The Park

source: The Park

Granted, I didn't really have any particular high hopes or expectations to the 2023 movie "The Park" from writer and director Shal Ngo, as I sat down to watch it. Sure, I hadn't heard about the movie, but after having read the synopsis, it sounded like a very bland run-of-the-mill movie with a storyline that has been done and seen before. But still, I opted to sit down and watch it, as I might perhaps be in for something great here, though it hardly would seem so. And I wasn't in for anything grand. I have to admit that I found the storyline in "The Park" laughably boring and ridiculous. It was, as I had believed, just another movie that uses the trope of all-adults-in-the-world-are-dead. It has been seen and done before, and writer and director Shal Ngo didn't exactly bring anything new or thrilling to the game. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble, but the acting performances were fair enough, despite the fact that I abhorred the storyline and script. Truth be told, then I didn't finish watching "The Park", and nor do I have any intentions of returning to attempt doing so, because the storyline utterly failed to entertain me. My rating of "The Park" lands on a three out of ten stars.

A post apocalyptic movie where all adults are dead and kids are walking around killing each other for God knows why! That's pretty much the brilliant idea behind this laughable bs. So for some reason there's a virus that kills ALL adults, none excluded, yet the kids remain but once reach puberty they die! The "so called" sad excuse of a failed writer thinks once this happens ALL the remaining kids age like 12 and younger will walk around the forest trapping and killing each other for food and water!!!!!!!!!! Aside from how the idea it self completely ridiculous, unbelievable and lame not to mention how many illogical plot hole in the screenplay which is by the way horrible but kids trying to act like adults is an eye sore plus who stupid casting as they casted teens as pre-teens which of course was Very obvious and laughable. This is a hard fail and best to be passed and even cremated if possible.

Adults are dead and now it's Lord of the Flies at the theme park. From frame one you know this is gonna be a really bad movie. Real bad. The acting is horrendous. Actually, there is no acting. Just kids reading lines. The entire concept of the film is dumb if you think about it for 10 seconds. There is no direction and the writing is idiotic. The only saving grace is that it runs under 90 minutes. You should run away. I can't get that time back now. The bottom line is....who paid to make this garbage? I hope they are feeling duped and never put up cash to support this horrible writer/director again.

This world rotates alongside what you believe, you define it as a cruel place where every kids kill others to survive until they grow up and die, or you can believe it as an amusement park where all kids can enjoy themselves and stay naive! Faith needs motive, which in this story, is the pursuit of immortality, the hope of doing something from being forgotten, the courage of entering eternity without worrying about the actual harm & threat of death. The reality is, believing can't prevent the virus to take away life, but it was so precious that survivors can use such belief to summon more of their kind, which is such an romantic reflection to reality.

All adults are deadfrom a mystery virus. Only the children survive and they have an expiration date. Hit puberty and they die. Interesting premise. Right. Could be good......wrong. Firstly I can't really imagine this generation would survive long if this happened now. Just saying. Over sensitive cancel culture kids or those identifying as a toasters and pondered to wouldn't prepare them for a world without adults let's be honest. Silly film really. Can't make mind up what it wants to be. Dark or tweeny. Kids murdering each other....dark. With machetes darker..... but don't see anything at all and more about clichéd tweeny drama. Too tame to be horror or an adult apocalyptic film with too dark theme for sensitive little kids of today. 🤷🏻 I was hoping for more of an intelligent Lord of the Flies type film. This is nothing as cerebral. Potential Violence yet that never really happens l Or seen, frustrating. They try to make it tense and threatening and gritty, kids swearing and welding machetes but ultimately is so tame it's kinda embarrassing!? Why not just commit to one or the other. Maybe the tweens will enjoy it but as soon as past puberty I wanted to die than continue watching. But I did. And the ending was lazy and abrupt. It tries to be philosophical and deep but its just kinda embarrassing how much it fails to achieve anything. A pointless endeavour.

I wish I read the reviews before I watched this. Who wants to watch a movie with stupid kids constantly doing stupid things and swearing. I know I don't. If you have kids, you know that they wouldn't and couldn't survive without adults. Even most teens couldn't and wouldn't survive. And I'm not even talking during an apocalypse. LOL. These stupid kids actually survived somehow while in the forest or where ever they were? They had no food or water but survived for a while? Not only it was pretty bad acting, the main girl and boy were irritating and the park girl was even more irritating. The girl tried to kill you lie to you and you still help her? And why would you want a park? It has no food or water. Stupid. The movie was just too stupid.

Minor spoiler ahead. It seems this entry of the dystopian variety may have gotten some inspiration from one of my favorite episodes of the original Star Trek series in my opinion. Much like this movie, the episode titled "Miri" was about a virus that became deadly when the infected reached puberty, hence the lack of any adults existing in this world. So you take that episode and extend it by an additional 20 minutes and you have this movie. The actors all did well in their parts presenting the story and the environment was well established with the help of an abandoned amusement park. It's a decent effort but if you want essentially the same story handled in a more compact and efficient way, I recommend the Star Trek version.

Stop with the superhero movies already! My first impression seeing the previews was that this would be like Lord of the Flies in an amusement park. Once I got into the movie, the setting and the soundtrack played very well into the story of kids struggling in a dystopian world. The story is straight forward with some nice up and downs. The fact that they used lesser known actors (at least to me) was very refreshing because the movie banked on the story, setting, characters, which I loved. Overall, a very well made movie. I look forward to seeing more movies with these actors and by these writers.

The story drags out over the short run time, kids playing adults just doesn't play off the same. Find it's extremely hard to belive , and I really can't tell if the acting is bad or if it's just such an unbelievable and boring premise that it just plays off this way. There are no answers to any questions you might have over the actual plot events, like what happened and why. But that isn't really important anyways because no one is even likeable in this story- I kind of just was hoping that everyone in it would die because it's so ridiculous. Save yourself some time and forger this trash even exists !