Rating of
2/4
Maps to be Mediocre
Matthew Brady - wrote on 07/07/15
Cronenberg your so much better then this.
Maps to the Stars follows the lives of the Weiss family - pure Hollywood royalty - including the father, a self-help guru, mother who dotes on 13-year-old Benji - fresh out of rehab and daughter Agatha a recently-released pyromaniac.
I heard some mix things from Maps to the Stars and that's mostly the reviews it got and yes I do read other critics reviews and other websites like Rotten Tomatoes, but at the end of the day you can't trust RT sometimes, I mean Sharknado get's a 82% ?. I also found out that this movie won Best Actress at The Cannes Film Festival and the best actress went to Julianne Moore which she beat out Anne Dorval for Mommy, in which I disagree with that and I will tell you why later on. Before seeing Maps to the Stars I had low exceptions and wasn't all that excited for it, but I thought since the movie had a big cast and a good director behind it I thought it might be great. After seeing Maps to the Stars I wasn't all that impressed.
The director of the David Cronenberg and he's the kind of director that made some great movies that I think is some of he's best work but he also did some movies that isn't all that great. The Fly, Eastern Promises , A History of Violence and my biggest guilty pleasure of all time Scanners. Those movies are the ones we remember best from him and I thought a movie like this would somehow work for him as maybe he can make this story messed up but always keep my interested, well that's not the case here. I felt like he lost he's touch in this movie like these scene in this movie were a women get's set on fire and oh my god the CG for the fire looked so freaking bad and it really took me out of movie, I mean normally Cronenberg would have use practical effect's back in the 80's or 90's; so happened here?. There was another flaw that I spotted in the movie and that was every time the character's are out side in a open area with cars driving past them but here's the thing they was no sound at all when the cars drive by and the characters wasn't far away from the road but quite near the road. I don't know if this was stylistic choice for the director to blend in the with tone for the movies atmosphere I guest, but I don't see it as that but more of a mess up as this happened more then once and that other time is where these kids are at a party with loud music in the background but we somehow can hear them and they can hear each other. Kind of a cliche Cronenberg.
The other real reason I watch this movie is because of Julianne Moore performance as she won Best Actress at The Cannes Film Festival and Anne Dorval was also nominated but didn't win. So I wondered if Moore's performance was better than Anne Dorval so I watch to judge to see who's better and overall Anne Dorval did a much much better performance than Julianne Moore performance. Julianne Moore didn't do a bad performance, I mean she did good in the movie but Anne Dorval deserved that award more as Dorval broke my heart in the movie Mommy and her performance felt real and easy to get a connect with her character. But with Julianne Moore the only thing I saw was Julianne Moore acting and making some hilarious scenes that I couldn't take seriously. I'm happy that Moore picked a different role from her usual roles and she is good in the movie, but I think Anne Dorval was way better.
Some of the well known actors in this movie were good, but the good stops there as the rest of the actors are just awful in this movie. Like Robert Pattinson wasn't all that great in the movie, it wasn't Twilight bad he just did nothing really special and I know he's better then this. Evan Bird was pretty bad as the ass-hole kid actor but Evan Bird didn't really pull that off and he's reaction to things that suppose to shock him or scary him well he just looked bored.
The movie is also pretty predicable as well. Like these a scene in the movie were Evan Bird character as a real gun that he thinks he empty out all the bullets and he starts waving it around pretending to be shooting it and at one point he starts pointing it to he's head pretending to shoot himself. I predicted what was going to happened and it actually freaking happened. Same again in another scene later on.
This is one of those I saw a ghost kind of stories that's been done to death in recent movies but I would have love if they did something new and even creative with a story like this, but here it's not.
Overall Maps to the Star is a movie that could have been something good coming from a director like David Cronenberg. I know this review may sound like I'm hated everything in this movie but here's the thing this isn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but I'm just naming off flaws in the movie as it's not awful but it's pretty far from perfect.
