pragnfb Review of Wild Things 2

Wild Things 2 (2004 Video)

Girl fools girl to get a lot of money; backfires.

[3/10 · 18 February 2017]

It is very difficult to review a good film. The idea behind a film, that works as a discharge of emotions and meaning in a self- expressive yet meticulous display of collaboration between actors, directors, writers and crew, is to deliver to its audience its message or story by either reaching out to them or bringing their thoughts and emotions up to the level of the film. Great movies accomplish this. They don't leave you with a sense of confusion, but with a sense of determined contemplation, which force you to think and rethink about their meaning. Great directors are nothing less of visionaries who share an intangible connection with the stories they build into film. Wild Things 2 is not a great film. Jack Perez is not a great director. Do not mistake me when I say this: do not watch this film. It is a sad attempt, if it was an attempt, of child's disturbed idea of what "hot" is. The film is set in a town somewhere where women have to wear clothing that suggests it is too hot and are tan which also suggests that there is a lot of sand and sea and perhaps, sunbathing and swimming. As expected, it tries to present itself as a murder mystery where an ungracious and dysfunctional rich man with a gambling problem dies under mysterious circumstances as he forbids his (apparently) orphan stepdaughter to inherent the money, which would only belong to a (again, apparently) non-existing heir. When suddenly, a girl from the swamps who is suppose to be hateful and rowdy steps out to declare the money as her own as she claims to be the secret illegitimate heiress. An insurance inspector then, because of a probable fraud, investigates the two girls. Countless deceits and ill- thought plans with the inevitable threesome sex-scene are then thrown into the film for absolutely no reason whatsoever, except maybe to get some underage teenagers curious about threesome sex-scenes to illegally buy tickets and sit in the corner of an empty theater who tried to masturbate but were too traumatized by nonsensical acting. The movie starts and ends with the face of Brittany Havers, played by Susan Ward, in a backdrop of trees, the first with a frown and the last, a suspicious smile. Throughout the film, almost to the very end, her character tried to portray a convincing appeal that she was duped and too innocent for her own good. However, her reveals were far from surprising as a twist after a twist was thrown for some sad effort to make the audiences gasp, but instead, made them groan. The movie fails to show if her character was indeed, as malicious as it was during the last half hour or if she adopted that demeanor with the rise of the situation. If it is the first, then why was she in a faze of confusion and distress in scenes where she was alone? If it is the latter, then why did the film suddenly end with her thrown in an intellectual and manipulative light? Despite this major flaw, Susan Ward, sadly, is still the second best thing in this movie. The first, being Terence Bridge, played by Isaiah Washington, as an insurance inspector and was the only humor to this otherwise tasteless movie with lighting that was too warm and music that was too unnerving. Towards the end, in the attempt to make the film either as bad as possible, or to destroy all sense of character depth, he becomes money- crazed, bitter and imprudent, gives up his morals out of sheer and sudden enlightenment that his job was rather unfair and made those teenagers wonder if there was going to be another dreadful threesome sex-scene. Sadly, his character did not add anything to the plot except to bring the obvious twist in mentality of the other two characters. The third main character of this film was Maya King, played by Leila Arcieri, who was slightly more interesting than her co-star only because of her brash attitude and her attempt to be the manipulator of the entire film. Her underdog character had the opposite effect of her sickly sweet lesbian lover. There wasn't much to say about her abusive character and her average acting apart from the fact that she was still too good for the film. The next worthless character is the doctor/the man of the threesome who helped Maya in her scheme to inherit the money. This man was the worst idea of the film and his only use was a convenience to the plot and his abs for the threesome sex-scene. Overall the film had too many potholes to count, it did not in any way try to appeal to its audience in terms of art or empathy or even engage them in a good sex-scene, as would the teenagers agree with me. Characters suddenly disappear for no apparent reason and were uselessly introduced to begin with. The entire sham that lead to betrayal that lead to another sham leading to another betrayal leading to a twist that passed by undigested as it lead to another twist was the entire premise of the film which had the epitome of bad acting and directing. The only intriguing part of the film was the first scene where a curious emotion was birthed only to be disrespected at the end when the motivation for revenge was baseless, ultimately undoing the first scene. The reveals were senseless and the editing; jarred to the point of mockery, making the end just as worthless as the rest of the film.