Review of I Declare War (2012) by Jesse O — 03 Jan 2016

Honestly, this is a really cool concept for a movie. A kids' game of Capture the Flag where make-believe and reality merge where the kids weapons, made of sticks and rocks, become actual guns and grenades in their own imagination.

So, really, it's a film about the importance of fostering kids' imagination and letting them be creative in their own way. But, oddly enough, it's also about how kids grow up in a violent environment, right down to the very games the play and how that fosters a mentality where they grow up to think that war is perfectly normal.

It's not like the film explicitly states this, I think it lets the film play out without interjecting too much of an agenda into it, but it's something that you definitely pick up on as you see these kids pretty much behaving in ways that adults do when put in the same in, obviously, more serious situations.

So the film definitely works in a number of different ways. It's also got a surprising little narrative arc when it comes to the PK, Skinner and Kwon. So I like how they explore that and PK's willingness to sacrifice his best friend in order to win the game.

It does come across kind of silly, when the only way you can be killed is being throw with a balloon full of some red-like liquid resembling blood, but it does say a lot about the type of person PK might grow up to be if he goes down this path, particularly if, if his intelligence at strategy is to be any factor, he becomes a high-ranking soldier at one point.

The willingness with which he is able to sacrifice those closest to him in order to win a battle is definitely not one of the positive parts of his personality. So I thought that was cool, but I think the movie does do a good job at being entertaining as well.

It's a good movie, but I don't think there's really enough here to justify this as a full-length movie, it has a sort of samey feel to it, there's not a whole of thematic variety in the film, though I did really Jess' arc as the person who's been most affected by the casualties of war as she keeps seeing someone, her crush, that isn't there as he was "killed" earlier in the game.

I thought that was clever and might've been some of the best stuff in the entire film. But, really, this is a movie that doesn't really come together as well as its concept might suggest. This was, honestly, better suited as a short movie as opposed to a full-length one.

With that said, however, I still quite enjoyed this movie. It might not be perfect, but they do find a way to make it entertaining while also being slightly thought-provoking. This isn't Ex Machina, after all, but it does bring up some interesting questions, so I'd recommend it.

It's not great, but there's some good stuff here that audiences will enjoy.