"The crulest thing you can do to an artist is tell them that their work is brilliant when it isn't."
-Yahtzee, host of Zero Punctuation
Every once in a while, you come across a movie (like today's topic of discussion, The Serpent) that not only deserves harsh criticism but also causes you to ponder why it is deserved. Especially when the aforementioned movie is as boring, incompetent, and as unintentionally funny as this one. Because when a film as horrifically executed as The Serpent is brought to your attention, it's not enough to simply explain why it's so terrible; it requires a lesson. Both for the people who made it and some of the people who have previously "reviewed" it.
On the surface, and from the trailer, The Serpent looks and sounds like a decent action espionage thriller with an Angelina Jolie look-alike. Unfortunately, the trailer is the only thing tangentially related to this trainwreck of a film that is in any way decent.
For the first time on this blog, since I implemented my star-rating system, I have come across a film that is so incomprehensibly terrible, it doesn't even deserve a single star. Technically, this means that The Serpent is a worse film than Money Plane because, as awful as that film was, at least Money Plane had a coherent plot.
There is a myriad of problems with the movie serving as a textbook example of how "not" to make a movie: what little plot there is to speak of is unclear and uninteresting, the script is sloppy and often feels as though written by an eight-year-old (complete with clunky and unnatural dialogue), the direction is non-existent, the cinematography is ugly with garish lighting (and at least one-quarter of the shots are completely out of focus), the acting from the whole cast is splinter-inducingly wooden, and on par with an original elementary school theater performance (especially from the leading heroine), the costumes and special-effects wouldn't look out of place in a parody of an action movie, and the editing (oh dear goodness the editing) is the absolute worst kind of quick-cutting choppy ADD fueled headache-inducing mess of an assembly of shots I have ever forced myself to sit through. Bohemian Rhapsody had better editing than this!
Not to mention the horrendous and painfully obvious dubbing of the protagonist. It's worse than Harrison Ford's voiceover in the theatrical cut of Blade Runner.
Of all the guilty people responsible for this dumpster fire, none are as much to blame as its writer, director, co-producer, and star, Gia Skova. This is where things take a bit of a strange turn.
Gia Skova is a Russian-born fashion model featured on Cover Girl, Vogue, and InStyle for those who don't know. According to an interview she gave on the YouTube show, The Fan Carpet Extra, she wants to be an artist and show how well she can handle making a movie independently. She says how much she's always loved action movies and how she intended her character to be a contributing symbol of female empowerment. All of which are good things in and of themselves.
At first glance, there is the temptation to give the movie a pass because, well, it's her very first movie, and she had noble intentions with making it. However, good intentions do not make a good movie! While it's true that no one actually sets out to intentionally make a bad movie, just because you have good intentions doesn't automatically result in a good product.
The only thing worse than giving a terrible movie a pass for its good intentions is allowing that mentality to affect your critique of said film. One "review" from ABC Entertainment, written by someone who claims to have been involved with the film's production (no actual name is attributed to the review's author), spends the first half of the article attempting to coddle the reader with kindergarten-level lectures on artistic integrity and how nothing is actually "bad" per se, just not on par with what you may prefer. The author goes on to argue about how art is subjective (which is true), how he/she had a wonderful experience working on set for The Serpent (which may be true), and then proceeds to sing the movie's praises, claiming that everything about it was excellent and flawless (which is, objectively, not true).
I should mention that this "critic" is most likely not from the actual ABC studio. The website is a WordPress page with tons of ads, and the style is attributed to one of the standard news templates found on afthemes.com. Meaning this is either an independent film critic or an underpaid intern hired by the film's producers to put out a puff piece in the hopes of increasing the movie's already low IMDb score (I'm inclined to suspect the latter).
While art is indeed subjective, competence is not! I do not intend to imply that fashion models cannot be artists. As was so eloquently illustrated in my favorite PIXAR film, Ratatouille, artists can come from anywhere. However, if you desire to become an artist, it is important to first gain a greater understanding of both the art form you wish to create and where your true strengths reside. Orson Welles was not a complete genius who spontaneously put out Citizen Kane; it resulted from Orson Welles surrounding himself with people far more talented than himself knowledgeable in the areas he himself was not while recognizing his own limits and understanding. Granted, Orson Welles' experiences were far more vast than others, but the point still stands.
The Serpent is nothing more than the unfortunate result of a likely wonderful person with too much hubris in all the wrong places. Being an artist requires significantly more than having a good idea; you must recognize your own abilities or lack thereof to bring it to life. Failing to do so only results in your own peril.
Do not bother with this unfortunate and poor excuse of a movie.
Ladies & gentlemen, I am TheNorm; thank you all for reading.
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