Review of IO (2019) by Truerock — 28 Jan 2022

IO could have been a good film - but, Anthony Dwane Mackie as the male lead Micah ruins the film.

Mackie should not have been cast for the role and he turns in a poor performance. The Micah character is a failure in casting, acting, directing and even - to a certain extent - writing.

On the other hand, Margaret Qualley was an excellent choice for the Sam Walden role.

I found the message of the film to be powerful and interesting. It makes me very sad that the film was ruined.

****************************************.

So, I'm going to do something new. Rather than just complain about casting, let's do a thought experiment in regard to what good casting of the Micah role would be.

The obvious choice that almost any professional casting director would want for the role of Micah would be Timothée Chalamet. But being realistic, Timothée Chalamet is much too expensive for a film like IO and his availability is close to non-existent I would imagine.

So, a little googling...

Colin Ford would be a very good choice for the role of Micah. His ask would be within almost any budget and I would guess his availability is flexible. The only problem I would see with Colin Ford is that he is somewhat distractingly good looking which is not particularly good for the role - but, would be great for box office. I'm thinking makeup and lighting could address the physical appearance issues to tone it down a couple of notches. Colin Ford could effectively deliver the emotive lines so much better than Anthony Dwane Mackie.