This film moves in some odd directions the further the story moves on.
I find the first half very intriguing with there being a solid foundation of a movie. Orion is terrified of everything his character will eventually learn not to be yada yada yada. The opening half an hour of the film coupled with the appealing art style and Orion's interactions with Dark really enjoyable.
Then things start to get weird.
Out of nowhere we're introduced to an older version of Orion with his daughter Hypatia now having the original plot just be a seemingly made up story by Orion to help his daughter who is also afraid of the dark? This take isn't too bad but I also find it to shift the plot completely away from what was so interesting about the film in the first place.
The story continues to progress with it chopping and changing back in between the past and the present with Orion's original story being told and it's all just a bit "okay" up until the final act.
This next part just feels like really lazy writing.
Dark gets zapped by the light and Orion just seemingly ends the story there for some random reason. So obviously the most logical idea is to throw his daughter Hypatia into the original story so her and young Orion can go and rescue Dark from the depths of his mind.
AND THEN.
After they have inevitably rescued Dark and the story seems to be coming to a close, they throw another curve ball our way by having this actually be in a THIRD story being told by adult Hypatia to Orion's grandson where he rewrites the ending to have Hypatia travel back to future by having a Time Machine and there be an alien apocalypse 😂.
It really was a bizarre film that could've been better than it ended up being, I wish we ended up having something related to the first 1/3 of the movie that progressed on from there as all that was introduced just ends up being forgotten as the movie goes along.
6/10 Not a bad start to the year for Dreamworks but I really hope Kung Fu Panda 4 is nothing like it.
I find the first half very intriguing with there being a solid foundation of a movie. Orion is terrified of everything his character will eventually learn not to be yada yada yada. The opening half an hour of the film coupled with the appealing art style and Orion's interactions with Dark really enjoyable.
Then things start to get weird.
Out of nowhere we're introduced to an older version of Orion with his daughter Hypatia now having the original plot just be a seemingly made up story by Orion to help his daughter who is also afraid of the dark? This take isn't too bad but I also find it to shift the plot completely away from what was so interesting about the film in the first place.
The story continues to progress with it chopping and changing back in between the past and the present with Orion's original story being told and it's all just a bit "okay" up until the final act.
This next part just feels like really lazy writing.
Dark gets zapped by the light and Orion just seemingly ends the story there for some random reason. So obviously the most logical idea is to throw his daughter Hypatia into the original story so her and young Orion can go and rescue Dark from the depths of his mind.
AND THEN.
After they have inevitably rescued Dark and the story seems to be coming to a close, they throw another curve ball our way by having this actually be in a THIRD story being told by adult Hypatia to Orion's grandson where he rewrites the ending to have Hypatia travel back to future by having a Time Machine and there be an alien apocalypse 😂.
It really was a bizarre film that could've been better than it ended up being, I wish we ended up having something related to the first 1/3 of the movie that progressed on from there as all that was introduced just ends up being forgotten as the movie goes along.
6/10 Not a bad start to the year for Dreamworks but I really hope Kung Fu Panda 4 is nothing like it.