Review: The Neon Demon Is Just Bad
- Apr 30, 2017
- 1 min read
A wise man once said, “You can’t polish a turd.” While his name has been lost to history, this quote stands as a pillar of truth. No matter how much glitter, pretty cinematography and lens flares a movie has, if it’s bad, it’s bad, regardless of how it looks.
Jesse (Elle Fanning) moves to Las Angeles to pursue a career in modelling. She is set upon by the other models who despise her for her success. Then nothing happens for an hour. Then things get weird.
Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn has never directed a straightforward movie. It’s always some psuedo-hallucinegenic trite with little to no plot with a greater focus on visuals than storytelling, writing or anything else. They’re always packed with what one must assume to be analogy though none of it makes any sense. Neon Demon fits this almost perfectly.
I’ve seen bad movies. Bad movies tend to look as awful as they are. But like a wolf in sheep's clothing, Neon Demon drapes itself in a thin veneer of pretty visuals and bizarre imagery. Strip it away and you get what amounts to some strange mix of who knows what mixed with who really cares.
It’s difficult to explain what makes this movie bad because there isn’t a lot of movie here. No coherency, no plot, bad characters and just about everything else. You can’t polish a turd and if you could, it’s still just a turd.
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