Review of Carnage (1984) by Allan C — 12 Nov 2012
Carnage is supposed to be a "sharp comedy", but I found nothing sharp or witty about it. The whole movie is just a premise that goes absolutely nowhere.... I kept waiting for this movie to actually start, until an hour had passed and I realized.
.. yeah, that's it. On top of that, everything that happens and everything that is said in this movie is completely ridiculous. I didn't believe any of the characters for one second. The actors do good jobs with what they are given, it's just too bad that what they were given is absolute drivel.
This movie is obviously a play-turned-movie, which in and of itself is the first indication of failure: the key to successful movie adaptation is to adapt it in a way that makes it NOT clearly a play.
The movie is based exclusively on dialogue, so the director HAS to do something interesting to spice it up... but the direction is boring and just plain lazy. Polanski completely phoned this one in, all the way from France, or wherever it is he is hiding these days.
Poor story, poor execution, poor character development, AND it's pretentious in that it thinks it's way smarter than it is. Even these four extremely capable actors can't save it. Don't waste your time on this one.
This review of Carnage (1984) was written by Allan C on 12 November 2012.
Carnage has generally received mixed reviews.
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