Delayed Reaction: Colonia

The Pitch: Emma Watson joins a cult compound to rescue her boyfriend.

This is really unfair of Emma Watson to do to me. She doesn't do nearly enough movies, so when I see one show up on Netflix with a big picture of her on it, I'm going to watch it. Colonia isn't a bad movie, really. It's mostly forgettable. You can almost see individual moments when the screenwriters are asking themselves "how much can I deviate from the truth with this?". No single thing about Colonia is all that bad though. It's just that nothing stands out. There are no big choices made by the director or actors. Something like Daniel Bruhl actually being brain damaged or the film getting more viceral about the inhumanities in the compound wouldn've made this stick out a lot more. That's just two examples. There's not a "right" answer. They play this very safe in the film and that felt wrong. The more movies I see, the more familiar certain story types become and that does no favors for Colonia. Emma Watson is plenty good in the lead role and Daniel Bruhl makes a go at his. Michael Nyqvist is well-suited to play this kind of cult leader despot. And, I did learn a little about Chile in the 1970s. I've often said that if a mediocre movies leads me to an interesting Wikipedia article, then it was worth it. I guess that make Colonia a success.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend