Reviews

The main character Oliver, is supposedly a boring & uncharismatic person. However, his manipulations start early & grow more transparent as the story unfolds, making it increasingly obvious that Oliver is simply uncaring & cold, rather than having been ostracized solely for class reasons.

The movie proceeds slowly, with a few obliviously ironic statements standing in for actual comedy. By the time the titular Saltburn estate is finally seen, we already have good reasons to dislike each of the major characters presented, & this trend continues with Felix's wealthy family.

None of the characters present engaging or sympathetic traits; instead, they are undetailed archetypes of tired tropes such as 'jaded sister who smokes' & 'mother obsessed with appearances'. The father in particular, lacks any distinguishing traits & seems to exist solely as a plot device, with no supporting background or development.

The "climax" is excruciatingly predictable, occurring exactly the way an experienced viewer has been primed to expect. Nothing wild or hilarious (or the least bit unexpected) ever happens, at any point during this film.

Creepiness & snide-yet-utterly-pedestrian comments, seem to fill the bulk of this movie's time, along with copious footage of young men's backs (& sometimes their fronts or buttocks). Toward the end it gets particularly dark, but never really shocking or daring; just depressing\gross.

Anyone surprised by the ending, either hasn't seen many movies, or hasn't paid attention to the foreshadowing\lampshading elements that have become so overused as to be cliche in modern storytelling. Every single noteworthy event in this story, is telegraphed heavy-handedly beforehand; as if any surprises at all would be unacceptably inexplicable to the audience.

Slow, predictable, unfunny, & weirdly gross, describe this movie better than any other words that come to mind. I've seen more relatable bisexual characters in christian christmas movies.

Drama: 3 out of 5 (flat & unlikeable characters) Thrills: 2 out of 5 (slow, even while events occur) Comedy: 1 out of 5 (more "oof" than "haha") Originality: 0 out of 5 Enjoyability: -2 out of 5 (pretty scenery is the only reason I can think to watch this; far outweighed by unpleasant imagery with uninteresting characters)

If there's a less enjoyable movie from 2023, I won't watch it.

I think everyone wishes this sequence of interstitial promotional bump clips were longer. Produced for Adult Swim by the company Human Element, & directed by Paul B Cummings with Samuel Brownfield as director of photography, these three *very* short scenes aim to tickle the nostalgic fancy of Back to the Future fans & hardcore R&M fans alike, with less than half a minute of the all-time greatest wrinkly inventor fanservice ever to grace the small screen.

Right off the bat, pretty much everything in C-132 looks a bit more fresh-&-shiny than what we're usually shown: C-137's garage never looks quite this tidy. As for old C-132 himself, his shirt & labcoat are spotless; no green drool stains in sight. Overall, the C-132 reality seems unnervingly sanitized in comparison to the R&M realities we usually see.

Harkening back to Rick & Morty's earliest roots, we see Back to the Future's original Doc Brown, Christopher Lloyd, give an aggressively live-action performance as an alternate version (C-132) of TV's Rick Sanchez. (For those who might not know, Rick's character was originally inspired by Doc Brown & based on a subversion of the Doc Brown \ Dr Who trope of a superficially deranged scientist dragging along unwitting minors on outlandish misadventures.)

Apart from an inhuman amount of hairgel / oil, Jaeden Martell looks about as much like Morty as anyone with a healthy body:head mass ratio possibly could. In the cartoons, Morty *does* wear a disgusting amount of hair product, but when filmed in real life under the bright lighting suitable for cameras, the reflectivity is bizarrely high, making this "Morty" look like a psychopath &\or plastic replacement. (Perhaps if imagined as one of Rick's robotic Morty stand-ins, the look is just right?)

As for the kid's acting, there's barely enough footage to go on, but I feel the direction given to both actors should have included a bit more emphasis on both characters' constantly recurrent undertones of abiding depression & ennui.

Those are really my only three (very minor) criticisms of this otherwise masterful reenactment of a now classic cartoon duo: It's all inhumanly shiny, unusually peppy, & WAY TOO SHORT!

Ultimately, the three clips combined total less airtime than a single 30 second commercial. While these exceedingly brief interstitial clips are a beloved hallmark of Adult Swim's promotional efforts, it would have been wonderful to see two-to-four times as many of them... or even a live-action episode.

As a children's movie, this is pretty condescending for my taste. A 4- year old might enjoy it a few times, but I wouldn't encourage anyone to watch it. There are no adult situations or dialog which I found in any way offensive (though there are a few anthropomorphized stereotypes). I did find it unbelievable to the point of nausea. Real dangers and important topics are glossed over with a happy-shiny tub-toy make- believe theme.

There are a number of musical scenes which could be entertaining for some viewers. The voices are thankfully less nasal and squeaky during the singing portions.

The most realistic part of this movie was a seagull getting tangled up in some debris out in the ocean. The main characters are rubber toys which will not starve or apparently even sunburn while out at sea. There is not a lot of danger to hang any suspense upon here.

For any marginally informed adult watching this movie, the main concern beating upon your mind should be for the welfare of the various sea creatures featured in this movie. A whale swallows toxic debris and expels it harmlessly in a typical Disney fashion. Thankfully nothing intentionally eats any of the tub toys, which would be quite likely to occur in reality, as a very large and increasing number of sea creatures die each year from ingesting plastic. Animals cannot distinguish plastic from edible material and most omnivores will try to eat small pieces given time and opportunity.

The movie opens in a rubber toy factory, which is made to look like a happy, clean and fun place. There are several humans which encounter mortal peril in rather predictable fashion. Everything ends on a happy note and I suppose viewers are meant to wonder at the good fortune of Lucky Duck.

If this movie had any semblance of realism or the creators had one iota of respect and concern for the ocean they depict, it would have contained at least one scene of a fearful tub-toy listing the dire fates which await plastic in the ocean. This would have built suspense much better than a rubber turtle worrying about electric eels. The main characters would more likely have washed up on Midway Island or gotten caught up in the Pacific garbage patch.

For ignoring real issues while making up farcical ones, -1 star. For a hero that rallies his followers to accomplish absolutely nothing, -1 star. For using a humorous premise yet failing to capitalize on it with jokes and suspense, -1 star. That's down 3 stars from the 5 I usually grant any 2 hour distraction, and it offers nothing to raise it's score from there. There were no big laughs, no suspense, no believable plot, no educational elements, and one hackneyed lesson in risk-aversion between a boy and his father.

I think letting your child watch this a few times would probably lower their IQ. Put on some repeats of Schoolhouse Rock! instead.