When tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum) meets cocktail waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) at his fundraising gala, sparks fly. He invites her to join him and his friends on a dream vacation on his private island. It’s paradise. Wild nights blend into sun soaked days and everyone’s having a great time. No one wants this trip to end, but as strange things start to happen, Frida begins to question her reality. There is something wrong with this place. She’ll have to uncover the truth if she wants to make it out of this party alive.
What We Thought:
Blink Twice is a big swing and a miss for me. It’s a movie that desperately wants to say something, but isn’t sure what to say. It’s also a difficult movie to review because one of the major issues I have with the film is its ending and I can’t spoil that.
I think the problem with the film is that I expected it to be Get Out, a film about social issues that has a huge twist that catches the audience off guard. Unfortunately most of Blink Twice plays more like Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, a film I loathe. Once the working class waitress meets the tech billionaire and they go to his island with a bunch of other elite types you’re expecting a message. Rich white people being shady is a pretty popular set up for stories nowadays. In a way I give first time director Zoë Kravitz credit for not going 100% that route. Instead most of the movie is a bunch of people partying and having a good time. Until that good time is wiped away by the actual reality of the situation. The way the film uses its twist to shock the audience is less Get Out and more M. Night Shyamalan.
It’s hard to explain why the twist doesn’t work for me without ruining the movie so I’ll just say I was let down by it. The twist seems too basic or easy to me. It’s not a groundbreaking revelation that some people do awful things simply because they can. Rich people flying to private islands and doing things a normal person couldn’t imagine shouldn’t be shocking to anyone who watches the news or is on social media.
Then there’s the actual ending which ruins Blink Twice for me. If you think that ending is a good thing you clearly haven’t put a single thought into what got that person there. The actions we witness with that end result are math that should not add up. Because I can’t spoil it I can’t explain myself, but if you see the movie and think that result is good, you need to question yourself on what you’re willing to go through to get that ending. I think Kravitz made a nice film to look at and I’d be interested to see what she does next, but this didn’t work for me.
DIRECTOR: Zoë Kravitz
WRITTEN BY: Zoë Kravitz & E.T. Feigenbaum
PRODUCED BY: Bruce Cohen, p.g.a., Tiffany Persons, p.g.a., Garret Levitz, p.g.a., Zoë Kravitz, Channing Tatum
EXEC PRODUCERS: Stacy Perskie, Jordan Harkins, Vania Schlogel
MUSIC BY: Chanda Dancy
CAST: Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Kyle MacLachlan, Haley Joel Osment, with Geena Davis and Alia Shawkat
The Nerds Templar 