Review of Bravetown (2015) by Blazinblitzer — 09 Jan 2016

I walked into this movie expecting a boring, melodramatic piece of crap. It was melodramatic, but it wasn't really that boring.

Lucas Till puts on a solid performance as the main protagonist which was actually very key in this movie. I also found Jae Head (I really hate that name) actually does very well as his character also.

The first 30 minutes of this movie were definitely the best ones. The drama felt right in the beginning, and the whole situation felt kinda unique. While the editing here might be a little subpar, but the structure of the scenes feels right.

Another thing I kept note of through the movie was how real the characters interactions were. Most of the time, I cared about where everyone was going in the plot. The lighting is excellent, and the camera work, while iffy at times, is acceptable. While this is pretty inspired by Pitch Perfect, and less comedic, I think this idea is executed fair enough through the movie.

After the first 30 minutes; however, the film runs into a few glaring issues. Whoever acted as Mary did a poor job at her character. She always seem kinda fake when going through the emotional scenes of the movie, which kind of ruined most of the scenes with her in it. Also, Alex always seemed unrealistic when it came to approaching Josh as a counselor, so the connection scenes felt way too scripted and nonexistent. The high school characters (Teacher, bullies) have been written out of a plot hole way too obviously so Josh could have a harder conflict and it makes everybody at that school seem like a douche, especially the bullies for getting mad over a dance competition, and that would work, but the movie makes you sympathize for them. Really? I didn't like the whole "Robert + Alex " plot twist near the end, and it only made the plot more confusing. The relationship conflicts aren't even that good, with way too many melodramatic elements and predictability in them, even though there were a couple of scenes where I predicted wrong.

The movie is definitely not as bad as what critics are saying, but you should be cautious that the story is very melodramatic with predictable turns, but the idea is somewhat spun half-uniquely and the parent relationship scenes are pretty emotional, so if you want an okay melodrama, this is the movie for you. Otherwise, watch Pitch Perfect if you're looking for something musical.