How to describe Jellyfish Eyes? I guess it's a kid's movie about Tamagotchi sort of things that come to life, or maybe they're better described as extra ugly Pokémon. There's a whole conspiracy plot where the monsters were designed for an evil purpose. It gets weirdly dark at points. It gets very boring at points. At other times, it's so nuts it kind of feels fun. I guess it's creative and unique, but it's very messy.
I wanted to give this movie a fair chance. It has a pretty terrible reputation, to put it mildly. I imagined people were being overly critical, because at a first glance, it looked weird, rather than bad. And most people will likely appreciate that weird does not equal bad. I was hoping it might be the good kind of weird, or at least just the neutral kind of weird (can weird be neutral? Maybe I'm stretching this now).
And for a point, it does just feel like a really odd kid's movie. It was kind of tolerable. But after the first maybe 40 minutes, it becomes a tonal nightmare. It has no idea what it wants to be, and the genre-hopping is more awkward than fun or thrilling. The second act is dire.
There's a giant monster near the end. That was fun. I like big monsters in movies. It had me thinking maybe this wasn't the worst thing ever. I mean, of course it's not. Some of it's watchable. Some of the bizarre stuff is entertaining because it's bizarre. But the film as a whole... the execution is way off. My heart's telling me to give it a 2.5/5 for the novelty, but my head says it probably deserves less.