Tuesday, August 29, 2017

[Review] What Happened to Monday?


One of Netflix's latest films What Happened to Monday? is a dystopian thriller that quickly goes from intriguing, to mildly entertaining, to frustratingly preposterous, to melodramatic crap.

In the story's future-shock setting--overpopulation, climate change, and famine have led to a global "One Child Only" policy--strictly administered by a crooked Bureau director (Glenn Close).

But one family, thanks to the help of grandpa Willem Dafoe, has bucked the system. That family is seven identical twin sisters (all played by Noomi Rapace), all named after the days of the week. They have a complicate lifestyle: Each one can only go out on their designated day, as they carefully have to comprise a singular identity. But when Monday suddenly goes missing, they must figure out what happened to her, all while avoiding to reveal their secret, which would risk assassination.

Sound kind of silly? Well, it kind of is. But the film seems to take itself pretty seriously, which ends up being a detriment. What it does have going for it is Noomi Rapace's versatile, multi-character performance (although they all obviously possess similarities) and the aesthetic of its futuristic setting. It's packed with technology that doesn't seem too far off--like 3D holographic augmented reality, new age guns, and advanced identification devices and information chips. Scary!

But despite the high-budget look, the film's confused tone always feels just a couple levels above 'straight-to-video' quality. And while the duration does provide some decent chase scenes and shootouts, they don't really touch anything that we've seen on the big screen this year. The final act is where everything really goes wrong, as the story gets overly convoluted and laughably ridiculous--to the point where you might regret taking the plunge into this one.

( 5.5/10 )


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