Carrie(2013)

So let me start this off by saying, I have somehow never seen any of the other Carrie movies, nor have I read the book. That always seems to catch people by surprise. Apparently everybody has seen a Carrie before, and everybody has a favorite. So I don't know Carrie, I can not compare this to other Carrie. This will not be a long review, just a few thoughts and feelings about the movie.

I once read somewhere that if Chloe Moretz got somewhere around 27 more on screen kills, she would have the highest on screen kill count of any female actress in the states. The current record holder is Kill Bill's Uma Thurman. In Kickass 2 she got 7 or so, but everybody thought Carrie would net her enough to claim the title. I didn't count for myself, but I can tell you she falls very short. That alone pretty much sums up my feelings for this movie, it fell short.

The story is simple enough. A girl is born to a overly religious mother who then abuses her mentally causing issues for the girl later on in life. She is unable to interact with people in a normal way, and becomes a target of bullies at her school. The rest is what comes from that, and how it turns Carrie into the super powered killer she becomes.

This feels like a odd thing to say, but it felt like the movie held itself back to much. We had a pretty nasty birthing scene at the beginning, but then when the actual violence happens we get very little. The movie builds itself up with a slow burn, it makes you think there is a big pay off coming. But at the end it just sort of fizzles out, and never really delivers on that. Seeing her exact her revenge was interesting, but not satisfying. According to my wife, who has seen multiple other Carrie movies, this one was very tame compared to those. The effect looked decent, and I would have enjoyed seeing more of them and more chaos. The movie just never really seemed to pick up, and the story could only carry it so far.

The actual characters were interesting, and the story and dialogue kept me interested until the end. So not everything was bad about the film. It actually was a solid experience for the most part. Julianne Moore played crazy pretty well, and seeing her interact with Carrie was usually entertaining if for no other reason then shock value. I also really liked Judy Greer's character, the gym teacher Ms. Desjarden. She did got to say pretty much what you wanted to during the film. Still though, keeping me interested doesn't matter to much if it never comes to anything.

In the end I would have a hard time reccomending this movie to others. If you just loved Carrie and wanted to see how the new one turned out, go for it. Anybody else can probally get away with skipping it. Even for a redbox, I felt let down by it.

Going into the movie, I thought Carrie's power was she could set people on fire with her mind. I have no idea why I thought that, but it was just what I knew about Carrie, that was her thing. That apparently amused my wife. I kept asking her when she was going to light somebody up, she never corrected me though.