Review of Swiss Army Man (2016) by Michael M — 12 Jun 2017

This is a strange movie. At it's core you could I guess call it Cast Away but more artsy and indie, and with a corpse instead of a volleyball, but those are such fundamental differences they really change what this movie is. Not to mention a third act which I won't spoil but was both shocking and beautiful and very much not your studio film ending. It's a movie I really wasn't sure of going in, and for the first 10-20 minutes I still was a little unsure of it. It was weird, gratuitously strange, and kind of gross and juvenile. Somewhere along the line though, it really managed to win me over, and without me even realizing it. By the end of the movie, I was practically tearing up, because I'd become so invested in this weird-ass story. It's a tale of friendship in the weirdest of places, and a lesson on what it means to truly be alive told in the oddest of ways. It's also just a gorgeous movie, with incredible visuals and set designs, vibrant colors, and an immersive and original soundtrack that both enhances the film and works well on it's own. It finds beauty in the strangest of places, and while it starts out needlessly gross and juvenile, somewhere along the way it finds out how to make the gross beautiful.

If this movie doesn't work for you, I totally get it. Apparently huge chunks of audiences walked out on this film, and I can understand why. That's maybe my only critique of this movie, it's opening could have been a little stronger. But at the same time I think maybe it knew what it was doing, and if those walk-outs had stuck around, maybe they'd find that false sense of what we were getting from this movie would be challenged by the end.

It's one of the most original films I've seen in years, and probably one of the most original films I've seen in general. It has some tropes, but the way it executes and visualizes those tropes leads to a totally new experience. I loved this movie, I loved the journey it took me on and the visuals it portrayed along the way. It you're willing to take a chance on something a little weird, you might just be rewarded from this experience.