RIVER WILD (2023)

RIVER WILD (2023)

Tagline: The Past Will Pull You Under. 

(Thriller, Suspense, Dysfunctional Family) [PG-13]

Note: This movie is also called “THE RIVER WILD”. This is apparently not a remake or a direct sequel of 1994’s THE RIVER WILD but is set in the same universe as the original film. Once we all get our heads around that, we can move along. 

This one follows Olivia, Eve, and Joey who are just trying to have a fun camping and white-water river rafting trip with some old friends. Gray is their guide on this adventure, and he’s a man’s man ready to take on anything. Except maybe his brother.  

First off, the acting in this movie is incredible. The contrast in personalities and temperament is on full display here and everything looks amazing regarding the sets, location, and realism. Realism isn’t always a plus for me, but in a film like this, it works to the benefit of the viewer. 

A lot of things go well for this film production-wise, but it is plagued with all kinds of stupid decision-making. Not all of that stupid decision-making is done by the movie's antagonist. In a shocking display of strange writing, there are just a lot of things in this film that don’t make any sense or are simply not explained at all. This doesn’t mean we don’t get a decent bit of cinematography and really solid performances as I mentioned earlier. 

The cast includes Adam Brody who is very hit-and-miss. I liked him in SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS, but not in READY OR NOT. He’s great in this as Trevor and really shows some range, I guess I was expecting, but you still have to pull it off and he does. This is also a good one out of Olivia Swann who plays Karissa, I haven’t seen her in anything else, but she had a big role in “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow” starring in 44 episodes. We get a small dose of Eve Connolly as Van and she is quite good in the screen time she gets. Leighton Meester plays Joey and is superb. Joey is really supremely dumb about certain things though, so just watch out for that. In real life, Brody and Meester have been married since 2014 which makes this movie all that much creepier when it comes to the storyline. Taran Killam (TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES) rounds out the main cast as Gray. He is also very good like everyone else. Career-wise he is mostly known for his voice work on shows like “The Simpsons” and in the Star Wars extended universe. 

I did like the pacing and the tension this movie creates and the score is well composed. I think for me it gets a lot depressing in the second act and starts going down roads I really just didn’t like it all that much from a story standpoint. I think there are several parts of the dialog they could have just left out and the movie would have been just fine. Having said that it does provide thrills and chills and on that level I would say this is successful. 

Where this thing fails is in giving us a credible script. The dialog is pretty bad to the point of making it feel more like we are watching a movie where the ideas were just thrown at a dart board. It proceeds predictably without seeming like there was any real thought about character building with a purpose or any of that. Now I rarely complain about predictability. In fact, sometimes I like that, sometimes seeing effective execution of the expected is comforting in some ways. However, with the way this thing drags in certain parts, I found myself just wanting to hit the fast-forward button to see if I was right about how this was going to go down. 

There are only so many shots of the rapids and beautiful scenery that you can take to cover only having the main ideas of a plot to work with. Still, the bare bones of this are fine and because of that, I can give it a 3 out of 7. Saying it’s barely watchable isn’t really fair given what they did right. 

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