Review of Battle of the Sexes (2017) by Saintdecky — 15 Oct 2017

Battle of the Sexes is a break-neck paced, long, basic movie, with great casting and some good performances. But I couldn't help but feel disappointed, despite not even having any expectations for this movie in the first place. It's nowhere near a terrible movie, just nothing special or anything that grabbed my attention.

Acting: The casting was perfect, as Emma Stone and Steve Carell look exactly like Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. They brought some good charm to the otherwise confusing bag of emotions throughout the film, which I will get into. Carell and his portrayal of Riggs is the best thing to come out of this movie. Every time he steps into a scene, he brings so much charm and joy. The movie wasn't funny to me overall, and Riggs wasn't especially hilarious, but he did bring the only laugh I had during the entire movie.

Pacing: The pacing is very fast paced. I don't have a problem with this, but the issue arose when it came to emotions. Things would happen so fast that I just started feeling sad in a scene, and two minutes later it's happy again and feels like a completely different movie. The scenes were too quick to completely comprehend the emotion most of the time. There were also times when I had no idea who a character was. Margaret Court just shows up, and I didn't even realize it was her until she was about to play. The movie is also very long despite its fast pacing, reaching 2 hours. I never thought such a fast paced movie could bore me, but this movie certainly did.

Humor: Towards the beginning, the movie is clearly trying to be funny, but does die down a bit and relies more on charm as the movie drones on. However, I didn't find it funny. The way the jokes were written were subtle, which is fine, but subtle to a point where it would only be funny if you knew or were friends with the joke teller.

Plot: This movie suffered from the same thing as Sully: the lack of a natural villain. Jack Kramer was the closest thing they had to a villain, so that was the best they could do, making nothing feel at stake or intense. Another big thing is that this whole story doesn't make for a great movie in the first place. The whole final match versus the two (which was the best part of the movie) was just a publicity stunt basically. So to make this into a movie, there is a lack of stakes, of intensity, and even of meaning, besides, obviously, the powerful statement of feminism and women's equality, of course. But otherwise, nothing was really at stake, as most audience members know this whole thing was just a joke. If everything else about King's and Riggs' lives that were going on at the same time were engaging and interesting, then it would be better, but the problem was that it wasn't. We get one short scene at the dinner table with Riggs' wife, who we don't see until another short scene later on, then she disappears and comes back at the end, and we're supposed to care about their marriage or whatever. We don't get to sympathize much with a man who is doing this whole thing as a joke. What I'm trying to say is, the main idea of the plot, the final game, doesn't make for a good movie, as there were no stakes and we know there are none. If the two players' stories outside of the game were more interesting, then it would be okay, but they weren't, because the movie was too fast paced to sympathize or feel for the characters, as there were too many emotions to feel in such short scenes.

Overall, Battle of the Sexes isn't necessarily a bad film, just not one that kept my attention or was interesting, no thanks to the whole idea not making a good film in the first place. Great casting and good acting, but simply too rushed in the end. And as I said, the final tennis match was the best part of the movie, mostly because I play tennis myself.