Movies in Review: "Eighth Grade"

This movie was only released in 4 theaters this weekend, so I won't be surprised if you haven't heard of it. I'm a fan of coming of age adolescent movies because it always reminds me of the awkwardness I experienced as a teen. Although I'm not sure why I would want to be reminded of that time in my life, but let’s just leave it at nostalgic reasons...I guess. The biggest movie released this weekend was Skyscraper starring The Rock (after Rampage I had no interest in seeing), but I took my chances with the independent films like Eighth Grade. I knew what I was going to get from Skyscraper, and I wanted a different movie to experience this weekend. Eighth Grade looked like a great story with enjoyable moments. I took that over ridiculous action sequences and a predictable plot ~shrug.

Not to say that I wished I would have chosen Skyscraper instead of this movie, but I do feel a little duped. I don't read reviews before checking out any flick, but the Rotten Tomatoes rating is always listed Fandango, and this movie had a 99% fresh. I admit this peaked my interest to see this movie only to leave the theater wondering how in the hell did it receive such a high rating. Why? Because the young actress kept it real with her pimply face and teen body she's still growing into? All I know is I was expecting a lot more and unfortunately felt like I received way less. The movie was only 90min longer and I was almost in pain waiting for it to end. It was boring as hell. I did not fall in love with the main character. She was cool, but sometimes I felt like I wanted to punch her in the face, and scenes were sometimes so awkward, I wanted to crawl under a table. The writing was a little dry to me. Don't hate me, but critics are raving about the young actress Elsie Fisher, and I thought she was soooooooooo boring...smh. The only scenes I liked were the ones with her father, and this was because I thought he was really entertaining ~shrugs.

Movies like this are the reason why I hate critics. You give a film rave reviews, but a majority of movie-goers leave the theater just feeling ho-hum about the film. When a film has rave reviews, I expect to take a piece of that movie with me when I leave the theater. I don't want to be kicking myself for wasting my time. I was seriously bored to death with this movie and spent 90min trying not to fall asleep...ijs...C+