But aside from that, we’ve seen other stoic characters in films. One of my favorites is Betty Gilpin in 'The Hunt' as Crystal. I mean, she was marvelous and a total badass.
So, Fanning, I ask, what on earth happened? Could it be that she hated the script, the director, or just the story altogether? We may never know. Moving on to the story. Yikes. I think this had a tremendous amount of potential, but the backstory of the characters/watchers most definitely fell short, and the special effects were pretty bad given that this movie had a $30M budget—but I’m just going to assume most of that went to Fanning. Either way, I think the author had a good idea—creatures who like to watch humans to study them and one day become them.
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But here’s the thing: we don’t actually get to see these creatures that well. The film is dark during their scenes on purpose, which I think is unfair for the viewer—especially given the budget. When I think of films like 'I Am Legend,' where the antagonists are shown in great detail, I was able to feel that story, and even when Will Smith had to kill his dog, I cried. We can also take the 1997 film “Mimic,” where these shadowy creatures in trench coats are catching and killing children, but at least we see them. Some parts of the film are lit up enough to where we can glimpse the creatures, and it truly terrifies us. Most parts of 'The Watchers' are dark when the creatures are in the scenes.
THE ENDING:
Oh, my word! Our protagonist reasons with the monster, and she sets off into the world, disguising herself as a child now. That’s it. That’s the ending. I wanted to like this; I did. I tried. But I believe—and I hate to say it—that it may be time to ban the Shyamalans from any of my movie watchlists. The upcoming film her father has coming out, starring Josh Hartnett (love him, btw), may have to be a hard skip for me unless it’s 100% free to stream. Overall, skip this one until it’s on a streaming platform for free. I think it would have been better off being something Netflix bought and streamed anyway.
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Solid 4/10 movie and that's me being generous.