Here’s a very important fact for this review. I liked Unfriended! Hell, the movie actually scared me. Gotta watch out for that haunted social media stuff.
I loved the concept of the film as well. All from a screens point of view. This has now happened in various other ways. We had the Modern Family episode like that and later this year John Cho is looking through his missing daughter’s computer in blahhhh. As long as it doesn’t become overused I won’t mind it (note, it totally will become overused).
And when I compare this first film to say, Friend Request, one was entertaining, scary, and fun, the other was just a pile of shit. Similar plots. Very different execution.
Knowing all of that, I assume this one will be shit just from the subtitle. Unfriended: Dark Web? It is going to use a real internet thing and turn it into demon ghost stuff or whatever. Maybe the Dark Web itself will matter. But if it doesn’t, the title is shit and the movie would probably be shit.
Picture in Picture In Picture in Picture in Picture…
Matias (Colin Woodell) has a new computer! It is a nice mac. He didn’t buy it. He didn’t buy it on craigslist. He found it in a lost and found, no one claimed it for a few weeks, so it is time for him to take it, right?
After figuring out the password, it seems to belong to a Norah C. IV, some rich person, because hey, they are the 4th right? Matias is trying to figure it out right before a game night with his friends (Connor Del Rio, Betty Gabriel, Andrew Lees, Rebecca Rittenhouse, Savira Windyani). Well, one of them is in London, and also they all feel lazy so they will just do it over Skype. That is because their game night is lame anyways, and just Cards Against Humanity. They aren’t even drinking, just playing a lame game over Skype!
Also during this time, Matias is trying to reconnect with his girlfriend, or ex-girlfriend, Amaya (Stephanie Nogueras), who happens to be deaf.
And of course, Matias notices that the computer is extremely full but he can’t find anything. Long story short? Video files, and assassination for higher on the dark web. Bitcoins, human trafficking, the whole nine yards. And now that the computer is on, the hacker wants his machine back. Or else.
Also starring Chelsea Aiden and Douglas Tait.
This film is about the sexiest of people.
Well, good news is that the movie involved the dark web! It involved several aspects of it, so the title isn’t just crap. The first movie was about a demonic online spirit. This one was about hackers and bad people in general on the internet. It did not connect to the previous film, even though I figured it might just be the same concept. But nope, they changed things up, that’s good.
However, just like the first film, there are technical issues they are just blatantly ignoring. If they are going to make it one screen and click things, they need to commit to their goddamn concept. Right away our main character puts on Spotify, which seems to lower its volume whenever its relevant to the plot without user input. Amazing! And a bigger deal later on, when our main character begins to freak out and do internet things while on Skype, some times he mutes the conversation, some times he doesn’t. And the times he doesn’t, for whatever reason, all 4+ other people are suddenly quiet until he comes back? It does it correctly a few times, but not all the times, and that just becomes lazy editing and helps kill the experience.
As for the actual plot, they still seem to have some sort of supernatural element. The JPEGing thing, when a hacker is on the screen? That is dumb. That isn’t fun to see. That is not how hacking works. Similarly, how the main hacker communicated they wanted to look as spooky and ghost like as possible.
And yet, if they designed this whole film without any of the supernatural or confusing elements, it could have been a fantastic story. It had great elements. How some of them were taking out, using you know, hacking and actual real story kind of things? That worked really well. But by the end, with all of the reveals and screen shenanigans, it made parts feel cheap, and it didn’t feel like a single screen anymore.
The rating is really for effort here, because it could have been better, it was still captivating when it got going, it also just was a bit shit.