Hunt for the Wilderpeople

If I were supposed to take care of that fat bastard (sorry, morbidly obese troubled boy), it would definitely be a short film, as he definitely wouldn't survive his attitude in the beginning. The longer I watched, the more obvious it was that it was a typical family film, whose plot, despite its many unlikely adventures, was inevitably marching towards a happy ending, which isn’t exactly my thing. It’s not that I hate happy endings, but the story just wasn’t any good. I’m not sure why the characters repeatedly said there were a million hectares of the Bush around them, when both runaways kept stumbling across people all the time. Lame. (03/10/2018)

I really enjoyed this adventurous journey through the New Zealand bush. It had pace, enough tension and of course there was no lack of emotions. I absolutely loved the style of humor, enhanced by scenes full of absurdities and exaggerations, which fed all the strange characters that appeared in the plot. Even Sam Neill impressed me, even though I don't like him much otherwise. But he played the role of the surly surrogate uncle really well. (85%) (03/26/2023)

A relaxing comedy (it sometimes reminded me of a more vulgar version of Kolya), which I would screen as a double film with Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom. It's playful, sensitive, funny, very well acted, filmed and accompanied by great music. It perhaps bothered me that it was a bit predictable. However, I wish I would see such films more often in the movie theatre. (11/16/2017)

Waititi's got it in him. A film that is a first-rate and unrelenting critique of the complexity and sterility of the contemporary world, but at the same time never stops churning out amusing plot twists, metaphorical ideas and even some great lines that will stay on my mind for a long time. And where the legibly plotted development of a simple story isn't enough, the chemistry between the wilful Ricky and the hardened Sam Neill helps, as he takes on another memorable role. Armed with a volley of cinematic references, Waititi escapes into a wild territory of endless irony and hyperbole, where he never gets lost but manages to merge deliberate plot extravagance and goofiness with a cleverly intimate story that, while failing to inspire any thought, is so entertaining and functional on the surface that could be a lesson to many indie writers. Let’s hope Taika won’t get burned in Hollywood. 80% (04/22/2017)

As for stylization, it's pretty much unique. However, it's the stylization I’m not happy about, because the individual styles (poetics of children's adventure, more serious tone and absolutely crazy) do not match each other at all. It does not create one cohesive whole, but it goes on like this for a while and then like that, which breaks down the whole concept and therefore the emotional level does not work, that largely determines its success. So no matter how hard it tries to combine "Little Rambo viewed by Wes Anderson's perspective", the effort produced no results, which although is not boring and nice to watch and quickly passes by, but just as quickly (if not faster) gets out of your head. (10/17/2016)