Skip to main content

The Invitation (2015) - Review


So the invitation is a thriller movie about a man who gets invited to his former home by his ex, along with their old common friends, for a dinner and he starts to suspect something is off there.

The performances in the movie were all fine. I really liked the main guy played by Logan Marshal-Green. Have seen him in probably one or two other movies, but he was really good in his role and you could feel that he's not fine coming back here and you slowly learn why.

This movie definitely knew how to use awkward dinner/gathering situation properly. I mean if any of you have ever been to a dinner/gathering, whether with friends or family, where there is some bad history among people, you'll know how awkward it can get and this movies uses that for its build up quite nicely I should say. It follows a very slow burn path but due to the situation at hand, the pacing never felt too slow or boring. I was interested in knowing what happened between them, and what's happening at the moment. The awkwardness and the uneasiness at times actually made the movie fly by quite nicely, even with its really slow burn approach. Gotta give it props for that.

I also like how you were never really 100% sure what was going on or whose side is the right one etc as whenever I made up my mind, something happened that made me guess it again. This goes on till the finale, the release, which is where I believe the movie lost its steam. It wasn't bad per say but it was far from fullfilling. There was some shock value but it wasn't incorporated properly IMO. Some twists and turns were pretty good though.

All in all, it was a decent thriller which I was honestly not expecting but I always love it when I'm surprised. Only held back by its last 15-20 mins. Definitely worth a watch. Do know it is a slow burn movie so if that is not your thing, you'll most likely be bored.

7/10

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Spartacus (2010) - TV Series Review (Complete)

Spartacus is a surprising series for me. I first watched it when there were only two seasons out, and back then it was kinda OK for me. Now, after re-watching the first two seasons along with the rest, I found it to be a pretty good series, great even. The series is about Spartacus and how he journey's from being a free man to a gladiator, and then to a leader. The whole series is structured in such a way that their is an overall forward progression with each season focused on a specific part. This results in focus on each area and ultimately they all come together quite nicely. Also, the series is divided into spartacus' related scenes and the roman leaders etc related scenes, developing both sides, side by side, throughout. This not only makes it easy to develop a large number of characters, it also develops both sides and not making it plain black and white. It makes things more interesting, and makes some outcomes way more satisfying. There are A LOT of characters t...

Shin Godzilla (2016) - Movie Review

Shin Godzilla is the newest Godzilla film from Toho, the studio behind the Japanese Godzilla films dating back all the way to 1954. This one is a reboot of the franchise, yet again, for the contemporary Japan and the plot is basically what you'd expect; Godzilla arrives and wreaks havoc, all the while the Government tries to defeat it. Since the original Godzilla was inspired by the effects and scars from the WWII Atomic Bombings on Japan by USA, and how destructive and horrifying that power is, this one is similar and was inspired by the 2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, and the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster, all the while being disguised in a monster movie. Godzilla in this movie instills a sense of dread and fear as this indestructible monster with the power to lay waste to everything, a biological TERROR, and I really liked that about this movie. The way its proper form looked, particularly the head, was unsettling and that was the movie's intention, so ...

Arrival (2016) - Movie Review

Arrival is a sci-fi drama directed by Denis Villeneuve, who I think is one of the better directors working today with previous films like Sicario and Prisoners under his belt, and it is about mysterious aliens spaceships coming down to our blue planet and our attempt at understanding why.  The movie focuses on the character of Amy Adams, who's a renowned linguist and is recruited to help the US army communicate with the visitors. She gives one of the best performances of her career here, and I hesitate to reveal anything more in the case of spoiling anything, so I'll just say that her character arc was profoundly moving. She is accompanied by several side characters, notable ones being portrayed by Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker, and they both delivered good performances. Now the way this movie approached the aliens scenario was my favorite thing in Arrival. The focus on language and communication felt like a fresh take. It was really intriguing to see Amy Adams...