Review: Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

I’ll give any movie a try, within reason. I don’t listen to critic reviews, but I place a lot of faith into bloggers’ opinions. Bloggers review movies for fun in their spare time, you know you’re going to get nothing but their own opinions from their reviews. Hunt for the Wilderpeople only came into my radar a few weeks ago, and every blog review I read had nothing but praise for it. That was enough to convince me to add it to my watch list, but once I realised that it’s directed by Taika Waititi, the genius behind What We Do in the Shadows, I made it my mission to watch it as soon as possible.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is based off a book by Barry Crump called Wild Pork and Watercress. It has that book-adaptation feel to it (don’t ask me to explain that feeling - I can’t) anyway, and it’s broken up into Chapters which sum up the ongoings well. In fact, I’d really love to give the book a go, I hope it’s as funny as the movie.

Ricky (Julian Dennison) is a troubled young boy, moving around different foster homes. He’s dropped out at the farm belonging to Bella (Rima Te Wiata) and Hec (Sam Neill) as a last chance. If he screws this up, he’s going to end up in Juvy. Ricky struggles to settle in his new home, despite the love and attention given to him by Bella, and so he runs away into the bush. Hec goes out to find him, and the result is a national manhunt for the pair as it appears that Hec has kidnapped Ricky.

It’s a funny coincidence that I watched this in the same week as Swiss Army Man, because they both have a lot of similarities!

Waititi’s style is clear in this movie. It’s got that same sense of humour as What We Do in the Shadows, and it’s quirky from start to finish. Julian Dennison absolutely shines as the child star of the movie, and his delivery of the witty lines is perfect. He’s just like a lot of other 13 year olds, thinking he’s a gangster because he’s shoplifted a chocolate bar, played GTA and listens to rap music. Yet he’s such a likeable character!

Every time I watch a movie set in New Zealand, I’m taken back by the beauty of the country. I’m sure a lot of work went into the cinematography, but honestly, the setting does half the work itself, it’s gorgeous to look at.

The movie walks that line of Comedy and Drama perfectly without throwing the tone all over the place. It has some horrendously sad moments that had me sobbing quite openly, although I won’t discuss why because of spoilers, but it’s also one of the funniest movies I’ve seen all year. The dialogue is brilliant, thanks in part to the chemistry Julian Dennison and Sam Neill share. 

I’ve been trying to balance this review out with a few negatives to warrant the 9/10 score I wanted to give it, but I’m really struggling. Originally I thought the roles of the Child Protection Officer and her Policeman companion were too campy, but actually, they fit the overall feel of the movie perfectly, especially when I try to compare it to What We Do in the Shadows. I very rarely give perfect marks to any movie, I think there’s always room for improvement, but I can’t find it here!

Review: What We Do in the Shadows (2014)

I’ve seen the movie What We Do in the Shadows pop up on quite a few of the blogs I read over the course of Halloween this year and last year, but for some reason my mind kept telling me that it was a Tim Burton movie with Johnny Depp in (I recently realised I was thinking about Dark Shadows) and so after looking up what it was actually all about, I had no idea what to expect, but based on the reviews I was kind of kicking myself for not watching it sooner.

What We Do in the Shadows (2014) is a documentary-style comedy based on a group of vampires, Viago (Taika Waititi), Vladislav (Jemaine Clement) and Deacon (Jonny Brugh) as they struggle through the mundane parts of living in the present times, like paying the rent, doing their fair share of flat chores, and getting dressed up for nightclubs, which is especially difficult when none of them have a reflection!

It’s one of the craziest scenarios I’ve ever seen, but it just works so well. Problems arise for the vampire friends throughout the movie, and they deal with them as they go, and other than the looming masquerade ball, that’s all there is to it really. With such a loose plot, I wondered how well the story would flow, but there were enough laughs from start to finish to keep me entertained. 

Things get difficult for the group when they are joined by very recently-turned vampire Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer) who seems determined to tell anyone who will listen that he’s a vampire. Nick also introduces the group to technological advances such as Google, leading to one of my favourite moments:

Stu: [Showing the vampires Google] Anything you want to find you type it in.

Viago: I lost a really nice silk scarf in about 1912.

Deacon: Yes, now Google it.

Speaking of great quotes from this movie though:

Deacon: I think we drink virgin blood because it sounds cool.

Vladislav: I think of it like this. If you are going to eat a sandwich, you would just enjoy it more if you knew no one had f****d it.

I loved that this movie wasn’t constrained to just vampires. The inclusion of the werewolf pack was brilliant, and the scenes of the two groups arguing were so funny to watch. Honestly, this whole movie is hilarious, so you need to watch it like, now.

Since telling my fiance about What We Do in the Shadows, he really wants to see it now, so I’m going to have to watch it again soon! Oh, the hardships I deal with...ha.