Movie Notes: Eagle Vs. Shark
= 3 stars
Starring Loren Horsley, Jemaine Clement
Directed by Taika Cohen
Synopsis
Lonely Lili (Loren Horsley) has the hots for Jarrod (Jemaine Clement), a nerdy video gamer. Their blossoming romance is side-railed by Jarod’s mission of revenge against an old high school adversary.
The Good
- Extremely quirky and endearing mix of twee visuals and adults acting like children.
- Wide-eyed, sensitive Horsley keeps things afloat and takes the edge off total asshole Jarrod (Clement).
- The suburban New Zealand locale (very different from Lord Of The Rings).
The Bad
- Often shamelessly derivative of recent cutesy films: Napoleon Dynamite (nerd-o losers taking dumb things way too seriously), The Royal Tenenbaums (track suits and indie music), the aforementioned Gondry (stop motion animation), and heck let’s throw in the hopeless romantic heroine theme of Amelie.
- No huge surprises plot wise — I even correctly guessed the “twist” in the final showdown.
Conclusion
Eagle and Shark was a crowd-pleaser at Sundance and it often transcends its indie nature and comes close to resembling a larger budget, surreal-o flick like those made by Gondry, Jonez, or Anderson. Certainly harmless entertainment as a rental, and all involved are worth keeping an eye out in the future.
IMDB: Eagle Vs. Shark
Wikipedia: Eagle Vs. Shark
Rotten Tomatoes: Eagle Vs. Shark