I'm honestly struggling to capture what the moral/main theme of this film might be. Wait, perhaps I got it now! If your young child grows up in a practically isolated geographical location, where you don't give him too much parental attention and allow for his that his best pals are roadkill carcasses, then there's a fair chance he'll turn into a little freak with maniacal tendencies and limited social skills. Wow, really? Thanks for the advice; I'll try not to let that happen to my own son.
Alright, I'm exaggerating perhaps, but there honestly isn't too much else to learn from Craig William Macneill's "The Boy"! Admirers and wannabe intellectual cinephiles might claim that the film gives a lesson in tension-building and character development, but that's hardly defendable. "The Boy" starts out boring, the entire middle-section is boring, and the climax is frustratingly boring! Since 1960, since Norman Bates in "Psycho" in other words, we already know that remote and ramshackle roadside motels aren't ideal places for the mental development of vulnerable young men, so the overlong and supposedly harrowing story of single father David Morse trying to give space and liberty to his 9-year-old son Ted is redundant, uninteresting and pathetic. There is absolutely nothing happening throughout 2/3 of the film, unless you find tire-swinging or scooping up dead squirrels a fascinating sight. Then, when you hope the action might finally shift into a higher gear because the motel is suddenly filled with disposable teenagers during their senior prom after party, "The Boy" incomprehensibly becomes even more cowardly and dull. The least that we, patient and tolerant viewers, deserved to see was a psychopathic rampage and not a lousy mass-murdering! I usually have a lot of sympathy for both David Morse and Rainn Wilson, but they shouldn't feel forced to star in over-ambitious but substantially void projects like these, just because they assume it'll look good on their resumes. The only 45 seconds in "The Boy" that I truly enjoyed were the ones during which Jefferson Starship's "Nothing's Gonna Stop us" was playing on the radio.
Alright, I'm exaggerating perhaps, but there honestly isn't too much else to learn from Craig William Macneill's "The Boy"! Admirers and wannabe intellectual cinephiles might claim that the film gives a lesson in tension-building and character development, but that's hardly defendable. "The Boy" starts out boring, the entire middle-section is boring, and the climax is frustratingly boring! Since 1960, since Norman Bates in "Psycho" in other words, we already know that remote and ramshackle roadside motels aren't ideal places for the mental development of vulnerable young men, so the overlong and supposedly harrowing story of single father David Morse trying to give space and liberty to his 9-year-old son Ted is redundant, uninteresting and pathetic. There is absolutely nothing happening throughout 2/3 of the film, unless you find tire-swinging or scooping up dead squirrels a fascinating sight. Then, when you hope the action might finally shift into a higher gear because the motel is suddenly filled with disposable teenagers during their senior prom after party, "The Boy" incomprehensibly becomes even more cowardly and dull. The least that we, patient and tolerant viewers, deserved to see was a psychopathic rampage and not a lousy mass-murdering! I usually have a lot of sympathy for both David Morse and Rainn Wilson, but they shouldn't feel forced to star in over-ambitious but substantially void projects like these, just because they assume it'll look good on their resumes. The only 45 seconds in "The Boy" that I truly enjoyed were the ones during which Jefferson Starship's "Nothing's Gonna Stop us" was playing on the radio.