Movie Review - Crazy Rich Asians

MegaSoulhero They finally made a movie about London Tipton. Took them long enough. All joking aside, I didn’t watch any trailers for Crazy Rich Asians before seeing the movie. I didn’t even know what it was about. All I knew was that it had Asian girls in it and that was enough to get me to see it. I was worried about this film because it was directed by Jon Chu who has never made a good movie before. I mean, how can the guy who directed Jem and the Holograms still have a career after that train wreck? With this being the first Hollywood movie since the Joy Luck Club to have an all Asian cast, and there will be another one coming out in 2020, people were really anticipating it. So let’s see if it lived up to the hype.

It’s about a super hot Asian girl named Rachel Chu who goes with her boyfriend to his best friend’s wedding in Singapore and she later finds out that her boyfriend comes from a very rich family. This movie’s strongest point is easily the cinematography. From a visual standpoint, this movie is gorgeous. The editing is great, the scenery is great, and the set designs are great. Practically every scene in the movie looked very beautiful to look at. Very well detailed. The whole wedding scene looked very stunning. I haven’t seen a wedding like that portrayed in a movie. The amount of effort it took to put that together must’ve been well worth. I also really love the outfit designs. I hope it gets nominated for an Oscar in that category because the outfits just look very stunning.

However, despite how beautiful and well shot the movie is, I didn’t really like it all that much. I was hoping that it would try to be something fresh and try to be different from other romantic comedies, but this movie is completely full of the typical romantic comedy tropes. This makes the movie insanely predictable. As it kept going on, I was able to see where it was gonna go and I just wanted them to get on with it. This movie is two hours, but it feels longer than that. There’s a lot of dull moments. I’ll admit that the ending was nice, but I hated having to sit there for so long just to wait for it. Most of the movie is just characters being like, “Look at how rich we are!” It makes the characters hard to relate to considering that most of the people watching the film aren’t that rich. The characters I feel like are very shallow for the most part. I very much enjoyed Constance Wu. Her character was actually pretty likeable. As for Awkwafina’s character, a lot of people say they like her in this movie, I couldn’t stand her. She’s tries too hard to be funny and it comes off as annoying. In fact, I don’t think I laughed at any of the jokes at all. Two Girls, One Cup of Noodles? Not only was that not funny, but no one even really talks about that thing they were referencing anymore.

I just checked Rotten Tomatoes and this movie has a 93%. Critics and audiences are loving it, but I feel like this is fake praise. I can guarantee you that is this was the same story but didn’t have a cast of one specific race, people would be a lot harder on it. Given that movies like this one don’t come very often, I feel as though critics are afraid to give their actual thoughts. Now, I’m not saying this factually true, but it just seems like it. I mean, the movie has a weak script. We can’t deny that. It does a bunch of things that other rom coms have done, yet somehow people treat this one differently because of what it represents. We don’t get to know the characters very well. Plus, the overall story wouldn’t be different in any way if the characters weren’t Asian. Kind of like how Zendaya being cast as Ariel wouldn’t change the Little Mermaid. I’ll rant about that later. I’m not being racist or anything, I’m just saying this is a generic romantic comedy that isn’t anything special other than it having an all Asian cast. And yes, I know this is based on a book, but I didn’t say the book was good either. I felt no connection between the main couple. Besides, despite them breaking up later on in the film, we already know they’re gonna get back together. That’s not a spoiler, it’s painfully obvious. If the movie had just ended without them getting back together, that would’ve been a better twist. Like I said, it just follows the same formula that other rom coms follow.

Crazy Rich Asians is Jon Chu’s best movie, but it still isn’t good. It’s very formulaic, dull, generic, and unfunny. However, I still recommend going and supporting it for its significance. I just wish they had put more effort into the writing. Great visuals, great cinematography, but an overall disappointment.

Score: 5/10

Comments

Too be honest, it feels like a cheesy comedy movie from TFC (search it up) - TristGamer

I thought the movie sucked - iliekpiez

Agreed

this movie is bland, the characters don't even have much of a personality to me - AlphaQ