Review of Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019) by Afairreviewer — 14 May 2019

It was one of those movies that you know is kind of boring while watching, but you've invested too much interest to turn away. Ted Bundy alone is an interesting character so there's that. There is no part of the movie that lives up to the title other than a very brief exchange between Ted and Liz at the very end.

Unless the title bears the "irony" of such a wicked, evil and vile person not seeming to be any of those things on the outside. I don't like irony so there's my personal bias. It's not clear what the were going for as far as story-telling, but it was entirely too careful with getting into these "wicked and vile" crimes - it seems they were trying to keep as much of his actual crimes out of the film as possible, but most people familiar with Ted Bundy are probably anticipating a good deal of those gruesome details in a film about him.

Maybe they were avoiding depicting the "murder porn" that Ted himself claims influenced his actions, if I'm to give the benefit of the doubt. Truthfully I just think they were trying to make the film palatable (boring) to all audiences.

With all of its failures, I can say that Zac Efron carried the entire film with an excellent performance of a man who staunchly denied and deflected from his heinous crimes until the very end, pretending to be truly innocent and flabbergasted at the accusations of what he clearly and prolifically had done, and was able to pull so many in on his side through his charm and humor, even the judge who sent him to death with what seemed like sympathy on Ted's behalf.

If this is how it all transpired, even I'm kind of surprised that he got the death penalty. Good on that particular Florida jury for finding him guilty. But I digress, Zac Efron's performance really overpowered everyone else and he was interesting to watch if anything.

He's certainly proven himself to have range as an actor and I hope to see more.