Watcher (2022) Review

Time: 91 Minutes
Cast:
Maika Monroe as Julia
Karl Glusman as Francis
Burn Gorman as Daniel Weber
Director: Chloe Okuno

As a serial killer stalks the city, a young actress who just moved to town with her boyfriend notices a mysterious stranger watching her from across the street.

I knew only a little about Watcher, just that it was a thriller about Maika Monroe being stalked by someone. While the movie doesn’t have many surprises, it nonetheless works very well at what it sets out to do.

Watcher is a psychological and paranoid thriller which takes its time as a slow burn. It leans more into subtle and nuanced storytelling and is powerfully effective as it slowly builds its suspense. The tension unfolds slows and there is a real sense of dread and paranoia. Storywise its pretty standard, straightforward and simple, and it doesn’t really surprise at any point. However I was nonetheless riveted and interested to see how it would play out. The added element of the protagonist being in a different country with a language barrier does add a lot to it; it helped to make the lead character played by Maika Monroe feel more isolated even before she finds someone stalking her. In terms of any actual criticisms outside of its familiarity, I thought that the ending was a little abrupt.

One of Watcher’s biggest strengths is Maika Monroe as the lead character who is being followed. She effectively conveys the isolation, struggle and helplessness of her situation in a very believable performance. She is great and one of the highlights of the film. The rest of the actors are fine but nothing special and there’s not much to say about them. The exception is Burn Gorman who plays the stalker (or titular Watcher). We see glimpses of him before seeing his face and even after the film shows his face, it’s a while before we hear his voice. Without saying or doing much, Gorman is great at conveying this unsettling aura about him.

Chloe Okuno directed Watcher very well, this is a very impressive debut for her. The cinematography is slick and well done, and I particularly like how it captures the stranger, initially obscuring him and putting you in the protagonist’s position. That combined with the quieter moments, and the unsettling sound design and the eerie score from Nathan Halpern help to make you feel unnerved.

Watcher is a great paranoia and psychological thriller. Despite its familiar setup, its directed strongly and is led by an excellent and convincing performance from Maika Monroe, making it worth checking out.

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The 5th Wave (2016) Review

Time: 112 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence & offensive language
Cast:
Chloë Grace Moretz as Cassie Sullivan
Nick Robinson as Ben Parish/ “Zombie”
Ron Livingston as Oliver Sullivan
Maggie Siff as Lisa Sullivan
Alex Roe as Evan Walker
Maria Bello as Sergeant Reznik
Maika Monroe as Ringer
Zackary Arthur as Sam Sullivan
Liev Schreiber as Colonel Vosch
Director: J. Blakeson

The human race stands on the brink of extinction as a series of alien attacks decimate the planet, causing earthquakes, tsunamis and disease. Separated from her family, Ohio teenager Cassie Sullivan (Chloë Grace Moretz) will do whatever it takes to reunite with her brother Sam. Fate leads her to form an alliance with Evan Walker (Alex Roe), a mysterious young man who may be her last hope. Forced to trust each other, Cassie and Evan fight for survival during the fifth assault from the invaders.

The 5th Wave is yet another Young Adult novel adaptation and as I predicted, it wasn’t really good. It definitely had potential with some of the cast and the premise but all of that is wasted. The film is full of generic characters, a boring story, weak plot points, and plenty of dated YA clichés. Which is unfortunate, because this film could’ve actually been good.

This film has an interesting premise. However most of the potential is wasted. The start of the movie wasn’t great but it wasn’t as terrible as I thought it would be. There was too much narration and exposition, but it above what I expected it to be. And then at a point, over time the movie just got worse and worse. This movie is a typical generic YA Adaptation, with things like love triangles thrown in for some reason. This movie is also kind of boring, there’s not much to get invested in, the characters are bland and 2 dimensional, the story is not investing, it’s hard to care about what’s going on. Many elements of the film are also underdeveloped, like the aliens, their motivation for attacking Earth isn’t that touched upon. Also, the way the film ended was rather underwhelming. I guess they are trying to set up sequels (hopefully they won’t actually happen).

Chloe Grace Moretz in the past has shown that she is very talented. Here though she really doesn’t have much to work with. Her character, like everyone else, doesn’t have much characterisation and feel very basic and simple. And yes, there is a romance, this being between her and Alex Roe’s character. I’ll just say that out of all the YA novel adaptations that exist, this has got to be up there with one of the worst romances. There’s also sort of a love triangle that is set up with them and Nick Robinson’s character, which would probably continue into the next films (if they actually happen). The thing is that the characters are so poorly written that really no one in this movie looks good. Not even Liev Schreiber gets a chance to be good, he ended up being this generic army guy, saying and doing very clichés things.

As for the direction, it’s nothing special. The special effects aren’t really anything unique, it’s fine, really nothing great, nothing bad but also not very memorable. The way the third act ended was underwhelming and a part of that is the action sequences, they weren’t anything all that spectacular. They weren’t horrendous but you don’t really end up feeling that tense (though its probably because the writing doesn’t give you much to care about).

I have no idea how accurate the movie is to the books but on it’s own, The 5th Wave is yet another failed YA Adaptation which wastes its potential, talent and premise. This movie tries to set up sequels and but I’m not sure if that will actually happen, given that most people really didn’t like this movie. It might be entertaining for some of the action scenes and just how clichéd and crazy some of the decisions were, but aside from that, this movie is not worth watching really.