Rating 54/100
With the fodder that Randolph had, I mean he co-wrote the Big Short, I expected a much better movie than what was delivered. Bombshell was a flop when it should have been the next big thing. I mean, have you seen the cast. Kidman, Theron, Robbie - those women killed it and were the only reason that I even, sort of, maybe liked the film.
And I didn’t need another reason to crush on Robbie.
So what went wrong???
First off, the movie is already dated and it came out…oh roughly… 11 months ago. Cool. Cool. That’s not a problem at all. So right away Randolph shot himself in the foot. He made the movie old and stale and for an audience that wouldn’t even dare utter its name… it’s Bombshell, in case you forgot.
Unlike The Big Short where the players and the game were carefully articulated for easy digestion, Randolph threw names out in Bombshell like it was monopoly money. They were as useless as the paper they were printed on. Which meant that unless you know what happened or are an avid viewer of Fox, which I’m guessing most everyone reading this is not, you won’t even understand the players. Or even what it all means. Have you ever heard of Roger Ailes? Though this was a huge stand for women fighting sexual harassment in a company that thrived off women, you won’t understand a single hard hitting moment because nothing was explained. How will future generations get to watch this historic moment if they don’t understand what’s happening?
Since I wasn’t up on all the lingo, I sat bored for the entire first half of the movie. When things started to flatten out and we got to the actual harassment take down, I found a tiny bit more to enjoy. It helped that this was the moment Robbie stole the show out from under her two larger co-stars. And I know that a lot of purists complain that her character isn’t real, essentially just a mash-up of different women in the company, but she was the glue that held the story together. The tiny bit of information that was even shared. The emotional impact of what was happening would have been lost if we were only told about the crime and not shown the emotional trauma of said crime. It’s that whole showing versus telling thing that I keep harping on.
Robbie’s character was the one thing that Randolph did right.
*slowly claps hands*
I want to say that was the movie’s only crime, but it wasn’t. Secondly, those lovely cut aways that we got in The Big Short never happened in Bombshell. I guess they couldn’t pull it off since Robbie was a character in the movie this time (sorry… that’s a joke that I’m now realizing only people who have seen The Big Short will actually get). Instead, the fourth wall breaks were infrequent and strange when they did happen. If you’re going to do a voice over or whatever, it needs to be done throughout the film or just at the beginning with a clear rebuilding of the fourth wall. Not at these random moments that jolt the viewer. And really, you should use them with caution to begin with since it takes some skill to achieve greatness.
Good things that I can say.
*thinking*
*thinking*
The camera work was well done.
But it was the score and sound mixing that delivered the emotion tones in the movie. In a way, it saved the poor thing. It kept me from outright turning off the movie.
Oh… and the acting was superb.
Overall, I wouldn’t waste your time with this one, which sucks because it was a great message about taking down power. How did it get so ruined?
Now I can’t recommend it to anyone.
Happy Watching
Love Kait