Ready or Not

MY RATING: 6  - quite nearly a 7

GENERAL INFORMATION

Release Info: Released 21 August 2019

Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Director: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett
Writer: Guy Busick and Ryan Murphy
Running Time: 1 Hour and 35 Minutes

Staring: Samara Weaving, Adam Brody and Andie MacDowell

Rating? R

SPOILERS? NO

STORYLINE

We follow young bride Grace (Samara Weaving) as she joins her new husband  Alex's (Mark O'Brien) rich, eccentric family in a time-honored wedding day tradition that turns into a lethal game with everyone fighting for their lives. 

MY REVIEW

I saw the trailer a month or so ago and was not exactly dying to see it, but it sounded interesting. Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are really only known for V/H/S and one of the writers, Ryan Murphy, was responsible for one of my long-time faves, Wrong Turn from 2003. The idea was interesting. It reminded me of a gory and somewhat satanic version of the movie Clue at times. We'll get into the reasons below, but this is a fun movie. It was by far, not the greatest or even Oscar-worthy, but it was fun. It had flaws, like REALLY bad acting in most cases, but it was fun and there were some authentic ideas and some great laughable lines. Let's dive in, shall we!

What I DID LIKE about this movie:

• The bright star of this movie was Margot Robbie, oh, that wasn't her? For a few minutes, it sure did look a lot like her! No, seriously, Samara Weaving was pretty good. She was in a little Netflix find The Babysitter- also a solid performance. She stole the scene from whoever she was paired with and that was unfortunate for them.
•  Adam Brody has quite possibly the best line of the whole movie when he is talking to Grace (Samara Weaving) about what his family thinks of his brothers new bride.. "Don't take it personally, they're just trying to figure out if you're a gold digging whore. You know, like my wife."
• It's dark. Pretty god-damned dark with the murder and all, but it was genuinely a pretty solid take on the weird shit that people do for fame and fortune.
• Aunt Helene. (Nicky Guadagni) Oh, she was awkward and weird but she was glorious!
• This might be a little too much of my weird psychoanalytic  bullshit but here goes and I'm trying not to spoil anything. During the movie we start with Grace in her white wedding dress and all of the others in the movie are wearing dark clothes. This COULD be a symbol of good vs. evil or light vs. dark. But as she plays the game and finds her footing and fights back, her white dress becomes more and more dirty.. and by the end, she's covered in dirt and blood. Fitting? Interesting?
• The song. "Hide and Seek" is the creepiest thing I've ever heard in my life! Nothing else in the soundtrack really stood out.

What I DID NOT LIKE about this movie:

• It was hard to have even the slightest bit of empathy for ANY of the characters really. There was little to no development to explain they "why" or make you care if they lived or died. The only one who even began to be a real person was the brother of the groom Adam Brody.
• If you look at the climax of the movie, the last 30 minutes of the movie felt really rushed. The first two acts were like foreplay, peeling back layer after layer in a good balance of exposition and action. Then, in a rush to "get it over with" the story takes a direct path that failed to really satisfy the buildup that I was given. Left me wanting more. I actually had to pause and let myself take in the fact that THAT was really then end. 

On a more personal note..... 

This week was pretty fun. I had a great dinner with a visiting co-worker from Las Vegas and realized that the sun was my best friend when  I wanted to show off the bright red/purple highlights in my hair and I drank some delicious mimosas with friends!