Review: Captain Fantastic Is Less Than The Sum Of Its Parts.
- Mar 25, 2017
- 2 min read
Captain Fantastic is a bizarre film about a man who single handedly destroys any chance there is for his children to have a normal life, and he expects them to be thankful.
Ben Cash (Viggo Mortensen) and his family live off the grid in the forests Washington State. They're socialists and survivalists, living off the land without a care. But his wife, residing in hospital, diagnosed as bipolar. When the news reaches them that she has taken her own life, Ben packs up the kids and departs on a pilgrimage to tear apart everything he created in a misguided, self righteous crusade to do what he believes is the right thing, regardless of consequence.
Is it a comedy? Is it a drama? Is it some twisted commentary on the modern world? Maybe, maybe not, as far as I'm concerned it's just a movie that annoyed me more than any other movie I've seen. Its not a bad movie but its a movie that can't even stand by the internal logic of its characters, most of whom are so deluded to the way in which the world works that they come off as stupider than the movie seems to think they are.
Between Ben declaring that burgers and chips aren't real food in one scene and in the very next consuming store bought chocolate cake covered in whipped cream from a can and the understanding of the Bill of Rights being considered education, there's very few times in this movie that I actually cared about Ben's situation as he willingly brought it upon itself. Not to mention the fact that all his children has names that wouldn't be out of place in a Tolkien novel, names like Bodevan and Rellian.
Within its individual components, Captain Fantastic is a good movie. The cinematography is great, acting is solid, characters are interesting and the story is intriguing. But like some strange and deluded jigsaw puzzle, the pieces don't fit together in the way they should.
While Viggo's acting is undeniably great, not even he can elevate the film above his characters stupidity. Even though, spoiler alert, he eventually realises exactly what he's done, by then the damage is done and I didn't care anymore. You might like this movie and I know people do but it's just too far separated from reality to keep me invested.
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