Review of Assassination Nation (2018) by Philip P — 10 Dec 2018

Within the first fifteen minutes or so I thought I was really going to hate this movie. The falseness of it all felt so glaring. It was trying to be something it didn't naturally know how to pull off in the worst way. Once we get past the rather scrutinizing character introductions though, the movie levels up and becomes what it is without that aspect of attempting to be something it's not.

Assassination Nation is an extreme satire, but it's a rather effective one. It's a film that will either grow better or worse with age, but my guess is this might be a pretty trippy to experience in ten to fifteen years. Yeah, this super-stylized take on the coming-of-age tale through the lens of our presently overexposed culture would have probably worked better as a limited series or something given the movie already feels like the core characters essentially walk through a handful of different vignettes which in turn means the movie begins to feel like it's dragging in that latter half, but it goes out with such a bang it's hard to argue one didn't have a blast.

Side note: How does Pretty Little Liar's little Mike Montgomery now look like Zac Efron?!?!