Superhero films have honestly become a plague to modern filmmakers' storytelling abilities and while there are still plenty that I genuinely enjoy and ones that take interesting risks, many knockoffs sadly can not achieve that same status. Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein's Freaks is one such example of this unfortunate problem. This film is like if you turned the world of the X-Men into a small-scale family drama but failed to incorporate anything that makes personal drama films so compelling. I really despise how audiences nowadays practically require sci-fi and superhero filmmaking in order to be entertained and while I am not opposed to utilizing some of those elements, the first priority for a storyteller should be the story. This film's script makes it such a bore to get through and despite the decent visual effects and interesting take on the story, the dialogue and general world that this film exists in have been overdone to the point of exhaustion.
In a world where people born with special abilities are deemed "freaks," Chloe (Lexy Kolker) and her dad (Emile Hirsch) live in isolation to avoid being caught. When Chloe's grandfather (Bruce Dern), disguised as in ice cream man, shows up to their house, he reveals to her the truth about her mother Mary (Amanda Crew). Chloe and her family must then work to free her mom from the agency that has been unfairly hunting people like them down. I knew right off the bat from the opening scene of this film that it would not be that original. There is only so much you can do as a writer working within the world of mutants with powers seen throughout this film and even then, it is much more difficult to pull off an original, interesting, concept. The script for this movie, also written by Lipovsky and Stein, was wholly unoriginal and took so many cues from films of the past. There was nothing in this film that genuinely shocked me and there was nothing that kept me wanting to finish it. There was nothing particularly wrong with the script either or how lazy the story was, but it had much more potential to provide its audience with something actually interesting. The dialogue that attempted to give any kind of life to this story is so surface-level and deprived of any kind of emotion. I could not care any less for this group of characters and the direction from Lipovsky and Stein did not help, either. Jumping straight into this world, these two directors did not seem to have a grasp of what makes a story arc hit the hardest. There were so many dark and dramatic moments that were paced so strangely and made the relationship between Chloe and her dad just feel... off. Lipovsky and Stein's script also attempts to touch on issues like immigration, but again, their writing never fully committed to any distinguishable theme and simply danced around throwing their characters into a visual effects-driven spectacle of a conclusion.
As for the way this film looks, it might not have been the most professional of productions when it comes to movies of this genre, but it did not look bad. The actual powers that this family had did not show up until a decent amount of time into the film and this waiting actually built some curiosity in me. This was the only part of the story that I was genuinely interested in and thankfully, that element of family drama was at least present. The only story aspect delineating this film from many others is the focus on the small family instead of "saving the world" or anything else too grand. I appreciated how they went about incorporating powers into this family and the visual effects themselves did not look bad. With only a small budget to work with, the visual effects artists got the job done and still managed to make the action scenes and various powers held by this family look interesting. There was enough variation between the family to make each of their individual characteristics compelling and it was interesting to see how Chloe, her dad, her mom, and her grandfather all utilized their different abilities. These powers, as expected, made way for some tense moments and predictable death scenes but they were effective regardless. I only wish that the cast could have been brought into the film a bit better, as all of the performances seemed very plastic. I was never quite sold on any of these actors and I feel like this issue stems directly from the action scenes or shots in which they are acting as if they are using their powers. Perhaps better blocking and choreography on set could have improved the authenticity of the performers but I just could not really buy what Lipovsky and Stein were trying to sell me.
Freaks is yet another entry into the forgettable, "discount bin", superhero genre that continues to invade cinema slowly but steadily. I hate to sound too pretentious regarding how certain filmmakers want to go about telling their stories, but this film would greatly benefit from a stronger focus on its writing. This movie undoubtedly has its moments and ends up being funnier than I would have expected but beyond that, seeing another story about abnormal people with special abilities shows me all that I need to know about Lipovsky and Stein's originality.
My Rating: ★★
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