Review of Final Girl (2015) by Michael M — 28 Jan 2016

Final Girl should be renamed Final Film in honor of what it might, hopefully, do to Tyler Sheilds' career. I guess he was sitting around one day, looking for something to do, and decided to try and make his own version of Hannah. Bad idea. Really bad idea. Really really bad idea. OK, here we go...

We are introduced to Veronica as she is being interviewed by her future trainer, William. She seems to have sociopathic traits, but there is nothing definitive in the presentation. A little character development here might have given her future self a bit more depth. But, alas, we have no real feel for her as a person throughout the entire film. Strike one for Tyler Shields. So, how about her future trainer, William? Is he a recruiter for a clandestine government agency? No. Is he part of a secret society of assasins? No. He's just a guy with a grudge. His family was killed, and that's all we get. So far, we have two main characters with no character. Good going, Tyler. Strike two. We jump immediately foreward in time twelve years. Veronica is nearing the end of her training. We see her being taught a few fighting techniques and a few toughening exercises. If she's just being taught these now, as we saw, then what the hell did he teach her during the past twelve years? Some indication of her growth during this time would have been nice, but I forget... Tyler is makimg a movie with zero character development. Strike three, Tyler. In the only attempt at foreshadowing Veronica is given a drug cocktail of sodium pentathol and DMZ. This potent mixture is going to expose her deepest fears... except that those drugs can't do that. Does it matter? Only if the viewer is moderately educated and knows anything about anything. But, maybe this isn't his biggest mistake. After all, it's always a good idea, when making a terrible movie, to borrow elements from other terrible movies. Tyler chose to borrow from Divergent. However he did it in such a ham-fisted way that it missed completely. Strike four for Mr. Shields. This brings me to a major problem in this film. As the story tells us, William is training Veronica just to target the four murderous teens that are the villians in the movie. Well, Veronice and the fine young gentlemen she will soon dispatch are, for all intents and purposes, the same age. That means that William targeted them twelve years in the past, when they were about six years old. Really? Really?? Tyler Shields, shame on you. Strikes five through 2,000. Well done. I should mention the scene where Veronica offers herself to William, who she loves. Tyler borrowed from Leon: The Professional this time. Again, very very badly. Was it supposed to be erotic? I hope not since that would mean that Mr. Shields has some issues. Anyway, this was just creepy. Very creepy. Strikes 2002 - 2100. So, Veronice sits in a diner and is instantly chosen as the group's next victim. But wait! The official movie synopsis states that she's the new girl in school and is chosen by her classmates. However, Tyler isn't even capable of following his own official storyline, and off the tracks goes the plot. Strike 2001, Tyler. Nicely done again! The movie then rapidly devolves into a terribly bland and soulless hunt/murder flick. Veronica, though sent into the midst of these insane killers fully aware of her mission, seems to have forgotten why she was there at first. Instead of feigning terror, she is truly in a state of panic until she remembers the sage words of William, "It's the one with the strongest will!" or some third rate Obi-Wan garbage like that. So now she gets her act together and turns the tables on her persuers. The problem here, is that the fight scenes were choreographed by a junior white belt who took a book on martial arts out of the library. On top of that Ms. Breslin, while a beautiful young lady and a fabulous actress to boot, is physically clumsy. Every fight scene needed to be tightly edited in order to work around her athletic shortcomings, which they did as badly as possible. In a world of actors who train very hard to do these scenes, and extremely high audience expectations, Mr. Shields again failed to deliver. More strikes for Tyler Shields. Lots more. About a hundred per fight scene. I think the total is now somewhere around 3,000. Ok, of course the young murderers are killed off and William shows up to congratulate her. How did he find her? Tracking device in her purse? No, she left that on the couch she was sitting on immediately before the hunt began. Did he follow them all from the town into the woods? No, he specifically told Veronica that she was on her own. Super secret William powers? Yeah, that one. Anyway, the movie ends with the strong suggestion that, now that their mission is over, the two are free to explore their mutual attraction. Creepy, creepy, creepy.

If anyone thinks that Tyler Shields is anything other than a dimwitted hack and that I completely missed the point of this amazing and deeply meaningful film, then I suggest that you take a large dose of DMT and eat your dvd collection.